# Five questions November

2025-11-03

Christina's five questions:
gopher://sdf.org:70/0/users/christyotwisty/phlog/2025-11-5Q.txt

1. Do/Did you do anything special for Samhain/Halloween/Dia de 
los Muertos?

My oldest daughter's best friend is part American, so she got invited
to a serious Halloween party, including trick-or-treating. His
mom convinced some shop owners in her neighborhood to open their
stores so that the kids can scare them, too. But it also was my
father-in-law's 70s birthday and we gifted him a trip to a nearby
national park.

Uckermark tourism site https://www.visitberlin.de/en/uckermark

Thus, we had to improvise Halloween somewhat, but the kids dressed
up, danced around a campfire and got some treats.

2. Did a grandparent or great-grandparent serve in any of the World
Wars of the 20th Century?

My great-grandfather served in WWI for the German Empire as part
of the X Corps.  He was seriously wounded by an artillery shell
but survived the war. He died in the late 1950s or early 1960s,
so I never got to know him.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/X_Corps_(German_Empire)

My grandma often told me the story of how, after his death, he
lay laid out in the entrance hall of the house and my aunt (then a
toddler) thought he was asleep and wanted to bring him his slippers
so he could finally get up.

3. What are you a "natural" at doing?

Hard to say. I've often been told that I exude natural authority,
and that's something I'm still trying to get under control because
it doesn't correspond to my self-image at all.

4. What has been your best work of art?

In my 20s, I once wrote a series of short stories about a girl in a
somewhat dystopian future. It was, apparently, pretty good because
a friend back then who studied literature showed to one of her
professors and she thought it was very well written. I published
it to a shared Wordpress blog and never saved it.

Now that I think about it, I could look if I can still find it via
Wayback Machine.

5. What's something that amazes you?

That we are all tiny, barely visible points of light compared to
the age and size of the universe.