What food reminds you of your spouse?

Thai food holds a special place in our hearts.  We went to A Little Place Called Siam (no longer extant, sadly, though I believe there is still a Thai restaurant in that location) for dinner on our first date before heading to our high school cafeteria for Spring Formal.  Since then, different Thai restaurants have become “ours” in just about every town in which we have spent significant time together.  We judge most places by their drunken noodles, which is what my husband orders nine times out of ten.

Who would you rather sit next to in a cross-country plane ride: an irritating non-stop talker, or a quiet stare-er?

The quiet one, definitely.  I’m usually looking out the window and cheerfully oblivious to anyone else around, an attitude much more difficult to maintain when some full-of-himself lawyer is droning on about how he had to fly to this place and that place to get statements and subpoenas and all kinds of things that were a lot more impressive to him than they were to a girl who just wanted to visit her fiancé.

What are your best tips on how to save money?

If you don’t need it, don’t buy it.  This seems to be a slippery concept for some people.

What is your favorite summer memory?

My extended family’s yearly trips to the beach were a fixture in my life up through college.  All of us — parents, siblings, grandparents, aunts, uncles, and cousins — would rent units on the ocean and spend a week playing on the beach by day and partying by night.  Each family would take one night to cook dinner for all the rest, so we got a variety of fun dishes.  I loved getting to spend so much time with my cousins, and I cannot even estimate how many hours upon hours we spent boogie-boarding in the surf.  We barely got out of the water except to go chow down on sandwiches for lunch, our fingers still pruney and salty from the sea.  Adult beverages flowed freely for those of age; one of the perks of growing up was finally being able to partake of my grandfather’s killer Bloody Marys at about ten in the morning while digging my toes in the sand.

Time has a way of marching on, though, and “The Beeeeeeach” no longer exists as a week-long family reunion.  As we kids got older and started pairing off (and even contributing to the next generation), it became unfeasible for all of us to coordinate our schedules.  I miss it, though, and it makes me a little sad to think that any children we might be blessed to have are unlikely to have that same kind of yearly vacation.  I might go so far as to describe The Beach as the anchor of my year throughout my childhood.

Do you believe in ghosts?

I’ve never had one walk up and introduce itself.  Maybe I smell funny.

When I was about eleven years old, though, I absolutely believed in ghosts.  A few friends and I kept a notebook and interviewed our classmates at recess about their brushes with the paranormal (including alien encounters; one friend was a confessing X-phile and quite firm in her assertions that “the truth [was] out there”).  We occasionally frightened ourselves with Ouija boards, but most of the time, it seemed that the “spirits” we called with our Parker Brothers-brokered séances had a perplexing fascination with farts and cuss words.  Go figure.

Are you a military spouse/fiancée/fiancé/girlfriend/boyfriend? Hie thee to ENS Wifey’s blog, snag the questions, and add yourself to the Mr. Linky for this week’s MilSpouse Friday Fill-In!