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Post by queenzod on Oct 4, 2021 5:16:22 GMT
Ooo lah! What fun! I’m putting my placeholder in now because I’m going to answer alll of these. As soon as someone else does, haha!
Okay, here goes:
* What are your hobbies? I love threadwork. My grandma taught me how to tat when I was 10, and I’ve enjoyed doing it ever since. I’ve done cross stitch, sewing, embroidery, quilting, and about 30 years ago I picked up lacemaking. In addition to tatting I do needlelace and a very little bobbin lace. I also weave. I like to write, churning out a bit of fanfiction. I can’t seem to get enough of Sherlolly. 😍
* What’s the most adventurous thing you’ve ever done? Probably living life sober. Scary, lol! Seriously, though, I’m an alcoholic. I had 20 years of sobriety and then suffered a long relapse before sobering up again. Next May will be my 10th anniversary. Looking forward to that!
* What's your dream job and are you doing it today? Never had one. I was an office manager in the School of Education at the university here for 20 years and I enjoyed it very much but I’m retired now. When I was young I wanted to be an archeologist. Or a princess. Still would like to be a princess but I don’t think that’s going to spontaneously happen.
* What’s your favourite movie/book/play? (pick one or answer all 3 options) Impossible! I have great fondness for children’s literature, and To Kill A Mockingbird, Pride & Prejudice, and anything by Edith Wharton. I love silent movies (especially Buster Keaton), MGM musicals of the 40s and 50s, Bette Davis, and a good, thoughtful drama like Howard’s End. I like strong period movies about cruelty. Sick, I know but they stir me.
* Who is your favourite author/ director/ actor? (pick one or answer all 3 options) Ben, of course, as actor. I don’t really have favorites in the other two categories.
* How would you describe yourself? Fat, introverted, cynical, smart, playful, cat lover, lazy, irresponsible, kind, empathetic, and sometimes wise. I tend towards Buddhist philosophy and I’m very interested in psychology (mostly because I myself am pretty crazy, lol).
* What would you like more/less of in your life? (pick one or answer both) More money, less aches & pains.
* What is guaranteed to put a smile on your face? I get a great deal of pleasure (aside from BC), from watching cat and dog videos on Twitter and playing with my own cat, Binky. The videos are mindless but they’re so cute and adorable and they warm my tired old heart. Silly and/or obtuse things make me laugh, too. Irony will do it, too.
* Which countries would you like to travel to? Alternatively, do you dislike travel and try to avoid it? I love England and Ireland and have been a number of times, but travel is too difficult for me now. I’d like to go back to Ireland and I’d love to live in England to be closer to my 2 brothers who live there, but perhaps not now with all the BS they’re experiencing at the hands of that buffoon. Ireland is a beautiful country with the grandest people! Italy would be amazing, too, if just for the food. Yum!
* What is one quality that you admire most in yourself and/or in others? Kindness! I appreciate a smart, curious mind, but what really melts my heart is generosity, goodness, and empathy. I admire Ben for his openness, his gregariousness and his courage. I wish I had a teensy bit more of those things.
* What would like to see more of in society generally? Intelligence, lol.
*most famous person I’ve met? I met Carol Channing and I asked her “would you like a canapé?” She was visiting my university where I got my degree in Arts Management and we were hosting a party, I was circulating with hors d’veours (sp?). She turned me down. She was so tiny and wore white gloves. I thought maybe she had a germ phobia. I also met and worked with the great Gregory Hines for one precious week. He was a complete sweetie!
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Post by roverpup on Oct 4, 2021 13:33:21 GMT
• What are your hobbies? A: Gardening, cooking, bird watching, reading and travelling (pre-covid). Those are the things that have "stuck" for most of my life. As a youth I also collected rocks and loved riding horses, but I don't have my rock collection any more and only occasionally ride. I also love collecting information - I'm REALLY good at the game "Trivial Pursuit"! I know more nonsense about random topics than you can imagine! LOL! As a kid I read almost the entire Encyclopedia Encyclopedia Britannica and even now I'm insatiably curious about just about everything.
