DU3 Reintroduce yourself thread

[LiberalEsto]

131. LiberalEsto: Surprise! I'm female

For some reason people assume I'm male. I guess it's the Esto, but it stands for Estonian-American. I speak fairly fluent Estonian and have visited relatives there twice.

When I joined DU in 2002, I thought I was the only liberal Estonian-American in existence. Most of the others are Republicans and Reagan fans, and I avoid them like the plague. Since then I've encountered a few liberals, including one on DU. I was one of the first DUers to use Liberal in my screen name, because right wingers were working to make liberal a dirty word. It's good to see other DUers using Liberal in their names.

Born in Brooklyn, NY, raised in northern New Jersey, moved to Montgomery County, Maryland over 20 years ago with husband and two daughters who are now grown, sort of. One still lives with us, and we have two dogs, Penny and Bailey, and two cats, Salem and Dinah. Penny is a female half Cavalier king Charles Spaniel, half American Eskimo. She's my angel.

Bailey, my daughter's dog, is a male half King Charles Cavalier Spaniel, half Chihuahua. The cats are torties, female sisters rescued from an animal shelter in New Brunswick, NJ when one of my daughters went to college there. I lived in the New Brunswick area from 1969 to 1990, initially at Livingston College of Rutgers University.

I suppose my claim to fame is that I met all the members of the original Grateful Dead, including Pig Pen, and tripped with them backstage before they hit the big time. This was in New Jersey.

Was active in the anti-war movement in the 1960s-70s, particularly in Yippie! if anyone remembers them. Lots of street theater.

Worked as a newspaper journalist most of my adult life, and later as a marketing writer, but have been unemployed for more than 3 years. Would love to get one of my books published, but no such luck so far. My husband does IT work for a federal contractor in Washington DC. I love gardening, especially growing roses and vegetables. I'm a pagan Unitarian Universalist, love to read, and spend a lot of time in the ASAH forum. I like Cape Cod, and love Maine.