From Carrie:
1. Assume that you have been assigned complete control over the Spud’s future. What will she become? Will she go to college? Will she live close to home or far away in some exotic location? Will she marry? How many grandchildren will she have? This is actually a hard one, because I don’t have any specific dreams for the spud, aside the most important – that she be happy. However, I’ll give it a try.
After discovering an aptitude for math and the sciences in her Sophomore year of high school, the spud will ace every course the school offers, and be accepted at the University of Alabama (Huntsville) and major in pre-med. She transfers to the University of Maine for her Junior year, and finishes her college education back in Alabama. Representatives from Harvard and Yale get into a slapfight trying to convince her to attend their medical schools, and she decides instead on Cornell. After finishing medical school, she becomes a surgical intern in Honolulu (assuming there’s a teaching hospital there) and then does her residency in Colorado.
By the time she’s finished with school and her training, she has become well-known in her field and after much thought decides to join a practice in Portland.
Like her mother, she’s never gotten over her love for the ocean and the state of Maine.
At the age of 32, successful in her field, she meets the man of her dreams. She’s, of course, dated before now and even had a couple of serious relationships, but they didn’t work out due to various factors. The man she meets is also a surgeon, and they become friends, and are friends for months before he tentatively suggests that there could be more.
And there is. A year later, they marry in a simple ceremony on the beach, and she’s never looked so happy.
Of course, the mother of the bride is a total sobbing mess.
Two years later, the spud gives birth to twins, two girls who are as good-natured and sweet-tempered as she was when she was a baby. She stops working until they’ve begun school, at which point she begins working part-time again, and soon after she and her husband open their own practice. They are blissfully happy, forever and ever.
And by the time she has turned 60, the spud is a grandmother 4 times over.
2. If you were to build an extra room onto your house, just for yourself, what would you do with it? First of all, it would be a sunroom on the back of the house. I’d paint the wall the palest possible yellow, and the room would be filled with all kinds of plants. There would be pillows for the cats to lounge upon all over the place. There would be a stereo in one corner of the room, the radio station set to WZYP, and always set at a low volume, just so I could hear whatever was playing, but not loud enough to distract me. In another corner of the room – very important, this – would be an oversized recliner, where I could sit and listen to the radio while I read or cross-stitch, or just stare off into space and think deep thoughts. And a heavy quilt to lay over my lap when I get cold.
And I’m sure there’d be a smiley-face somewhere in the room.
3. Have you ever tried any odd diets? How about not so odd ones, like vegetarianism or low carb? Oh, I did the Atkins diet for all of half a day before I got so sick at the very idea of any kind of protein that I gave it up. When I was a kid I went to Nutri-System for several months (the food sucked so incredibly bad that I can’t believe I continued to eat it for as long as I did), which I consider not only an odd diet, but a crappy and stupid one. Can you tell I’m no fan of Nutri-System? I’ve never even considered going vegetarian, though – that’s not going to happen, ’cause I just like my meat too much.
4. Have you ever had any recurring nightmares? I’ll occasionally dream that Fred has died, and I always wake up slightly freaked out. I hate those dreams!
I once dreamed that I could fly. To date, that’s the coolest dream I’ve ever had, and I wish it was a recurring dream.
5. What’s the worst thing you’ve ever done – and gotten away with? I shot a man in Reno, just to watch him die.
6. What’s your first childhood memory? When I was three years old, standing in the driveway in front of our house in base housing (I’m not sure where we were – possibly Indiana) with my father, who convinced me to ask god for marshmallows. Every time I did, one would come falling from the sky. My dad did NOT have marshmallows in his hands or anywhere on his body, and I couldn’t see anyone on the roof of the house. To this day, I have NO idea how he did it, and honestly? I don’t want to know.
7. If you had to estimate how many smiley faces are currently in your house, beaming down at you, what would you say? (Or do you know the exact number?) If I include the smiley-face pens (5 of them) and the smiley-face pencils (a dozen or so of them), I would guess that I have maybe 100 smiley faces in various places around the house (though perhaps not surprisingly the majority of them are clustered in the computer room).
8. Other than your c-section, how many other times have you been in the hospital? Once to have a non-cancerous tumor removed from my right knee, once for a cold-cone biopsy, once to have endometriosis removed, and once to have tubes put in my ears. So, three. Unless I’m forgetting something… Oh, wait! I had my tonsils out when I was five or so. That makes four.
9. If you were going on Star Search, what would you do for the audience? Since I’m amazingly untalented, I would probably stand in one spot, blush, and giggle like a madwoman before trying a half-hearted dance combo across the stage, falling off the edge and breaking my leg.
10. What’s the best Mother’s Day gift you’ve ever gotten? We don’t really go all-out on Mother’s Day, so I’d say the flowers I got for Mother’s Day last year from Fred and the spud were pretty damn nice. They certainly beat the many years I was with the ex (father of the spud, you know) and received nothing, nada, zilch every year.
11. My son is sitting behind me on the floor right now, staring off into the distance and not making a sound or moving a muscle. He’s been doing this for about two minutes. What on earth is he thinking? He’s thinking "e=mc²? That just doesn’t sound right…"
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