• What’s the most adventurous thing you’ve ever done? A: Gosh! I guess the MOST adventurous thing I ever did was marrying Dano when I was just past 20 years old! Two weeks later I lost my job, shortly after I became deathly ill and almost lost a kidney and Dan was working for minimum wage and looooong hours at a weekly newspaper. We lived in a small cramped apartment and didn't even have money to buy window curtains! But everything worked out! Now we are both retired, living on a great pension and investments, live in a beach side cottage, love each other dearly (for 47 years and counting) and have a wonderful life together. But other than that - I guess going caving and walking on a glacier in Iceland, riding a donkey up the side of a mountain in Greece on switchback roads or going to a street party with strangers we just met in Mykonos might qualify as adventurous! Staying overnight in a Buddhist monastery in Nepal was pretty cool too!
• What's your dream job and are you doing it today? A: Being a teacher and yes I did become one, taught for 20 years and am now retired.
• What’s your favourite movie/book/play? (pick one or answer all 3 options) A: Movie - Lawrence of Arabia. Book: any of my husband's books (he's an author) but especially the one he wrote about his father being a tail-gunner in a Lancaster Bomber during WWII called "Dad's War". Plays: (that I've seen in person) that's REALLY tough! It's a tie I think between "The Tempest" starring Christopher Plummer in Stratford and "Six Dance Lessons in Six Weeks" starring David Hyde Pierce and Utta Hagen in LA. If it also includes plays that I've seen via NTLIVE then I have to include Frankenstein AND Hamlet done by BC.
• Who is your favourite author/ director/ actor? (pick one or answer all 3 options) A: Author - My hubby of course! He's a published author of nine books (and he and one of our best friends have co-authored a manuscript that they are now trying to get published). Other authors I really admire... Arthur Conan Doyle (I have read all of the Sherlock tales and a lot of his other works), John Irving, Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley, George Plimpton and David McCullough. Director - Stephen Soderbergh, David Lean, Akira Kurosawa. Actor - Cumberbatch (of course!) but also Peter O'Toole and Meryl Streep.
• How would you describe yourself? A: Eclectic. I'm interested in almost everything. I'm good at writing, especially essays. I love researching. I worked in various libraries at one stage in my life and loved helping students find information.
• What would you like more/less of in your life? (pick one or answer both) A: More of... TIME! I'm getting old and I don't believe in an afterlife, so I want more time to spend with my husband! Less of... my aging body betraying me. It takes soooo long to heal if anything goes awry!
• Is there someone in your life who inspires you or brings out the best in you? A: Personally in my life - my husband. He brings out the very best in me ALWAYS ! He calms me down when I panic about small insignificant stuff, respects my intelligence, listens to my ramblings, and is actually still surprising even after almost 50 years of marriage! Outside of him and as a inspiration, I think Terry Fox can be an inspiration to almost anyone!
• What is guaranteed to put a smile on your face? A: Watching our chipmunks frolicking in the backyard.
• Which countries would you like to travel to? Alternatively, do you dislike travel and try to avoid it? A: Travelling is a passion for me! My father loved to go places, even though we could only afford to drive - we went "somewhere" almost every weekend. As an adult, Dan and I share an absolute LOVE of travelling together! We've been all over Canada of course but also to many cities in the USA (lots of places in Michigan, NYC *twice*, Boston, Washington DC, Charleston, Florida, New Orleans, LA, San Francisco, Chicago and I went with my parents to North and South Dakota as well as Minnesota and Wisconsin). Dan and I have also travelled to the UK (twice - the last time we stayed almost a month living in an apartment in London and rented a cottage on the IOW), Greece, Italy, Germany (twice), Belgium, the Netherlands, Austria, the Czech Republic, many, many trips to France (I once tallied up the number of days I've spent in Paris and I've actually spent more time there than I have in Toronto!). As well we've travelled to Japan, India, Nepal, Iceland, Ireland and Australia. We were all ready (bought and paid for) to go to New Zealand and Tahiti when COVID19 struck and it broke my heart when we had to cancel! I still want to pick that up again if possible.
• Which country have you visited that blew you away? A: Most of them in various ways. Maybe the one country that unexpectedly blew me away was Iceland. In almost ever way it delivered on being surprising!
• What is one quality that you admire most in yourself and/or in others? A: For myself - politeness a willingness to apologise and honesty. For others - honesty tempered with empathy. And generosity.
• What is one quality that you dislike most in yourself and/or in others? A: In myself - laziness and being overly emotional. In others - blaming others/external factors, instead of looking at yourself for improvement. And rude, selfish behaviour.
