If life were a novel

Red Cardigan, who probably doesn't even know I read her blog, posted an interesting idea the other day: Answer a set of questions to describe your life as it would be if you lived in a novel.

I took a while to get to it -- I couldn't decide whether I wanted to live in a novel by Madeleine L'Engle or P.G. Wodehouse, so I ended up doing both.

Ladies first:

1. If my life were fiction it would be set partly in my large, comfortable old house and partly in other worlds

2. Right now I would be wearing my sweater, just in case I have to travel across dimensions unexpectedly

3. The biggest crisis I would be facing would be saving the universe without anyone noticing.

4. My biggest joy would come from getting that over with.

5. The most frustrating daily challenge would be balancing family life with my career as a work-at-home internationally renowned expert on something or other.

6. Looking out my window, I would see either my orchard or the six moons of some other planet.

7. The other characters in the story would be children and aliens.

8. An essential element of a happy ending would be getting home.

And then, in a lighter genre:

1. If my life were fiction it would be set in a castle in the 1920's.

2. Right now I would be wearing a twinset, tweed skirt, and maybe wellingtons if I planned to go inspect the sheepfold.

3. The biggest crisis I would be facing would be something like keeping my cousin's brother-in-law from finding out his godson is secretly engaged to a girl whose father cheated him at whist during the Boer War, while I simultaneously hosted a ten-course sit-down dinner for 34 using only the produce of the home farm.

4. My biggest joy would come from seeing everyone's problems resolved by unlikely coincidences.

5. The most frustrating daily challenge would be keeping the servants from realizing the upper class is clueless. Oh, forget it, they already know.

6. Looking out my window, I would see miles of countryside that had formed a small part of my dowry.

7. The other characters in the story would be harmless eccentrics, one or two annoying but non-threatening antagonists, and a large household staff.

8. An essential element of a happy ending would be having the place to myself again.