The Universe is Random

I’d planned to begin posting the next Lucky Comestible (coconut) today, but as it turned out I was completely wiped out after participating in the local (and first annual) Totally Fabulous Vegan Bakeoff yesterday.  The event, sponsored by the Toronto Vegetarian Association in honor of World Vegetarian Day, hosted 30 entrants (of which I was one) to participate by presenting baked goods in four categories.  Sorry to say I didn’t win any prizes (I entered my vegan butter tarts). My entry was well received by the audience and judges, but fell far behind in the looks and presentation department (okay, maybe not the prettiest dessert, but how could they not appreciate such patriotism??).  I was truly amazed at some of the elaborately decorated baked goods!  Still, it was great fun to participate and also sample some of the other entrants’ delicious baked goodies.

Well, since I don’t have a new food post for y’all just yet (tomorrow, I promise!), I thought I’d FINALLY catch up on memes and thanks. 

As I said, I didn’t win anything at the bakeoff, but I WAS awarded this “Kick Ass Blogger” award by Giz and Psychgrad over at Equal Opportunity Kitchen.  Thanks so much, both of you–I am honored to be a recipient (at least it was “kick” and not “big”!)

And now, the much neglected, ostensibly (but not) forgotten, fun-loving memes! Months ago (or was it longer?), I was tagged by Lisa at the lovely and delicious My Own Sweet Thyme and then Tinker from the entertaining and informative Tinker Culture for a “Six Random Things About You” tag.  (And I do apologize, ladies, for taking this long to get to it!)

Here are the rules for the meme:

Tag Rules:

• Link to the person who tagged you.
• Post the rules on the blog.
• Write six random things about yourself.
• Tag six people at the end of your post.
• Let each person know they have been tagged by leaving a comment on their blog.
• Let the tagger know when your entry is up.

I’ve done a couple of similar tags before, and I always find myself to be pathetically meme-challenged.  It’s not that there aren’t many random facts about me, but just not that many of interest to anyone but the HH or The Girls. Forgive me if certain themes are repeated. . . here goes:

Dog Theme:

1) The first dog we had when I was a kid was a boxer named Princess.  I was about four at the time, and while Princess was very sweet and loving, I realize now that she had a few dominance issues.  Apparently (according to my mom), every night, I’d go to sleep with Princess draped across my feet at the foot of the bed.  In the morning, my mom said, she’d enter the room to find Princess comfortably sprawled over the entire bed while I was asleep. . . on the floor.  (Strangely, I still love dogs–but could that have anything to do with our training The Girls to stay off the furniture?).

Fashion Theme:

2) I own lots of costume earrings. Like, lots.  My mom never left the house without earrings on, and I must have inherited that tendency; I feel naked if I’m not wearing any. I love costume jewelry because that way I can own earrings to match virtually every piece of clothing.  (Another major advantage of earrings, of course, is that they always fit you, no matter how much weight you gain). 

I’ve got plastic earring in every stripe of the rainbow; multi-colored, floppy cloth earrings; feather earrings; black with silver, black with “gold,” black with any color you can imagine; dangly, stud, hoops, and even fish-shaped earrings.  The only real gold earrings I own were given to me by the men in my life (doesn’t that just make me sound so. . . promiscuous worldly? Okay, that accounts for 2 pairs of earrings. . . but still.)

3) I still possess several items of clothing from high school.  Oh, sure, that may not seem very significant to those of you in your 20s or younger, but I’m talking decades ago.  I still have the first pair of Lee overalls I ever bought, complete with my own embroidery flowers in an oh-so-Love Child sort of pattern.  I’ve got a blue woolen mini skirt that I snagged at Value Village when I was an undergrad, and though I’ll likely never wear it again, I can’t part with it because it’s such good quality and I so love it.  I’ve got a wildly printed tunic-shirt that I still wear (!!) just because I adore the crazy flowery pattern so much.  And I’ve held on to all the hand-knit and hand-sewn stuff I made over the years, as well as a few sweaters mom knit for me, for the obvious sentimental reasons.  Why keep all these clothes, you ask?  Well, anyone whose weight has ricocheted as wildly as mine has knows you never throw away good clothes–who knows when they might fit you again?

Physical Quirks Theme:

4) I’m near-sighted in one eye and far-sighted in the other.  Apart from glasses that make one eye look slightly larger than the other, this quirk of nature allows me to grow old a little more gracefully, as I don’t require reading glasses just yet, since my near-sighted eye can actually see better these days, while the far-sighted eye allows me to continue to see everything else.

CareerTheme:

5) One summer, I worked as a telephone salesperson selling frozen sides of beef. The company was called Hunk ‘N Chunk Freezer meats, and I had to cold call (frozen call?) people and ask if they wanted to purchase a year’s worth of pre-cut cow.  The boss started me off at 5 cents commission (yes, five cents) per sale.  By the end of the week, I guess I’d exceeded his expectations, as I was raised to ten cents per sale.  I ended up quitting after 2 weeks when another job I’d applied for, secretary for an insurance company, came through. My Hunky boss (in fact, he actually was hunky) did subsequently invite me to his family’s Sunday dinner, however, which turned out to be a blind date with his son (I guess I didn’t exceed his expectations–no gifts of jewelry ever came of that meeting).

6) During my first year in Toronto as a grad student at the University of Toronto, I was lucky enough to nab a position as don in the girls’ residence (after the interview, the Dean told me she just “had to meet someone who worked at a place called Hunk N Chunk Freezer Meats” because that meant I “must have had a good sense of humor.”)  In exchange for being a sort of elder cousin on the residence floor, I was afforded the privilege of free room and board–in downtown Toronto (approximate monetary value in today’s dollars: $572,683.47 per month).  I loved the gals with whom I shared the floor that year, and always felt as if I got the best end of the deal.  I could walk to classes simply by strolling through the appropriately majestic Queen’s Park and came to know the city first-hand by living right in the midst of it.  It also gave me the unique experience of living in centuries-old historical structure (if you don’t count the haunted house my friends and I camped out in that one summer in high school).

I know the meme rules suggest that I pass this along to others, but rather than choose specific people, I’m going to leave an open invitation to anyone who wishes to participate.  We bloggers love to learn a little more about each other beyond the food–so go ahead and pick your own six things! 🙂

Tomorrow:  Coconut!