• What would like to see more of in society generally? A: Intelligence. I wish people would use their brains more, not listen to stupid conspiracy theories, get educated with FACTS, and be more willing to learn and listen to common sense.
PS: Great idea for a thread! 😊❤
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Post by roverpup on Oct 5, 2021 12:52:24 GMT
Thanks for all the kind comments about my answers.❤
About my travels... yes there is a thread on this forum in which I have chronicled some of my latest travels (I think I have done ones on going to the UK, Iceland and India and Nepal).
I have kept detailed journals on all of my trips (except for a one week trip to Cuba way back in 1979, which I always regret! - I regret forgetting to keep a journal, that is, NOT regret taking the trip!). Some have been lost (put on computers that have "died"). But I have all of my older original ones that I used to do out by hand in small booklets and diaries.
Dan and I play a little game from time to time, reviewing and "ranking" our trips and boy oh boy, is it difficult! Even our lowest ranking trips were really quite good and I have very fond memories of our time on them.
The amazing thing is, in all our decades of travelling, we have rarely met unpleasant people. Mainly we have experienced absolutely fabulous people from all countries and walks of life. We have some amazing times and witnessed incredible acts of selflessness and generosity!
Things like the janitor in LAX airport giving us the exact change out of his own pocket so we could board the public transportation!
Or the time in Italy when we were waiting to get into a Vivaldi concert in a small church in the hills above Florence and it looked like we weren't going to make the "cut" (because of it being too crowded) but one of the concert organizers overheard our Canadian accents and GAVE us her reserved seat right up front!
Or the time in LA I opened a locked door to a theatre courtyard and let this older woman out and she rewarded for this very small act of "kindness" on my part, by offering to drive us around LA, for a "tour" of the "old landmarks" and we ended up having a midnight meal with her in a chicken joint and then she drove us to our B&B all the way in a distant part of the city! She was an absolute hoot to talk to!
There are soooo many stories! Lol!
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Post by roverpup on Oct 5, 2021 13:55:39 GMT
Forgot to mention that my travel journals to Iceland, second trip to the UK, and India and Nepal, here on the forum are listed under the General: Travel thread.
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Post by mllemass on Oct 7, 2021 18:14:55 GMT
I wish I had fascinating answers to your list of questions - or even boring answers - but I haven’t led as adventurous a life as the rest of you!
Before my Benedict story, I had another celebrity story I would share with people now and then:
I had a friend that I met at my first job many years ago. She had a fiancé, David, who was still in university in Fredericton, NB. During a long weekend off work, she convinced me to go with her to visit him. So we flew to Fredericton, and as soon as we got to David’s house, she told him to get back in his car and drive us three hours away, to Bangor, Maine. She said there was a great mall in Bangor and whenever she visited him, she always had him drive her there to go shopping. Bangor, Maine!! That’s where Stephen King lived!! I loved SK, and when would I ever be in Bangor, Maine again?? My friend had no idea who he was, but she got David to ask a sales lady in a store if she knew where he lived. She gave us his address and directions to his house!
I recognized the massive house right away from the pictures I had seen of it. As I started to thank my friend for this incredible experience, she got out of the car and told me “Come on!”, and she walked up the driveway towards the house. I saw that there was a gate there to keep nuts like us out, but the gate was open. I kept pleading with my friend to stop before we got arrested, but she kept going. It was around 10 pm. at that point.
To summarize, the housekeeper who answered the door, along with the sign posted on the door, let us know that SK did not give autographs and did not see anyone without an appointment. So I apologized and hurried back to the car - but my friend stayed there and called me back to peek inside the window. Suddenly, the door opened and 4 people walked out. My friend told them that we had come all the way from Toronto to see SK, and she asked if they knew him. One of them was the spitting image of SK, and obviously his son. He calmly thanked us and said that they were on their way out, and to drive safely. But my friend asked if we could get a picture, and he said ok, so my friend handed him my camera and he took a picture of me and my friend! That made no sense at all, but the whole thing was crazy.
I now have a picture of me and my friend standing on SK’s side porch, taken by Joe Hill, SK’s son. Joe, in case you don’t know, ended up becoming a writer, too. Most recently, he wrote the Netflix series Locke & Key.
