By Melanie Mcfarland
Seattle Post-Intelligencer

When Sandra Diaz-Twine awoke around 5 a.m. Sunday from her million-dollar dreams, she was greeted by the image to which most of us opened our eyes: a scraggly bearded Saddam Hussein, freshly pulled from his "spider hole" and being subjected to an oral examination and head lice inspection.

But after the Army wife and mother of two spent 39 days enduring the buccaneer exploits of Survivor: Pearl Islands, her first thoughts had little to do with "the mother of all mug shots."

"I was like, 'Oh no, he's going to overshadow my victory! Can't they wait to capture him, like tomorrow or another day?' "

She doesn't have much to worry about. The preliminary Nielsen ratings indicate more than 25 million tuned in Sunday to see the office assistant win the Sole Survivor title, making Diaz-Twine the star of the most watched Survivor finale since Survivor: Marquesas in May 2002.

How much weight did you lose?

Twenty-two pounds. That's the funny thing, because I went to the show 137, and I'm back to 135. And people are like, man you gained weight. But I'm the same size I was when I went there.

Plans for the money? Are you quitting your job?

A. I don't know, because I wasn't planning on winning.

Come on. Really?

Nope. I wasn't. I though that at Tribal Council, that Lill (Deerfield Township scoutmaster Lillian Morris) was going to win the money. They can ask you all the questions they want to and give you all the quotes they want to, but in the end, it's the vote that counts. And I really thought from everything I'd heard that, "Oh, Lill is so nice," and, "Nobody wants to go up against Lill." I had no idea the other tribe members felt the way that they did.

You did a lot of spying from behind the bushes. Was that always your strategy?

Anytime I'd see people leave camp I knew they were planning something. I would see them go off, and they'd be talking loud as hell, too. So I'd say, "I'm going to go and see what these fools are talking about." And they were these men, thinking they had all the strategy and they were the strong ones. They didn't even hear me stepping on twigs or anything, because the iguanas are so big, and crew is running around, so there's a lot of noise.

One thing that I noticed, was that you were trying to form a female alliance from the start.

You don't know how many times I had begged these women, let's get together and get this right. But for different reasons, so many of them were offered something better. Of course, you're going to do what's best for you. The guys thought that yeah, I'm a guy, I'm strong, I'm gonna win this. Yeah. Baloney.

How did the lippiest mother on "Survivor" not only snag the ultimate prize, but also avoid racking up any votes against her throughout the game?

Because they liked that. They'd come up to me and say, "Sandra, how do you feel about this plan" or this and that. And I'd tell them what I thought I never really declined anything they threw my way.

How do you feel about Jon (Dalton, this edition's villain) now? You really didn't hide your animosity toward him while you were out there.

Man, at the after party, we were hugging, signing autographs, taking pictures together. I was pretty surprised, but you know, I'm not mad at Jon. He had to do what he had to. Besides, how can I be mad? Look at where I am.