Janet from Fond of Snape was kind enough to interview me with the meme that seems to be everywhere.

1. What do you miss most about where you were born?

I miss my family of course, I miss the ocean being a 20 minute drive away from me (or closer still when I lived in Hull a block or 2 from the beach) & I miss all the good food & exciting things to do in Massachusetts, Submarine sandwiches just aren’t the same here in VA as they are there.

2. When did you really feel you’d grown up?

Never! I don’t feel like I’m more than 18 or so still- in my head, sad to say! Sometimes I look around at my kids & wonder how I managed to get here! My 17 year old likes to think she’s more mature than I am but we all know thats not true! She’s just grouchier than I am! Seriously though, buying the house in May 2005 was the first time I felt like I was more than just a teenager playing at being an adult.

3. Tell us one of your best memories!

I always like to remember a day when I was maybe 8 or 9, my grandmother took me to Plymouth, she didn’t drive so this was an event, we rode a bus (P&B Buslines) there & walked around to a bunch of historic houses & took tours of them. They gave us these long cards with each house listed on them & a brief description of who built the house & when. Each house we’d go to would punch a hole in the card at the house’s name. This whole idyllic scenario was not as lovely as you might believe. It was fall & it was pouring rain the whole time! We had umbrellas but still, being my grandmother she had insisted I wear a dress or a skirt & I had dressy shoes on & at one house they let me sit by the fire & take my shoes & socks off to dry a little, they were so wet I could wring them out! We did it though, I believe we had lunch at the Govenor Carver Inn & I know we finished up with a tour of the Plymouth Wax Museum, still one of my favorite things to tour- it’s sort of adorably tacky. It was always fun doing things with my Grandmother, she had such a glass is always half full attitude about life.

4. What scent or smell do you like best?

My signature perfume, Lutece, Mandarin, Peony & Rose, it seems to be only available online now but I am happy to be able to have it again. In the last 2 years of my marriage & the next 2 years after it, we were entirely too broke for me to have any perfume & since it wasn’t available over the counter my mother & grandmother weren’t able to get it for me for birthdays. I decided at 16 to pick a ‘Signature scent’ because a friend of mine wore Lauren by Ralph Lauren, she lived in Haverhill where I met her but when I stopped living with my Uncle & Aunt I didn’t get to see her so often & one day I was shopping & someone walked by me wearing Lauren & I turned around looking for J. I had never realized how strongly a scent can transport you or remind you & I started looking, that day, for a scent for myself.

5. When I say music, what pops to mind

Rock and Roll! I’m a huge music fan, I love most all rock music from the 50’s to today, though I listen more to the stuff from today & the early 90’s than other forms. I tell people this is a by-product of my being homeschooled, I spent all my years, from 11 or so when I started listening to rock music (First rock album I ever bought – excluding Beatles Albums- Reo Speedwagon’s Hi Infidelity) pretty much glued to the radio, being homeschooled in the 80’s it was a rare occourence & it wasn’t all that comfortable when I was 11, 12, 13 to go out & walk somewhere during school hours, people in cars would slow down & stare at me. So if we weren’t doing school work, or I was sent to study, I was in my room, reading, studying & listening to the radio so a lot of the music that was popular then (& alot of what was being played on the radio in the early 80’s was music from the previous decade more so than new music- we’re talking WCOZ, WBCN & WAAF back in the 80’s) So I got burnt out on a lot of songs which many people consider ‘classics’ I consider boring to some extent.

Thank you Janet, for the great questions, I really enjoyed answering them & I was really excited to find thru linking the things I mentioned that the historic plymouth houses tour is still in exsistence- something new to torture my kids with on our visit to Mass this June!

DIRECTIONS FOR THE INTERVIEW MEME

1. Leave me a comment saying, “Interview me.”

2. I will respond by emailing you five questions. I get to pick the questions.

3. You will update your blog with the answers to the questions.

4. You will include this explanation and an offer to interview someone else in the same post.

5. When others comment asking to be interviewed, you will ask them five questions.