Meme. I've been tagged!

Just found out my buddy Barb Newman has "tagged" me to participate in a game of Meme. In a meme each player lists 8 habits/facts about themselves, then tags 8 others at the end of her post.

Here's my 8:

1. My parents restored a Victorian home in which my father left one deliberate flaw: a hole in the first floor ceiling for my dad’s pet raccoon to stick her upper body through, hang from, and wave at you. Really.

2. Since my parents raised innumerable foster children, I fit into nearly every possible birth-order category.

3. In junior high, my best friend and I used to experimentally snap Butterfinger bars in two, (searching for a “fresh one”), buy one each, then eat them over teen magazines in the snack bar, after which we’d return the mags to the rack.

4. I've never tasted even a nibble of a mango since I learned, during my family's two years in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, (yes, the currently infamous "Gitmo"), in the late 60s, that I’m allergic to them. (Used to breakout when kids brought them on the bus.)

5. I took up tap dancing at the age of 44… and found that I wasn’t half bad at it, for an old broad.
This is me and my friend Rene tappin' our hearts out. Rene is tall, gorgeous one with the cheekbones to die for. I'm... the other one.

6. After school in junior high, I’d watch an afternoon re-run of Star Trek, then listen to Broadway albums for hours.

7. Because of the above misspent youth, I can amaze my children by singing along with Robert Preston to the "Trouble" song from The Music Man and not miss a single syllable. Sadly, I cannot do the same with Yul Brynner in “A Puzzlement.”

8. Our yellow Labrador retriever actually dashes out and fetches the paper every morning. Watch the amazing movie of her paper-retrieving exploits here...



Okay, at the risk that they've already been tagged, I'll tag a few folks from my book marketing group:
Elizabeth Dulemba
Joe Kulka
Alan Gratz
Ruth McNally Barshaw
Karen Lee
Greg Fishbone
From my crit group:
Liz Dubois
and also, my friend, illustrator Amy Cullings Moreno