Tag, I'm it. Crap.

Well, Mike over at the file cabinet tagged me for one of these silly answer-a-bunch-of-oddball-questions kind of things, so what the hell. I skipped the last one like this he did - I was having some kind of bad week or something, I think.

Problem is, I don't know that I know enough other bloggers out there to name at the end. I'm still kinda new at this. Oh well. I'll do what I can do.

1) What is your favorite quotable line from a Movie.
"We're gonna need a bigger boat" Roy Sheider in JAWS. Sums up how I go through life.

2) Who is the most famous person you have spoken to?
Jeez. I don't know. I think I'm probably on some kind of list that prevents me from getting close to the really big shots (W, etc.) My list of big names is decidedly Maine-centric. I've met Susan Collins and didn't think much of her especially. I met Olympia! and was impressed. I met then United States Senate Majority Leader George Mitchell and found him nice enough, but shorter than I expected. I met John McKernan and went away feeling like I wanted a shower. I was a reporter at a literacy event once where Barbara Bush took press questions, and I was thinking of lots of things to ask before she verbally disemboweled the reporter who had indelicately asked about the latest hi-jinks of her granddaughters (they kept getting drunk and not-quite-arrested at about that time). After that, I was too terrified to do more than take notes.

I knew to talk to lots and lots of state-level politicians and have conversed with both Tom Allen and Mike Michaud. I have been mere feet from Ann Richards and Maxine Waters but never got to speak to either.

I said hello to Willie Nelson (tiny little guy!) chatted with Dar Williams (very cool), said hello to B.B. King and met and got the autographs of all of the members of Solas when they toured with Mary Chapin Carpenter many years ago. I got her autograph, too, but did not get to meet her.

This next bit hardly counts as involving a famous person, but it is fun to tell, and this is my blog, so deal.

In a particularly funny episode, I met Mike Heath once. He was knocking on doors in advance of elections in a house race back before he staged a coup at the Un-Christian Un-Civic League of Maine and sleazed his way into Jack Wyman's old job. I was pulling up tomatoes in my garden as he approached, warily eyeing the stickers on the back of my car. "Can I help you?" I asked. "Well," he said, "I was just wondering what I could say to you that would get you to vote for me in November."

I asked him my two trigger questions: How does he stand on a woman's right to choose abortion if she needs or wants one? Wrong answer. How does he feel about discrimination protection for gay men and lesbians? Wrong answer again.

"Come in the house," I said to him. "I want you to meet someone."

We went inside and I introduced him to my partner. I explained that she had been fired just a few weeks earlier, solely because she was gay.

"Are you sure that's why?" Heath stammered.

They were very specific, he was told. In fact, that was the only reason for her dismissal. We were facing a cold winter ahead with only one of us employed because of bigotry.

He stammered and fussed and blushed red and finally made his escape. I have no idea if he ever thought twice about that day, but I have remembered it fondly for years.

3) How many bags/boxes of Potato Chips are consumed at your place in a month?
It goes in fits and starts. Sometimes one or two bags a month, sometimes as many as six.

4) Who is your all time favorite Cartoon Character?
Opus. And Bill the Cat. God I miss that strip.

5) What foreign food Dish do you prepare from scratch and Serve?
Any one I feel like, mostly. Egg rolls, fried dumplings, fried tofu, stir-fried almost everything, lo mein, stuffed grape leaves (with lamb, rice and mint), lasagna, stuffed shells, corned beef and cabbage, kabobs, baklava, you get the idea. Mostly Asian, Italian and Greek influences.

6) What is your favorite section of the Supermarket?
Everything but the cleaning stuff, cat foot and paper products aisles.

7) What was your high school teams mascot and what were the school's colors?
Eagles, colors were blue and white. Trimmed with gold, I think. The cheerleaders used to take turns in "the chicken suit" for basketball games. Only one that I know of actually liked it. Weird.

Ok, so those are my responses. Who do I tag for this? Hard telling. I'd love to hear what Rusty says, and J, perhaps, and of course Jen, but her internet connection is iffy, so we'll see what happens. Queah would be cool, too, but this is a little out of form for what she usually does. If this had come from somewhere else, I'd have tagged Darlene and Mike and rounded out my five, but like I said before, I am a newbie lacking in blog-world friends.