Seven random things about me

Now that I've been tagged twice to do this...

1. When travelling abroad (and two or three times at home), and whenever my American-ness is not immediately evident, I am most often taken to be from a Mediterranean country. This is despite the fact that my mixed ancestry is almost exclusively northern European. Perhaps I have my Mexican great-grandmother to thank for this chameleon quality, but I need to develop the modern language skills to match.

2. In high school I took fencing lessons from an instructor who cultivated a moustache and drove a Cavalier. He scorned modern sport-fencing strategies that allowed you to take four hits as long as you hit the other guy five times -- the "two dead guys scenario." His approach presumed that it was for real.

3. As a child, I loved spinach so much that I called myself the Spinach Monster.

4. I like candy corn. That makes it hard to really set myself up as a foodie.

5. I don't have a TV, stereo, microwave, dishwasher, or washer and dryer. This apparently puts me in something like a 2% minority of Americans.

6. We just got a Scrabble game. The last time I played was as a teenager, with Sara J, in a version that gave us extra points for playing words derived from our respective novels-in-progress and allowed us to trade letters and place words in irrational propinquity (kiernbug, anyone?). Brooks doesn't let me do that.

7. My dream vacation (other than a honeymoon in Istanbul) is to go bicycling in the Greek islands. But I already got the h. in I. so one shouldn't expect too much adventure in one lifetime.

I don't think there are seven people left for me to tag; I'm late jumping on this trend.