1. How old are you? I am 76, but I look 50 and think 30. Does that count?
2. What is your favorite color? Teal, or is that obvious?
3. How old were you when you got your first kiss? 13 or so at a party where we played “Spin the Bottle”. I was not one of the “Gee, I hope the bottle points to her” guests. It took me a while to look foxy. That night wasn’t it.
4. Did you ever do something illegal? Yes. Sorry, no details.
5. What was one of your most embarrassing moments in life? I was working at Harper & Row. I was going to ballet class almost every night. I was exhausted. Each day at noon I looked for a place to sack out. Aha, the College Department Conference Room on another floor – they rarely used it. Under the table, covered with my rabbit coat. Um, warm. Lunch time ended. A group came in for a meeting. I crawled out and said, “Thanks for the use of the space” and slunk out.
6. Did you ever win anything major? The only thing I can think of was a box of candy on a summer cruise at Navy Pier in Chicago. It was a boarding prize and my number, 11, was drawn. I was 6. My dad had taken me because it was my birthday. I think that’s the only time he ever took just me anywhere. I spent the rest of my childhood trying to recapture his attention, but I think he spent his nickel on that one day.
7. Who was your first love? He wasn’t “my” first love, but he was the first boy I had a terrific crush on. He was my best friend’s boyfriend. At 17, she was three years older. She had problems, I guess. Why be best buds with someone so much younger? She needed a groupie.

And here’s an X-rated reminiscense. I didn’t count this in my answer above, because he wasn’t a “boy”. When I was 12, I had an excruciating crush on our family doctor, another Greek who was from my parents’ village in Greece and had known my mom when they were children, he being somewhat younger. He was very sexy and incredibly handsome. Later, when I was 19, he seduced me. Much later, when I was in my 50s, I saw him on a trip to Greece where he had returned to live. I said, “Remember when you pierced my ears?” He murmured (in Greek), “Ah, the ears I don’t remember.” He was then about 90 (1986). I remember thinking, “The S.O.B.’s still got IT.”
8. What was your first car? The only car I ever had was an Austin (manual shift) given to me by a friend. It had been flooded during a major storm and even though it had been thoroughly worked on, the gas flow was never quite right. I finally gave up on it after running out of power in the middle of Third Avenue in NYC. I coasted to the curb and said a prayer of thanks that no one had crashed into me. If you have ever seen midtown traffic, you will understand.
9. What is your favorite dessert? -Oh, that’s a toughie. Cherry pie, Lemon Meringue Pie, Chocolate Ice Cream Cake, and lately, after dinner, one Lindt dark/medium chocolate ball. They are left over from a party. I am thinning the horde gradually. It melteth in one’s mouth.
10. Have you ever been skinny dipping? I have jumped into the water nekkid, but never with a group. A creepy client of a man I worked for tried to shame me into it at a retreat we were attending at my boss’ lake house in Maine. “You don’t mean, you (sophisticated, ‘with-it’ you) would be embarrassed?” he intoned. “Yes,” I smiled, “I am hopelessly repressed.” Letting this guy see me nude – oh, yuch.
11. Have you ever been out of the USA? Canada, Mexico, England, Germany, Greece, France … and the South Bronx. I actually just spent overnight in Frankfort because my plane connection to Greece was missed. Dinner at the Holiday Inn that night was mesmerizing. At a group table nearby, all the diners looked like Dr. Strangelove and they “smiled” with straight lips and held their ciggies upright by the bottom. I felt I was seeing something truly decadent. I went back to my room and sang “The Star Spangled Banner.”
12. What is your most "unfavorite" food? Anything breaded.
13. Do you have a hobby? I have avocations -- ballet and piano and one of these days I’ll get back to drawing (it says here). Or would you say blogging is a hobby?
14. Are you a jealous person? I think I was in my impassioned youth, when dumped for someone else (I know, hard to believe). It’s okay for others to have some things I’d like to have too. I don’t seem to get jealous anymore.
15. What is your greatest strength and greatest weakness? I can focus to an unbelievable degree when I am protecting someone I care about. And my focus can maintain for years as it did when my late husband was failing. My weakness is procrastinating with regard to my own ambitions. If I had applied that determination to my working life, I might have been a success in traditional terms.