The $50,000 Question Meme

The $50,000 Ques­tion Meme

Kailani tagged me to play the $50,000 Ques­tion Meme:

A phil­an­thropist awards you $50,000 with the stip­u­la­tion that you may use half of it for your­self and the other half you must use for the ben­e­fit of oth­ers. By “ben­e­fit of oth­ers” it can mean any­thing really, buy­ing a gift for a fam­ily mem­ber or donat­ing to a charity.

How do you spend the money on yourself?

I would go to Switzer­land next sum­mer to study flute for a week with Sir James Gal­way in his annual Mas­ter Class.

Of course, with $25,000, I could take some extra time to see more of Europe, which would include Nor­way because I have always wanted to see my ances­tral home.

How do you use the money for oth­ers? Please be detailed, so if you say “give X dol­lars to char­ity, let us know what char­ity and why you select that one.

I would give it all to Alzheimer’s Asso­ci­a­tion because no fam­ily should ever have to expe­ri­ence “the long good-bye.”

If you were to spend part of your money to have a per­former do a show for you, who would it be and why?

That’s a tough ques­tion because there are so many won­der­ful per­form­ers to choose from. I would have said Sir James had I not spent a whole day in Napa with him this past July. Hav­ing now had that oppor­tu­nity, I guess I would prob­a­bly book another James — Sweet Baby James Tay­lor, the coolest man on the planet. Every time I hear him sing, I mar­vel at how his voice ages like fine wine, grow­ing richer, more nuanced, stronger over the years. He is an amaz­ing musi­cal tal­ent. I would ask him to bring Bon­nie Raitt with him.

If you were to use it on a new vehi­cle for your­self, what kind?

I have a very util­i­tar­ian, work­man­like atti­tude toward vehi­cles since I am the daugh­ter of an auto mechanic. I demand solidly reli­able trans­porta­tion that is com­fort­able, but don’t view cars as collector’s or lux­ury items.

Since buy­ing BigBob’s new Toy­ota Tacoma pickup a cou­ple of months ago, I have been threat­en­ing to get myself a new Camry. #1Son dri­ves my ’96, so I would give him my ’04. Mattie-Boo will be 16 in Novem­ber, so I would give him the ’96. We would then have four Toy­otas. What would my father, who worked for a Chevrolet-Buick deal­er­ship prior to spend­ing 27 years spe­cial­iz­ing in trans­mis­sion work on Lin­colns and Mer­curys, say about the fact that I buy Toy­otas, rather than cars made by Amer­i­can man­u­fac­tur­ers? He would approve because he was the one who taught me to invest wisely and appre­ci­ate reliability.

If you spent part of it to go to a “fan­tasy” camp, what type would you choose? Is there a fan­tasy camp where you could just shop all day?

Broad­way musi­cal fan­tasy camp and we would per­form, among oth­ers, “A Lit­tle Night Music.”

If you were to use it to buy sea­son tick­ets for a sports team, what team would it be?

A few years ago, I would have been delighted to get Sacra­mento Kings sea­son tick­ets, but now? Fuhgetaboutit. So prob­a­bly the 49ers. And then I would give them to friends because I would never actu­ally make it to the games.

If you were to use it to go on a cruise (assum­ing you like cruises) where would you cruise to?

I’ve always wanted to cruise to Alaska. (Hi, Michelle!)

If you were to use it to go to NYC to see a show (or shows) what would you see?

Oh, wow … I could go to a Broad­way show every night of the week for many weeks before tir­ing of the expe­ri­ence. I would most likely see “Jer­sey Boys” again — saw it this past March and it was fabulous!

Totally off sub­ject (but since Fall is com­ing) what is your favorite car­ni­val food (I was watch­ing “Big” while writ­ing this and saw them at the carnival)?

A nice, cold beer. That’s not food? Too bad. I don’t eat all that other junk they serve.

Tag­ging: Michelle at Scrib­bit, Mert at Almost Some­what Pos­i­tive and Malin at Infek­tia, plus every­one who wants to par­tic­i­pate! Post your response and then come back & let me know so that I can link to it!

Tech­no­rati Tags: Mis­cel­la­neous Memes

On the Same Topic:

• The Life Expe­ri­ences Meme
• Link Love
• Blog Day 2007
• Grat­i­tude Tues­day: Edi­tion Num­ber One
• Inter­view Me!