Sheila Bhagat:  

After Neah-kah-nie, I went to Pacific University for 2 yrs., then left for a semester abroad in Europe. I ended up staying there 4.5 yrs.; 1.5 yrs. in Paris, 6 months in Dusseldorf, and 2.5 yrs. in Stuttgart, Germany. I speak French, German, and some Italian. I married a fellow student from Germany, a man from India, and had one child, Natasha. I became a bookkeeper in 1980. I divorced my husband 7 yrs. after we married, and went back to school at Portland State Univ. for a degree in business admin. & accounting, with a lot of economics and foreign language classes on the side. I became a CPA in 1993, and have been doing accounting and tax ever since. I've no significant other in my life at present. My favorite leisure-time activities are dancing and traveling (air, cruise, and road trips). I also love camping, gardening, opera/theater, history/anthropology, sci-fi, and antiques. I haven't had time to write poetry lately, but eventually I will again. I love to cook, especially Indian, German and French for obvious reasons, plus my own creations; I make a great fusion dish, paella combined with Indonesian-style hot peanut sauce, for example. My daughter is all grown up, graduated from Pepperdine University, and has been an advertising account exec. for a few years; she is now second in command at the firm. She has bought a home in the LA area. I have no grandchildren as yet. I bought my current house in 2010 and have been working on it ever since, mostly the yard. I've put in about every kind of fruit tree and berry, plus a couple of kinds of nuts, plus I have the grape arbor that was already here. I've added another five raised vegetable beds to my previous 8. I put in a big patio, a greenhouse, a pond, flower beds, walkways and benches, and made what I call my "sanctuary", which is a little area of the east yard that I separated from the rest. I planted a lot of ferns and shade loving plants in it, and made a fire pit, to make it remini...Expand for more