Yay! Jay and Jenn have answered my Five Questions.

And their answers are wonderful and thoughtful and thought-provoking, despite the fact that the questions were asked by a journalistic weakling. I hope they won't mind if I post one question and answer from them each here, and link you to their sites for the rest:

From Jay's post, his intro that surprised me and a Q&A:

This is my 500th blog post. Crazy huh? I really never expected it to last this long at all. I figured I’d get bored with it and stop long before now.

My first commenter ever was Kell. But, Kell is my sister and is kind of obligated to comment and be nice. But, my first ever non-obligated commenter was Lisa from “A Clear View to a New Life”.

So, I thought it was only fitting that in honor of my 500th post, I would answer some questions* from Lisa...

1. You know how there are certain moments in life that feel magical, whether because they make you feel spectacularly good, or because they make you look at life a different way, or act differently than you did before? Tell me about one such moment that stands out in your memory and how it changed you.

Okay, so my first reaction to this question is that maybe you’re talking about my “first time”. If you know what I mean. But, NOBODY wants to hear about that so I’ll go with something different.

I think it would probably be the first trip I took to Northern California back in .... oh hell ... I think 1991. Anyway, it was a family vacation. Mom and I went out there to visit Kell and Al. Al was stationed at Mather AFB in Sacramento. We covered so much ground it was amazing. I definitely discovered that I was a traveler and not a tourist.

We not only covered all of Sacramento, we also hit Reno, Sonoma, Napa, San Francisco, The Winchester Mystery House in San Jose and the Monterey Peninsula, including the towns of Monterey, Carmel and a visit to Pebble Beach.

Okay, so you’re saying that sounds touristy. Well we didn’t just do the tourist stuff. We wandered all over the place and got off the beaten path. We avoided the tourist trap restaurants and went where the locals ate. We talked to locals and drove through the neighborhoods away from all the usual tourist areas. It was great.

The highlight was the last night in Monterey. I had never been any place like that before. As the sun was setting I sat on a park bench at Lover’s Point and just let the whole experience wash over me.

The tide was coming in and there was a beautiful fresh breeze coming in off the water. As I sat there I could hear this little “smacking” noise. I looked over and there was a sea otter laying on his back in the surf busily working to smash open his dinner on a rock that he strategically placed on his belly. As night fell over the bay and the lights of Monterey came up I first realized that there was a whole world of different sights and feelings and people to experience. I just had no idea before that trip there was anything like that anywhere.

From Jenn's post, her Q&A:

1. You mentioned you are on the verge of converting to being a Cubs fan. What will it take to push you over the edge? Just kidding! J Here is my actual question: Jenn, you are nothing if not a lover of books. What do you see as the qualities necessary for a truly great book and what book is, in your view, the greatest you have ever read?

A. To push me into being a Cubs fan? A day game at Wrigley Field. If you have an “in” on tickets I would love to hear about it because I have exhausted my (frankly
limited) resources.

B. You would think that seven years of studying literature and hundreds of books would give me an answer to your question. I've read so many really great books that it is difficult to choose just one as the greatest.

In my opinion, truly great books have an extraordinary narrative voice. A voice that holds a reader enthralled, and pushes him/her to keep reading, even if the subject matter is difficult, the phrasing dense, the emotional impact more then a person can normally bear. A truly great book stays with a person for days, weeks, months, even years after finishing it and it only needs to be read once.

The greatest book I ever read to date was Gabriel García Márquez's novella Chronicle of a Death Foretold. For the skill of the author to depict multiple and conflicting voices and versions of an event through a single narrator, for its ability to hold my attention long enough to finish it in one sitting and for the fact that I still remember the plot twelve years after reading it.

Thank you both for taking such care with your answers . . . as I mentioned on each of your blogs, I want to get through this crunch at work and then read your answers again and soak them up.