The Imaginary Interview (with a Tip of the Hat to Buggie)

I don't usually post on Wednesdays any more, but because the local area is shut down for the "Snowquester" (and I can tell you that snow is dumping down outside and the winds are howling), I have an unexpected free morning in which I was able to do my time on the elliptical machine and write a blog post. Yee, HAH!

This morning I am going to shamelessly rip off gratefully borrow an idea from my blogging friend Buggie, a delightful lady I met a few years ago at a bloggers reception hosted by the local chapter of the Goethe Institute. You can read about that event in this post from May of 2010 if you like.

In her post yesterday, Buggie imagined the interview that Marie Claire magazine might conduct with her, in which she took an actual interview with actress Emma Watson and inserted her own answers to the questions. I thought this was a great idea. I'd rather be interviewed by, say, Playboy ... but I guess that until that magazine gets finished covering Hef's latest honeymoon and moves on to more ... um ... intellectual reporting, I'll settle for the imaginary interview with Marie Claire. With thanks (and apologies) to Buggie, here's my version of the interview ...

WHAT'S ON YOUR...

Liquor Shelf or Bar: A large number of bottles of various spirits, many of them very unusual and bought only because some exotic recipe wanted that item as an ingredient. Lots of bottles of nice wine.

Perennial To-Do List: Stop making to-do lists.

Last Credit Card Bill: Reminders of past dinners at nice places.

Netflix Queue: Netflix? What's a Netflix?

Ideal Dinner Party Guest List: George Washington (to see if he has any good ideas for the useless ass clowns who have taken over the government he left them); Winston Churchill (an all-around fascinating fellow); Abigail Adams (the wife and political soul mate of our second president); Leonardo da Vinci (maybe some of the genius will rub off); Bob Hope (for the laughs); Giada di Laurentiis (she can cook and she's gorgeous and funny); and Simon Bolivar (I'd really like to know what he'd think of the late Hugo Chavez, who constantly invoked his name and legacy).

Feet: Gaily colored socks. I am widely known as "the guy with the socks" because of my mother-in-law's talent at sock-knitting. When I was in the Air Force, she knitted me dozens of pairs of warm, black socks (the only color I could wear with my uniform) each year. Once I retired, she started sending me scads of brilliantly-colored socks to chase away the drabness, and I've taken to making sure that the socks I wear don't match anything else I'm wearing. At a presentation I once made to a group of graybeards evaluating one of my projects, a retired Air Force general came up to me during a break and said, "I've just got to ask you ... where did you get those damn socks?"

Sh*t List: You don't have enough time to read my entire shi*t list. I will just say that Congress is currently at the top.

iPhone App List: The NPR news app, the Oanda currency converter, and Facebook, among others.

Coffee Table: Things that didn't fit on the dining room table or the filing chair in the kitchen.

Playlist: It's enormous. Current favorites are "Kiss the Girl" (from the soundtrack of Disney's "The Little Mermaid"), "Fields of Gold" (Sting), and "Closer and Closer Apart" (Mary Chapin Carpenter).

Charity List: The Salvation Army.

Bucket List: Refer to this blog post from August of 2010.

Pinterest Board: Pinterest? What's a Pinterist?

Workout Plan: A half-hour on the elliptical machine three days a week, using the "fat burning" program at (right now) resistance level 4. As many crunches as I can do when I get up the gumption to do them. Whenever possible, walking where I need to go rather than going by car.

All Time Favorite Books List: How much time do you have? Just a tiny sample would include The Witching Hour, by Anne Rice; Two O'Clock, Eastern Wartime, by John Dunning; The Kappilan of Malta, by Nicholas Monsarratt; The Night Circus, by Erin Morgenstern; and The Lord of the Rings, by J.R.R. Tolkien.

Screen Saver: Pictures of my grandchildren, mixed with Hubble Space Telescope imagery of the cosmos, beautiful landscapes, and favorite cartoons.

The Walls of Your Favorite Room in Your House: The walls of my study have the usual "I Love Me" mementos of my degrees and my military career, and my huge, framed (by Agnes) cutaway diagram of the starship Enterprise NCC-1701-D from Star Trek: The Next Generation.

Vanity Cabinet Shelves: Hair lard (as my father calls it), toothpaste, floss, deodorant, and all the other ordinary stuff that piles up over time.

Car Stereo: I listen the local NPR station (WAMU) and, when they're doing their periodic give-us-money campaigns, I switch to all-news station WTOP. I have yet to find a music station I like. If I want music in the car, I play my iPod.

Twitter Feed: Twitter? What's a Twitter?

Go-To Menu: Corned Beef and Cabbage - the food of the gods. For comfort food, my Baked Macaroni and Cheese or Agnes's Lentil Stew or Sour Beans with Sausage.

Your Top 5 List: I don't keep lists other than my sh*t list (see above).

Instagram: Instagram? What's an Instagram?

Nightstand: Telephone, clock radio, CPAP machine, and a bottle of water.

Future Itinerary: Take a cruise to Scandinavia and another to New Zealand. Go back to Alaska. Visit Monument Valley in Utah and go back to spend more time at the Grand Canyon.

Fantasy Itinerary: Visit Saturn. I've just got to see those rings close up!

There you go! More than you ever wanted to know about ol' Bilbo. If you still want more, go here.

Buggie, thanks for the use of your idea (not that you got a vote). Those of you in the DC/Maryland/Northern Virginia area, stay inside and be safe today ... it's yucky outside and not likely to get better any time soon.

Have a good, warm day. More thoughts tomorrow.

Bilbo