The Saturday Six

Thank you Patrick for another good batch of questions. [Click on Patrick's Place over in Other Journals if you want to play, too.]

1. Last week's first question was about the "Favorite Gadgets" item in the member profile.  While we're on the subject of gadgets, which gadget are you next most likely to buy?

I've been trying to find two things. A good portable convection oven that doesn't cost $1000. And a portable dishwasher for the counter.   My kitchen is very small and the last portable dishwasher I had came from my bigger house.  So it sat in the living room until I sold it.  Why the living room? Well, it had a nice butcher block top so I pretended it was a very tall coffee table.

2. The late Julia Child once said her "ideal meal" would be red meat and a bottle of gin.  What's yours?

When I was young I loved steak steak steak. Grilled marinated and tenderized chuck was a college fave. As I grew older the steak quality improved. But always with a baked potato, BUTTER, sour cream. Also a tomato, cucumber and lettuce salad with creamy dressing.  With a peanut butter and orange marmalade sandwich and chocolate milk chaser before bed.

Then I switched to salmon salmon salmon.  Grilled, poached, out of the can. Okay, not out of the can. Boiled red potatoes. [Wait a minute Dan Quayle -- POTATOS]. Grilled veggies Caesar salad.

No booze, never liked liquor. [Okay, once in a very blue moon, maybe a Bailey's or Kahlua and cream for dessert. On the rocks.  In a small glass. And I wouldn't finish it.]

Now my favorite meal is sushi sushi sushi. Yellow tail, eel, California rolls, any and all of it. [Thank goodness most menus have PICTURES, because I can't tell Tekki Maki from  Kawasaki.]  Washed down with a bottle of San Pelligrino.

3. How many hours of sleep do you regularly get each night?  Where do you sleep most of the time:  regular bed, water bed, air mattress, army cot, couch or dog house?

If I sleep uninterrupted [rarely] I wake up after six hours exactly.  On my Stearns and Foster nine-inch-hard-as-nails mattress. I also sleep with six extra pillows.

4. You go to a coffee shop and order a cup of java...they tell you they're out of the regular house blend:  all they have left is various flavored coffees, but you have an unlimited selection there.  What's your favorite flavored orspecialty coffee?

I never drink regular coffee.  Sometimes de-caf, but only after dinner.  However, I will order a tall, de-caf, mocha Frappachino with a shot of almond at Starbuck's.  Ask me how many times that order gets screwed up.

5. READER'S CHOICE QUESTION #18 from Kasey:  You have the chance to be reincarnated as something other than a human being:  What would you come back as and why?

A polar bear.  I like colder weather and I look really good in long white fur, which I consider very flattering.

6. READER'S CHOICE QUESTION #19 from looney4toonees:  Regarding those true loves from last week's edition, has anyone ever tried to find their lost love?  (How did it go?)

Usually, they're tracking me down.  Five years pass and I get a call.  Ten years have passed and I've received a call.  You know why? Dumb reason. Because they were all younger than I am, and I swear, they want to see if I'm still alive.  Or sound like an old person on the phone.  You think I'm kidding don't you.  Well, ask the one that showed up at my house unannounced a few years ago.  "Wow, you look better than I thought." He was napalmed soon after.

I did track down two guys I wondered about.  Turns out both never married. Oh, good, Mrs. Linklater ruined them.  One is dead -- don't know why, but I'm on the case. The other talked to me for an hour on the phone.  I asked if I could call him back and he said, okay.  But he didn't want me to do it right away.  He said he wanted to have stuff to talk about.  [Huh? -- The guy writes for a famous show in Hollywood].  So I decided to wait six months.  That was three years ago.