Veronica Does Word Association!

Not exactly a magazine quiz, but close. I found this in the November 23rd issue of People magazine and immediately thought: I can do that!

Family: the most important people in the world to me! I’d do anything for them.

Music: It depends what mood I’m in. I just wrestled with a new iPod this week, in fact, which would play music when hooked up to my laptop, but not with the earbuds plugged in. Bummer. Returnin the defective one, getting a new one. I have 671 songs that shuffle, when I go for my daily walk, or sometimes in the evening if I’m not quite ready to sleep but there’s no good TV, I’ll just sit and listen to music and ponder. The first song I ever remember hearing as a child was “The Riff Song” from Romberg’s operetta Desert Song. My Dad played one of the key supporting characters in a high school production and he’d sing the rousing Riff song whenever I asked. In fact that’s also the first song I ever memorized. The second I memorized was the theme for “The Swamp Fox.” (two verses only, the song is interminably long). I can still sing both of them – would you like me to…..no, never mind. But I love all kinds of music from Beach Boys to bagpipes to show tunes to Beyonce, especially tunes with drums and a heavy bass.

Vacation: I’m not big on vacations – huge homebody here! I used to love taking my daughters down to San Diego for a week every August. We’d stay at the Hilton in a big splurge, and enjoy the room service and the pool, hit the wonderful Zoo…When I was a kid in Upstate NY, we went up to Maine every summer, to visit relatives on Vinalhaven Island, and that was cool too. Most years at the day job, I’d take two weeks off at Christmas (or as many vacation days and JPL days off as I could string together) and unwind at home, and really enjoy the holidays. Being a fulltime author now, I still tend to think of the “two weeks at Christmas” as my special time.

Traffic: Hello, I live in Los Angeles, so enough said, right? The thing I hate most about traffic is when you’re bumper to bumper on the freeway, you don’t know why, it’s not rush hour, and no one is moving an inch. Nightmare! Oh, and the worst example of this EVER was on a boiling hot summer day and I was stuck next to a truck full of cows. Poor them too, of course. Maybe the scariest time was when I was stuck on a freeway years ago, in the middle of a brush fire that had unexpectedly jumped the road, cutting us all off, and there was a gasoline tanker in the next lane. Luckily a Highway Patrol officer was in our little group of cars and he managed to get us all backed up and diverted to an offramp and safely away. The saddest was one morning when I was driving into work a woman decided to commit suicide-by-freeway, deliberately running into traffic. I was about three cars back from the people that hit her, being unable to avoid her. So sad for everyone, including the woman and her family. (She left a suicide note.) If you drive the LA freeways long enough, you see everything. A million stories in LA, even if a lot of them are noir. I don’t miss the commute.

London: Umm, never been there. The first thing that comes to mind is royal weddings, as in Charles and Di, William and Kate, and the novel The Royal We by Jessica Cocks and Heather Morgan, which was terrific. Being a huge reader of Regency romance, the next thing that comes to mind is The Season, waltzing Dukes and Almack’s. But I’m a few hundred years too late for the party.

Potatoes: Wait, what??? Oh, I see, in the magazine that was the celebrity’s answer to the word London. Well, as long as I’m on this tangent, sweet potato fries, thank you very much. Or else hash browns!

Television: I love “Killjoys,” the excellent SyFy series, which is due back for Season 2 sometime in 2016. Can’t wait for Season 2 of “Dark Matter” and “Twelve Monkeys,” both from SyFy. I’m also enjoying “Scorpion,” “Quantico” (so many plot twists) and “Dancing With The Stars.” I’m devoted to “The Big Bang Theory” but I do think they’ve gotten a bit mean-spirited and way too serious. I’m a huge “Walking Dead” fan…I watch “Amazing Race” and think how badly I’d do at most of their challenges…”Project Runway” (this wasn’t my favorite season though)….

Shopping: I think it’s funny how over time I’ve shopped for different things. (At one point when my kids were young, someone told me my house looked like it was furnished by Fisher Price. Later it was Star Wars/Jurassic Park.) I think books are the eternal item I’ll always shop for, although now it’s ebooks rather than paper. I’m currently shopping for good swag items to take to two conferences next year as giveaways. I still buy the occasional pair of blingy earrings, although they have to be something super special nowadays, as I kinda have drawers full of fashion jewelry. I cruise eBay once in awhile for Victorian trade (advertising) cards for my Wednesday Whimsy posts.