verbena-19

I've been tagged by 'A Canadian Lefty In Occupied Land'

I've been tagged with a meme by Scott Neigh of A Canadian Lefty In Occupied Land.

Since this is my first time at this, I will try to answer the four questions below best as I can:

What are four vehicles you've owned?

My first vehicle was a small old bicycle. Then, my grandfather used to let me 'drive' his small coach, as in 'horse and buggy', way back in the Old Country. (That was fun!) Yes, they had cars, but Grampa preferred his old horse Bözsi (Bessie in English) and the cart he constantly worked on, painted and kept shiny. My first real vehicle was a reconditioned old '57 T-bird, loaned by my uncle. However, my driving experience in it didn't last very long. On a long, winding road during a heavy rainstorm just outside of Winnipeg, I skidded and almost wound up in someone's living-room. That ended my desire to drive a car, and haven't driven since. I do have an old, beat-up bicycle which I sometimes ride. Mostly, though, it's public transit, the kindness of friends/family in bad weather, or my own two feet.

What are four jobs you've had?

(Well, since I've had such a variety, I'll try to pick four. Hmmm....)
I've worked in Toronto's Sick Children's Hospital, as a medical transcriber in their Visual Education Department. (Back then, I had hopes of studying for a medical career, so this fit in nicely.) Later, I worked at the Toronto Mental Health Centre on Queen Street. That was interesting, and I learned a lot. (However, the sad state of my financial affairs precluded me from pursuing a medical career.) Then I worked as an assistant to one of the bigwigs of the Meat Packers Council of Canada. That lasted a few years. Subsequently, I made a move to the U.S. (which ties in with the next question, where I went into my life-long love of writing, in the field of publishing, for a small ethnic weekly newspaper in Southern California. I also wrote some articles for a few 'offbeat' rags and mags. (Somewhere along the line, I'd managed to get a few poems into a book of collected poetry by new writers, which was published in San Francisco.) Nothing earth-shaking, though, and no best-seller! Of course, in-between these, for short times I'd worked in real estate offices, travel agencies, doctors' offices, law offices, clinics, farmwork, childcare, waitress, bookstore....

Where are four places you've lived?

The first was the place of my birth, Budapest, Hungary. After living in several cities in Germany for a short while, we came to Toronto. I had lived in different areas of this city. When I moved down to the U.S., I had lived in Los Angeles (Hollywood, and the San Fernando Valley), San Francisco, Honolulu Hawaii, and Las Vegas. For the past several years, I am happy to have moved back to Canada, where I presently make Brampton, Ontario my home. (I came back from the States just before Bush the Younger took power, and am glad to be back here. I would under no circumstances live under such a neocon regime, and have absolutely no desire to even visit the U.S. again. The only place I honestly miss is Hawaii, which is like a totally different country.)

Name four vacations you've taken.

Since I left the land of my birth, I have gone back numerous times to visit family. I toured throughout Hungary, Croatia, Austria, the Bavarian region of Germany, Northern Italy. (While still in the States, I had toured around throughout most of the states, with the exception of Alaska. Went to Mexico a few times.)

I hope that I have answered Scott Neigh's questions to the best of my recollective abilities, and that my fellow bloggers get a little insight as to who the person is behind the verbena-19 blog.

Now, I guess I'm supposed to tag four fellow bloggers here. Hmmmm.... Who should those [un]lucky bloggers be? Let's see....

Ok, here goes:

Zaphod's Heads
Red Tory
The Green Canuck
Terry Glavin

posted by Annamarie at 1:14 PM