look who's coming for dinner!

for deb's 2nd blogging gig on Create a Connection she's created a Dream Dinner Party. if you decide to do this, please let them know over at CaC - and let me know too :)

The Instructions:

Imagine you’re going to organize a dinner party for yourself and seven guests. You can invite anyone who ever lived, whether they’re world-famous or someone whose name only you would recognize. If you choose someone from the past, they will be magically alive and present for this one day. But here’s the twist - in order for the magic to work, each chair will only hold a guest who fits into a certain category. Tell us who you would invite and, if you like, tell us a little about why. What do you admire about that person or what would you like to learn from him or her?

1. Guest one must be someone who is/was creative with words - a novelist, poet, playwright, essayist, journalist, etc. Who would you invite?

this was really a hard choice...it's between katharine holabird and madeleine l'engle. the first because she was such an important part of irene's life with her sweet angelina ballerina books (no, not the ones based on the tv series - those are fine easy reading books, but NOT NEARLY so wonderful as katharine's actual angelina books). i'm delighted that ms holabird (to whom i'm connected by only 1 degree - if i have that right...i know one of her very best friends!) has written a few chapter books now w/angelina. anyway, all that said, i think that i'll have to go with madeline l'engle. i can't tell you how many times i've read her wrinkle in time trilogy (well, quartet including Many Waters)...and almost every other book she's written. she's magical and spiritual and has a deep understanding of people and children.

2. Guest two must be someone who is/was creative with images - a painter, photographer, sculptor, fabric artist, collage artist, etc. Who would you invite?

this is the easiest question on here!! none other than DebR her very own self. i've wanted to meet her for a long time now, but it hasn't worked out yet. but she is lovely and hugely creative. have you been to her website? NO!??! why not?!? go and SEEEE her art! and look at THIS and THIS - both of these wonderful works of art are residing in my house. one in irene's room and one in our dining room. the dining room quilt ALWAYS and WITHOUT FAIL gets oohs and aahs. then our friends go up close and look at everything - the quilting, the beading, the fish of all sorts. it's wonderful and i am so so delighted and overjoyed and whelmed over to own it. i think she'd be a fabulous person to have at my dinner party (and i'm not trying to be a kiss ass either - i really do want her at my dinner party).

3. Guest three must be someone who is/was a performer - an actor, singer, musician, comedian, acrobat, etc. Who would you invite?

i am stealing this right from deb b/c i agree with her. Katharine Hepburn. She had such a long career and aged so gracefully! I’d love to hear her memories about her life, and about the legendary people with whom she worked and socialized.

4. Guest four must be someone who is charting/charted new territory - either in the physical sense, like an explorer, adventurer, or astronaut, or someone like a groundbreaking scientist or inventor. Who would you invite?

For this one I would like to invite Margaret Sanger . she was born in the late 1800s and was the founder of the group that eventually became Planned Parenthood. what an amazing woman. can you imagine what it must have been like for her during those times? can you imagine what it would be like without planned parenthood? she also truly helped to revolutionize birth control for women by starting this. so that *we* could have some control over our reproduction. i think she could be considered the first woman in the pro-choice movement.

5. Guest five must be someone who is/was a leader of other people - perhaps in the area of politics, like the literal leader of a country, or perhaps a leader in the area of religion, military, business, or even a great philosopher or teacher, or an inspiring athlete. Who would you invite?

I think that i'd like to invite Indira Ghandi. I don't know enough about her but would like to find out more. I remember when she was assassinated.

6. Guest six must be someone from any field who you believe is/was underrated and under-appreciated by most people, but whom you admire. Who would you invite?

i think that almost any teacher, social worker, people that work with children would fit here. so, i think that i'll pick Bev Bos. she's an amazing woman who is all about children and child centered learning, learning through play, being in the moment and letting children be in the moment, and helping teachers/parents/social workers be better at what they do. she, tom hunter, and michael leeman have recorded and released several cds for children and parents. what i love about this music is that so much of it is stuff upon which CHILDREN can add. does this make sense? she asks the children to pick things to sing about in the songs. we went through a period of time that all we listened to was bev bos (special thanks to my sister in law, debbie, who sent us several of their tapes). it's music that adults can listen to without going slowly insane. my girlfriend and i went to see her speak when i was pg w/rhys. it was inspiring. she gave out her own personal phone number to us so that we could call her if we needed help or had questions. how many speakers do that?

7. Guest seven is a wild card - your choice! Is there someone you’d like to invite who didn’t seem to quite fit into any category, or was there a category where you’d have really liked to invite two different people? Then this is your chance to add the person you missed to the table. Who would you invite?

that i'd like to invite as a wild card but i think that i'm going to go with my dear friend Lydia. she's smart, funny, wild, outrageous, beautiful, delightful, and i think she'd add a lot to the conversation. plus, she'd have to fly out w/her children - and dan could come too. so they'd be out here and the kids and dan would go geocaching w/rob and my kids while we all whooped it up. *AND* because this is taking place in sparks, a mere 2 miles from mom's house, she'd be invited too. yes, it's against the rules, but oh well :)

Bonus: Uh Oh! The dinner party is just about to end, and all your guests are about to disappear, and you realize that you’ve forgotten to ask one important question of one of your guests. You just barely have time to squeeze in that last question, so quick! - what was the question and who did you ask?

I think that the question would go to Margaret Sanger. I'd like to know what it was like to be going against the social norms for a HUGE amount of people and to make such a difference. I wonder what she'd think of what is going on today w/so many rights being slowly removed...