Ruh Roh - I've been tagged.

The most adorably creepy author of The Chronicles of Vladimir Tod, (Eighth Grade Bites is book 1, due in summer 2007) Heather Brewer , has tagged me. And now I must tell you five interesting or unique things about me.

1. Homegirl don't play tag.

2. I'm left-handed and have an extra vertabra and extra set of ribs. I also majorly tore the cartilege in my knee as a kid, but my mother didn't believe me because I faked broken legs and illnesses a lot. I was one of those kids who wanted crutches and braces and glasses. Anyway, three weeks after limping and whining, mom finally took me to the doc. Ha! Serious injury. He wondered how I'd walked on it for all that time. (Sorry, mom)

3. When I'm stressed out, unlike most people, I DON'T eat. I cook. And then I can't eat it. So today, I'm spending 12 hours smoking a pork butt on the grill (indirect heat! Never put a pork butt over flame! Even if you're thirteen, like my son, and you wonder if a pork butt can shoot a blue flame). Of course, we are always polite and call it 'pulled pork' or a 'pork shoulder' in fine company. Even though the tag says Boston butt. Because really, it does come from the shoulder. (Wait, how did this turn into interesting things about pigs? Doh! Don't answer that.)

4. When I was doing research for my book about the Holocaust and the Kindertransport system, my mother casually mentioned that I had two second-cousins that were Nazi soldiers. They both died in POW camps in Russia.
GAH! That put me in a tailspin for several days.

5. Confession time. When I was in first grade, I stole stuff from my classroom. Like one of those smiley face ink things that the teacher used to stamp our papers. And? A cross-stitch needle. Because it was 1976, and the entire grade school was making this giant cross-stitched American flag/eagle thing as a project. And that needle was way cool and shiny. In fact, I'm wondering if it's still where I hid it, down in the basement in my parents house (they still live there). Also, my teacher gave out a handful of cereal as a treat if we kids did a good job with reading (I was a very good reader). And at home, we couldn't afford cool cereal. I'm talking really cool cereal, like Cap'n Crunch's Peanut Butter cereal and Lucky Charms. So I would get my mom to write me a 'stay in at recess' note (because I faked sick a LOT), and then I'd steal cereal and keep it in my desk.

I feel sorta bad about that, now.


I should tag some people. So...I tag Ellen Meister, Supes, Katrina, and Katie.