Interview

Meredith of Poppy Fields posted an interview of questions she received from Jennifer of Italian Trivia, and asked for volunteers to be interviewed by her. I am thrilled to exercise my vanity and answer questions as though I were fascinating (I AM a blogger), so I stepped right up.

So imagine Meredith sitting attentively, pitching her voice at the whispery level of Barbara Walters at her Oscar night interviews, as I sit decorously, softly lit, on a couch too white to have ever been touched by children.

1) You may have already posted this story once, but how did you meet your husband?

I had just moved into the dormitory of my new graduate school. I was terribly hungry, and did not know the neighborhood at all, so I knocked on a dorm neighbor’s door and asked her if she could tell me how to get to the grocery store. She suggested we go to the dorm kitchen and see if anyone else was planning a trip to get groceries.

I walked into the kitchen with my neighbor, and, standing with his back to me, was a big guy in blue jeans and a white dress shirt with the sleeves rolled up. He was drying a dish. My neighbor said, “Az…” and I don’t know what she said next, because the big guy turned around and looked at me.

His eyes were so blue that my heart literally skipped a beat.

He refuses to believe this. Not only will I never get that one skipped heartbeat back, but TO THIS DAY Az the Husband can infuriate me by denying that it ever happened. For TWELVE YEARS he has been denying that I know what happened in my own chest when I fell in love (well, truthfully, lust) at first sight.

So the most romantic meeting of my life, if it comes up in a conversation with that fascinating blue-eyed man that I married, ends in me shouting that he is an idiot.

And that, my friends, is marriage.

2) If money wasn’t an issue, where would you like to live and what would you be doing there?

Our dreams were originally to teach, and we would love to do that temporarily in New Zealand or Mongolia or Iceland, all countries that have appealed to us over the years.

But while there are many, many places we would like to visit for short or long stays, “home” needs to be in the US. We love our current city, but would also consider as completely home-worthy Knoxville, TN or Asheville, NC or Lexington, KY. We are homebodies, and would feel only completely ourselves with trees and hills and rainfall and seasons and a small-to-middlin’ American city.

3) I copied this off another interview I read, but I like the question so… What was your favorite board game as a child and why?

As a kid I loved Clue, because I could beat the grown-ups at it. During a family visit when we were first married, Az and I played with my mom and sister for old time’s sake. Az could not get the hang of the game and developed a deep and abiding hatred for it, and told me he would never play it again as long as he lived.

So we’re done with Clue.

4) What is your favorite holiday food and can you share the recipe please?

I don’t think turkey and stuffing can be beat, but I don’t have a special recipe for it. I suppose I always liked my mom’s best, and she doesn’t use a recipe. She makes her stuffing by feel and experience, so it will likely die with her, and I will spend my latter years wistful for the unattainable.

Last year for Christmas, we started our own tradition, and I made a buttermilk poppyseed cake that our girls ate for breakfast. We will repeat it again this year. Without oversharing, let me suggest that fainthearted parents may want to wait till the kids are potty-trained to try this one.

[Edited to add: Aaah! I just looked for the recipe and could not find it! I will keep looking for it, and post it when I find it.]