Last Updated on January 6, 2019
In this week’s edition of the Saturday Six, I used questions readers said they’d ask me if we had dinner.
So I thought it’d only be fair to get around to answering them myself.
Here goes:
1. From AislÃnge: What is your favorite food?
At the risk of horrifying PeTA, my favorite food is a ribeye steak. With a side of twice-baked potatoes and steamed veggies. And a nice glass of Merlot. I’m already thinking of a trip to Outback now!
2. From Strange: Who were your heroes or people you looked up to when you were young?
My heroes were probably game show hosts like Bob Barker and Bill Cullen, and other hosts like Mike Douglas. I knew at age 4 that I wanted to work in television, and so I tried to identify with people whose job I thought I’d like to have some day.
3. From Cat.: What’s the best part about your job?
The best part of my job, I suppose, is when a reporter comes up to me and tells me that my promo for his or her story is a lot better than the story itself. It means I’ve sold the story well. I always hope that it also means that the reporter is then going to work on the story and make it better, too. I don’t want my promo to oversell their work; I just want it to make people not want to miss that work.
4. From AislÃnge: What is the one thing for which you are most grateful to your parents?
Probably that they provided a home where I felt safe and loved. No matter how bad things got at school or work, I at least could bank on that.
5. From AislÃnge: What was/is the one thing your parents did that most made you angry?
That they didn’t fight the urge to be pack rats. It carries from generation to generation. In fact, I am in between cleaning chores as I write this post. Their parents were pack rats, and I wound up with a double dose of it, which may be a good reason I’m still single.
6. From Strange: What is your favorite time of year and why?
We’re in it now: I prefer autumn, because I love the fiery colors of fall foliage, the relief from the heat of the summer, and the fact that you get to turn your clocks back an hour to gain an extra hour of sleep!
I just have to comment on your answer to number 1: There is nothing wrong with a good steak! I have a fondness of red meat, too! 🙂 (and PeTa hasn’t convinced me to become a vegetarian yet – despite being an animal lover!)
It was fun reading your answers! Thanks!
Now I’m thinking about that “Part 1” in your title. Maybe you are planning on us answering some of our own questions again next Saturday – with your responses to follow? That’s my best guess!
@Cathryn (aka Strange)
PeTA stands for People Eating Tasty Animals, didn’t you know?
There is nothing wrong with a well-made steak. Plus, that is the one and only source of B12 without resorting to vitamins!
I love the fact that someone who is medically qualified is telling me it’s okay to eat red meat! 🙂
@patricksplace
Just so we’re clear, I’m not saying your diet should consist SOLELY of red meat! What kind of EMT would I be then?!
I don’t care for red meat, myself, but I read Discover Magazine and in the front of each issue is a two page article about interesting cases that pop up and one was about a man who ate no red meat and presented with early onset dimentia. Turns out at the end of the day, he had a serious B12 deficiency that brought it on – but there is no way to reverse it. Common vitamins do or did not contain B12 and that was what was missing from his diet. Very interesting, indeed! That has stuck with me for years.
@Cathryn (aka Strange) I wasn’t aware of the B12 issue, either. I’m glad to know about it. I’ve never understood the point of view that meat can be so unhealthy for you, yet food products morphed with chemicals and dyes into something that RESEMBLES meat can somehow be that much better. 🙂
Wow. This is fascinating and a bit scary. My daughter is a vegetarian and doesn’t eat red meat. Perhaps I should have her look into this. She might want to indulge in a steak now and then for her own health!
@patricksplace My daughter usually doesn’t buy the vegetarian meat substitutes. She’s never been a big meat-lover in the first place so she doesn’t miss meat.
@Cathryn (aka Strange) You never know! 🙂
PeTA also is against pet ownership, although most of their members, I suspect, have pets of their own. Wonder if they realize that the group to which they belong actually would prefer that all pets just be “turned loose” out in the country somewhere.
@patricksplace@Cathryn (aka Strange)
Yes, isn’t that something? I have two cats who live in the lap of luxury and they are NOT complaining! I wish my life was that comfortable! PeTA – not the smartest people in the world.
I have to agree with you. Obviously our domesticated animals would not make it too long out in “the wild” and are safer indoors. It makes no sense to try to change history but not acknowledging that they have evolved past the point of being able to fend for themselves.
What an interesting answer to #5. Are we just talking about pack rats the way my mother filled up the storage areas, or are we talking about major hoarding? I’m curious about it… I read the book Stuff from cover to cover because it dealt with that phenomenon. I have also been in houses of serious hoarders on patient calls where I had to wend my way through heaps of junk in an aisle about 9 or 10 inches wide. That is the true definition of hoarding. I’m considered a “collector” by that book and that is fairly accurate, but like any good collector, I don’t have stuff just sitting out. I keep the house nice and neat and well-organised, although I’ve more time than most to do so. When I worked that was much harder to do.
I don’t know if that is why you are single. Finding the right person to be with is not as easy as all that, really.
Well, now if we go out to dinner, I will need another three questions to ask!
We’re talking about pack rats filling up storage areas to the point that they’re about two notches below the kind of cases you’d start to consider for an episode of “Hoarders.”
My dad has commented for years that there would be major problems if an EMS crew had to come into their home. He was an EMS for several years, too.
Yet he doesn’t seem to do much to change the situation, which either means he is afraid making it easier for a stretcher to get through will tempt fate, or that he’s just too involved in the TV he says he hates so much! 🙂
@patricksplace
Now that is interesting, too. I had no idea your dad was an EMT or medic. And here he is a major hoarder, as well? You should read Stuff – you would love it and likely identify with it a lot. At least from your childhood if not your current living style. It was a fascinating book and even though I was still working full time then and it was hard to find time to read, I could not put it down. Some people are so bad there is no getting in the door – they’ve got stuff packed to the door and the rafters! Talk about scary and dangerous.
The telly show is nothing compared to the book. The book paints a very easy to see but truly frightening image of how these people live (and sometimes die) by their stuff. But the issue is a psychological one, not anything else – and often it is passed along with all the other good genes our parents see fit to give us (just as my mother unwittingly gave me early onset adult muscular dystrophy – no one really knew about it or understood it but there it is – the gift I could not avoid). But I do know I don’t want to pass it on. Same thing – you have an opportunity to know what you may be dealing with and not to pass it on.
Not that everyone stops having children for that reason. (I have an advantage in that I don’t want ’em anyway.)
I hope your dad doesn’t need us – we have no respect for peoples’ stuff that is in our way and we didn’t know enough about hoarding at the time we had gone into that house. The spouse was having a fit of apoplexy watching me just toss things out of the way (the stretcher will NOT fit through ten inches of space and we are not carrying it through. Never. (I really had no idea we were going to scar her for life…)
Fascinating!
Read the book – you will not regret it!