
5 April 2020
Welcome to Sunday Stealing. This feature originated and published
on WTIT: The Blog. Here we will steal all types of questions from every corner
of the blogosphere. Our promise to you is that we will work hard to find the
most interesting and intelligent questions. (Past hosts include: Our first -
Judd Corizan, Mr. L, Kwizgiver and Bud) Cheers to all of us thieves!

Stolen from
Gratitude Journal on Pinterest
1. Name a highlight of your day.
These days the highlight is when Ned and I watch movies together. We have
seen several, while Marta is
working from home upstairs.
2. What made you smile today?
The squirrels in the back yard always make me smile. Now two of them come
and seem to play on the patio and only beg for food in the morning and at
dinnertime. We realized that the one we have been calling "Dexter" is
really a girl, but we are keeping the name and her partner is now "Deb" (the TV
character Dexter's sister was named Deborah).
3. What made you laugh today?
Same as what made me smile. Watching the two squirrels chasing each other
across the grass and up the trees is my entertainment in the afternoon.
4. Recall a time when you needed encouragement.
I think when I got the greatest encouragement is when I was making the
transition from "typist" to "medical transcriptionist." It took a couple
of years and endless time looking through medical dictionaries, but I did
eventually become pretty good at it. It was my boss, who tossed me a tape
and a dictionary and said "ask me if you have questions" who made me a
transcriptionist.
I am also grateful to my co-author
Alison Lewis, for her encouragement when we were writing Book 2 of the
Lamplighters history.
5. What is a luxury you are thankful for
These days of confinement, the internet and DISH net work with hundreds of
choices of things to watch on TV.
6. Favorite childhood memory
Actually, listening to my father play the piano. The only time he was
really happy, I think, was when he was at the piano.
7. Favorite song–and why?
"For Good" from Wicked.
There are a handful of people in my life for whom these lyrics are so spot on:
I've heard it said
That people come into our lives for a reason
Bringing something we must learn
And we are led
To those who help us most to grow
If we let them
And we help them in return
Well, I don't know if I believe that's true
But I know I'm who I am today
Because I knew you...
I have been changed for good.
8. Where is your favorite place?
Why?
San Francisco. Isn't it great that my favorite place is my home town?
I am a bigger tourist in SF than tourists I take to visit. Any spot that
has a great view of the Golden Gate Bridge is...well...golden.
9. What is your favorite scent
Freshly brewed coffee (how lucky I am that I wake up to it every day since
Ned moved in!). Puppy breath, the smell of the ocean, and freshly baked
bread are close seconds.
10. What is your favorite topic to talk about?
The topic I seem to talk about most these days is the president, though I don't
get much of a "conversation" about it since no one really wants to discuss it.
11. What do you like doing so much that you lose track of time?
I can sit down here at the computer to do just one little thing and be amazed
when I check the clock and realize I've been here two hours. Or more.
12. If you had 5 minutes and the whole world was forced to listen, what would
you say?
There is no point in wasting 5 minutes trying to convince Trump fans about what
a terrible president he is because nobody listens, so I'd have to use my five
minutes talking about how if everyone did one little thing, how
much better we could make life for all of the children in the world.
13. Whose life do you envy the most, and why?
It sounds gruesome, but right now I am glad that our friends Nancianne and Ellen
died before they had to deal with all this Coronavirus deal and the mishandling
of everything by the president. (Of course since they are both
dead I guess I can't actually envy their LIVES, can I?)
14. What would you different with your education if you got a chance to start
over?
Finish college. Though, when I look at my life and what has happened because
I didn't finish, I'm not sure finishing was something I would choose to do.
15. What would you do with your life if you had no fear?
I think I'm too old for a question like this. When I was younger there
were a lot of things I would have done but didn't because of fear (moving to
France and working as an au pair in college, for example). But these days,
I'm satisfied where I am and doing what I'm doing. And I don't even mind
being quarantined.