Me, me, meme!

Well, when a multi-JIB award winner tags you with a meme, you can't just ignore it. Well, maybe you can, but then you'd miss out on the opportunity to burnish your already-glistening nerd credentials by mentioning that "meme" is one of 126 new four-letter words now legal for Scrabble play, and we can't have that, now, can we?

Okay, on to the A-Z meme:

Accent: Noo Yawk, with a few wrinkles (my mother's sister is my "ahnt," f'rinstance). Hebrew accent: very guttural sepharadit, although I had more than one Israeli cabbie think I was French (insert crude Francophobe joke of the day here)
Booze: Wine, religiously (in the sense of "kiddush," not the sense of "regularly," thank you). The occasional beer (Sam Smith's taddy porter, imperial stout, or oatmeal stout; Guinness; Sam Adams; the dark stuff at McSorley's), and a margarita once in a blue moon (Rainie Cole at Rose's Turn whips up a mean one). There's a few bottles of dinner wine in the apartment that I really need to open already (our place maintains an ambient temperature between 2 and 3 gazillion degrees; not quite ideal wine-cellar conditions), including the Gush Etzion Cabernet Sauvignon that I had a tasting and was very impressed with.
Chore I hate: None more so than any other; I tend to ignore 'em all equally.
Dogs: Hello? Lifelong Manhattan apartment-dweller here! I don't mind them, but never had one, and really never considered changing that.
Essential Electronics: My palm pilot before it died, after which I decided the heck with this, and went back to pen and paper. I might be able to live without my Mac, but it and its predecessors have been with me for nearly 20 years, so I'd hate to try.
Favorite Perfume/Cologne: Um, did you not see the "straight" part on the blog title? Arrid extra-dry deodorant. When Jupiter and Venus are in conjunction, and The Lovely Wife(tm) insists on my going all-out, I might clear the cobwebs off the bottle of Old Spice in the bathroom cabinet, open it, and say "nah."
Gold & Silver: Left hand, ring finger. Worn for sixty-five months straight, and, G-d willing, never coming off except for washing. That's it.
Hometown: Washington Heights, New York (the realtors can try calling it "Hudson Heights" or "Upper Manhattan" or whatever else they want - I know where I came from, and I'll never be ashamed of it).
Insomnia: I've got a seven-month-old who's started teething. 'nuff said
Job Title: Quality Manager
Kids: Aforementioned teething seven-month-old
Living arrangements: The ever-shrinking one-bedroom apartment.
Most Admired Trait: Ability to get along with people from every conceivable (and most inconceivable) background.
Number of Speed Dials in your cell phone: Twenty, of which I call three with any regularity. Isn't entering those things a pain?
Overnight Hospital Stays: One for myself, when I conked myself on the head in second grade and got a concussion (my sister still thinks I did it to take attention away from her kindergarten birthday party). Once as a volunteer, keeping a young Yemenite boy with leukemia company.
Phobia: I'm terrified that I might stop dreaming some day.
Quote: Million-to-one chances happen nine times out of ten (Terry Pratchett)
Religion: (singing at the top of his lungs) oh, gimme some of that old-time... (looks around, quiets down)... No, I won't tell you; try to figure it out.
Siblings: Younger sis, younger bro.
Time I usually wake up: 5:00am, and that was even before baby 'frex came on the scene.
Unusual talent: can simultaneously roll and fold my tongue. Can sing showtunes in Hebrew, confounding and astounding piano bar patrons.
Vegetable I refuse to eat: Broccoli. George Bush Sr. and I don't agree on much, but we got that much in common.
Worst Habit: Cannot keep my life in any sort of organization.
X-rays: Dental, and I think I got one when I had back pain a few years back. The one on my head (see the "O" section above) showed nothing (bah-dum-bum-BOOM!)
Yummy foods I make: Fruit tarts, focaccia, lemon-rosemary sorbet, seriously garlicky potatoes, and poached salmon. Dang, now I'm hungry...
Zany idea: Have the little TVs that they put on those gym treadmills controlled by how fast you go and how long you stay on, so that if you only go 3 miles an hour, you can only get C-SPAN, but if you keep up a good pace, you can get HBO.