TAGGED: FIVE THINGS ABOUT ME.....that you probably don’t know.

I am very fond of Amy of COOKING WITH AMY. She is a new friend and gives me great business advice. When I talk about charging X amount of dollars for a project she laughs and says she can’t believe that I am not charging twice as much. So I do. I owe her a few lunches.

Anyway, I am pleased to be tagged by her for this meme.

1.LAWRENCE OF ARABIA and me. It is October of 1978 and I am seated in the last row of a nasty TWA airplane (people still smoked on airplanes then) on my way home from my first trip to Paris. My seat companion is an old(er) man, ruddy complexion, jeans, beautiful blue cashmere sweater tied around his neck and a camel colored Fedora pulled down over his eyes. He shares his BIG bottle of Jack Daniel’s with me as we cross the Atlantic. We laugh, he pours more Jack Daniel’s into my coffee cup, we laugh more. I ask what he does for a living. He tells me that he is part owner of a jazz club. At JFK we hug each other good-bye and wish each other much luck and happiness.

Two years later. I am having dinner with a friend who was on that same flight. She tells me how she has always envied me for getting to meet Peter O’Toole. ‘What are you talking about?’ I ask. ‘Peter O’Toole. The man you were sitting next to on the flight from Paris. You didn’t know who that was?’ I couldn’t believe it. But I had never seen ‘Lawrence of Arabia’...

2. My earthquake kit includes, of course, a bottle of Jack Daniel's, a bottle of 10-year-old Madeira (Malmsey), six chocolate bars and tuna.

3. My great-great-great-great aunt was married to Christopher Columbus (the explorer, not the director).

4. On Fridays I can be found at US Restaurant in North Beach for their fried calamari special. Order the pasta with pesto and the cheap house red wine. I have been eating there since college days at Cal.

5. I walk from the Golden Gate Bridge home (NOB HILL) three times a week. Which is why I can eat chocolate every single day and fried calamari on Fridays and not look like the Michelin Man's sister.