Five Things

I’ve been tagged by

whiskersink

 to share five things that most people don’t know about me.   When I joined the LJ Community last spring, I had no idea what this sort of thing was all about.  What’s a meme?  And how do you say that?  Meem?  Mame?  Meemee? Maymay? (Maybe it’s French?)  All the tagging business seemed a little cultish, though in a friendly, not-dangerous way.  Anyway, I get it now and will happily share, since being tagged is a nice included feeling, like being picked for a kickball team in gym class.  I’ll share five little stories from my first career — as a tv news producer & reporter.

1. In 1992, I interviewed Bill Clinton while he was campaigning in Vermont.  Okay, interview is a strong word.  My camera person and I chased him down.  I got to ask him a question, and he answered it.  He walked off into the crowd to shake hands, and as soon as he was gone, I realized that my wireless microphone had been turned off the whole time.  I caught up to him, explained that I was a technological idiot, and asked the question again.  He was kind enough to answer again without making any snarky comments at all.

2.  In the same campaign year, I covered a speech by vice presidential candidate Al Gore.  It ended late, and the photographer and I were rushing to get back to the car to get tape back for the 11:00 news.  Except there was a problem.  The car was gone. Turns out it was parked a teensy bit illegally and got towed away.  We flagged down a passing car and somehow, though hand gestures, explained our situation and convinced the driver, a recent immigrant from Russia who spoke almost no English, to give us a ride back to the tv station.  He took several wrong turns, went the wrong way on the highway, made an illegal u-turn, and got us there at 10:55.  We made the deadline.

3.  While shooting a story at the New York State Fair one summer, I did a stand-up holding a 12-foot python.  We had to stop taping four times because the snake kept wrapping itself around my leg.

4. I was doing a live shot from the newsroom once when a photographer came running into the room behind me with a late tape.  By the time he realized he was running into a live shot, he was going too fast to stop, tripped over a chair, and landed at my feet in the middle of my report.  I kept talking as if nothing had happened, even though all the viewers had clearly seen a running man fall to the ground over my shoulder.  I did pause just for a second, and in that break, if you listened carefully, you could hear a whispered curse from the floor.

5.  I used to wear suits, high heels, makeup, and hair spray.  (If you know me now, this one is really funny.)

I tag anyone who wants to play, since I can’t be responsible for tagging someone in particular and created added holiday stress while you’re trying to finish baking nut bread or something.