Friday Frivolity

I refuse to be serious today if I can possibly avoid it, hence, FRIVOLITY!

1. I enter a lot of sweepstakes and contests. I do right well with it. I've won all sorts of odd things. Alas, no big money yet, but I'm working on it. ;) My most recent prize came via LOGO and RuPaul's Drag U. I won a prize pack that consisted of a lip color, a book by RuPaul, a RuPaul's Drag U banner and poster, and a RuPaul's Drag U patch for attaching to a jacket or somesuch. Altogether a package full of silliness and the timing couldn't have been better.

Before the Drag U prize pack, I won a cookbook: The Frankies Spuntino Kitchen Companion & Cooking Manual. I won it by retweeting something on Twitter and had no expectations whatsoever of winning. It's a great book, perfect for someone who is interested in learning some kitchen basics. I, for example, know little to nothing about wine, but this book offers advice and instruction on how and what to choose if you want to serve wine with a meal. I'm not a wine drinker at all, but the next time I have folks to a meal and wish to serve some, at least I'll have some semblance of a clue thanks to this book.

Other things I've won in the past include movie tickets, concert tickets, high end basketball shoes, a hand mixer, a toaster oven, and much more. Nothing major, but I'll keep on trying!

2. I'm very pleased Poison Ivy was booted from Project Runway. I personally like the colors she chose for her dresses and did not understand the judges' issue with such, but her execution was as terrible as her over-inflated ego and mean girl behavior. I think I'm still bitter about Casanova being booted because even though his designs were inconsistent, they were pretty much always better than Ivy's. Also he was a love.

3. As I type this, there's an inflatable monkey hanging upside down on the hanging lamp across the room looking at me. Below Mr. Monkey (my roomie's name for the critter) sits an inflatable pink flamingo wearing a fake flower lei. Oh! I nearly forgot, Mr. Monkey has an electric orange flower accessory clipped to his right ear. Very festive, that.

4. Tomorrow is farmers market day! And the dawg adoption people will be there so I can love on some dawgs and be free of any desire to bring one home. For me, dawgs are like children. I love those belonging to others, but I have no desire for one myself. Usually. Okay, one day I aim to have a Great Dane. Really. I mean it.

5. I think I'll make sunshine salad in a bit. It will go nicely with the turkey burgers and lowfat coleslaw I'm making for dinner tonight. Here's hoping my carrots are still viable . . .

6. Great. Now I want carrot cake. I almost got some at the store the other week, but I read the ingredients and it had been bastardized with frelling coconut. Feh. At least it will be cool enough to make carrot muffins myself within the week. That will be much better anyhoo. Lower in fat, no skeery chemicals, no raisins, and NO COCONUT!!!

7. It's almost cranberry season! Soon they'll be showing up in the stores and I'll be hoarding them in my freezer. It's kind of ridiculous how much freezer space I lose to cranberries every year, but when I have homemade cranberry sauce in March? It will be so worth it.

8. I type about food a lot. I think it's because I watched The Galloping Gourmet and Julia Child and local home ec segments so often on tv when I was little. Also the influence of having two very different cooking grandmothers impacted my interest. One was wont to serve canned soup and tuna fish made with sweet relish and Miracle Whip while the other could take the most humble ingredients and make them into deliciousness. The cooking grandmother's table never lacked for lovely things. The non-cooking grandmother took me to Big Boy, however, and that was also very cool.

9. I won't be posting Flash Friday pieces in this blog. I'm holding tight to my fiction and focusing on perfecting things and sending them out into the world. I'm pleased with how this week's writing's been going. One story in particular really surprised me. I need to get some writing perfected soonish because I have a couple of editors getting a tad impatient with my tortoise impression. Eep.

10. I'm excited because next week I am having lunch and spending a few hours with a writing chum I've known for about a decade. She's also a violinist, loves animals, is fluent in Spanish, knows sciencey technical stuff that boggles me, and is a really sweet person. And she was born on Bastille Day, so she's another Cancer like me. :)

Okay, that's enough frivolity. I may do another post about TV later, but I'll probably save it for tomorrow.

Ta!