Fun Facts & Trivia

For those who may find themselves challenged to prove how much they “know” about me, the following submissions:

  1. I am a coffee addict. I know because when I accidentally went cold turkey, a patterned hotel carpet attacked me. It wasn’t fun.
  2. The Taste Of English Tea Blog once paired my novel, “The Secrets of Jin-Shei,” with Oolong Orange Blossom Tea.
  3. I can eat an entire bowl of cherries at a sitting, once eating a huge box bought for a three-day car trip in three hours.
  4. I went on a tall ship which had an engine, too – we went OUT on our cruise with the engine, and I was seasick, and came BACK under full sail, and I was not. Go figure.
  5. I swam with dolphins. Twice. I still tell people that if they get a chance to do this – even if they ask for your firstborn child in exchange – do it! It’s THAT fabulous, yes.
  6. I once jumped off a mountain. Well, hooked up to a paragliding instructor. But still…
  7. I touched a gate from Babylon. It lives in a German museum, and the bulk of it is ‘reconstructed’, showing what it must have looked like – but there are tiles in it that were new when Babylon was young, and back in the day I was there , you could still touch them. I touched an ancient civilization with my own fingertips.
  8. I love falling snow. I hate driving in it, but I love watching it, love walking through the white silence.
  9. My brain is a lumber room full of odd facts. Did you know why it is bad luck to have a peacock feather in the house? I do. Do you know the lyrics of songs from obscure musicals? I do. Can you write a sonnet in five minutes because the form is so ingrained in your mind? I can. If you are asked what summer tastes like or winter smells like, are you able to answer? I am…
  10. My dreams are vivid and I can often recall them verbatim on waking. Sometimes I can direct them from within, and occasionally I can serial dream, picking up one night where I left off the night before.