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Post by roverpup on Oct 7, 2021 19:18:16 GMT
Well, I've met a number of hockey players who were very famous in the 60s - Rocket Richard, Gordie Howe, Jean Béliveau (my husband used to be a sports writer for the weekly newspaper in our city and he always took me along with him, as his "photographer" to the Sportsman Celebrity Charity dinner).
As far as non-sports celebrities...
David Hyde Pierce is probably the most famous actor I met. I absolutely adored Fraiser and his character Niles (still love the show!) and the show was on summer hiatus, so DHP was doing a play in LA with Utta Hagen. I asked if we could fly to LA to see it and Dan said yes, but we'd have to stay a week and see other things as well.
Well, I bought the tickets over the phone (this was in the early days of the internet so there were no ticket sales online). And we flew to LA to see the play! I got advice from a fellow Niles fan who had already gone to see him in it, on how to go about getting his autograph after the play was over. I was sooooo excited!
The play was fabulous! And after it ended Dan and I hung around in the right spot and sure enough out came the two stars of the production! Dan and I plus a young teenage girl and her mother were the only ones that were waiting for the actors. The young girl wasn't interested in DHP - she was strictly there for UH. So I had DHP all to myself! I was so nervous I was trembling when I talked to him! He was soooo nice and asked where Dan and I were from as he signed our program. We told him Canada and he smiled and laughed and said "Oh, Happy Canada Day!" because that day happened to be our national holiday and he knew this! He asked if we wanted a picture and Dan said he would snap a pic of DHP and me. He put his arm around me and noticed I was shaking and said "Don't be scared, Val, it's only me!". The rest is just a blur - I probably blurted out something about loving Fraiser and how much I loved his acting. But it was a magical night and he couldn't have been nicer! After that Dzn and I went to a late night patio bar and had some wine and talked about how great of a night it had been and how good the play was!
Just as an aside - Dan my husband actually met and interviewed Muhammad Ali one-on-one for over a half hour one time! That meeting influenced him so much, that it inspired him later in life to write a book about the boxer who was Canada's only world heavyweight champion and that book is now under consideration to be made into a movie. So I sleep with a person who met one of the most famous people in the world! Lol!
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Post by mllemass on Oct 7, 2021 21:10:00 GMT
That’s amazing - flying to LA to see a play! I thought the 40 minute drive to Toronto was a big deal (which it was, after 18 months at home!).
Some other celebrity encounters: I’m a massive fan of actor/comedian Martin Mull. He’s a bit obscure and most people have never heard of him, but I’ve always loved him. He came to our city twice to do his comedy act when I was in university, and I went to see him both times. The second time, I was with my friend Tina, and we waited by the stage door after the show. There was nobody else there. I was freaking out and asked him to sign my program. Meanwhile, Tina had her camera out and wanted him to look up while she took his picture. I remember that she kept calling “Mr. Mull! Mr. Mull!”, until he finally looked up at her, and she realized that she hadn’t removed the camera’s lens cap! So when she finally took the picture, he was looking down, signing his autograph, and I’m standing there with my permed hair and my mouth open, screaming. After he handed me back the program, I said to Tina “Don’t you want an autograph, too?”,and she said no - right in front of him - ha! It was such an exciting evening!
I saw Frankie Valli and the Four Seasons when I was in high school, and got him to sign my program at the stage door. He was so nice! When I asked if I could take his picture, he said. “Only if you’re in it, too’”. Ha!
When I saw David Copperfield do his magic/illusion show years ago, they announced that he would be in the lobby signing autographs (and selling merchandise) afterwards. My sister and I hung around until almost everyone was gone, chatting with him. When we were about to leave, he put out his hand for me to shake it, but then he bent down to kiss me on the cheek! Aahhh!
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Post by roverpup on Oct 7, 2021 21:35:01 GMT
Our best friend (the one that co-authored with Dano on the latest manuscript) is VERY outgoing and when she was younger she went to a Stampeders (Sweet City Woman was their most famous song) concert in our hometown and went backstage for autographs and ended up inviting the band back to her apartment where they all ended up playing Risk! She said they were really nice guys and just LOVED that board game!
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Post by queenzod on Oct 8, 2021 5:50:09 GMT
I updated my entry (#2) if anyone cares, lol. 😉👍🏼
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Post by queenzod on Oct 8, 2021 16:08:24 GMT
Thanks, jbc, for your kind words. 🤗
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