I'd Like to Take This Opportunity to Thank the Academy

And by "The Academy" I mean Laura, the Canadian Domestic Goddess who nominated me for an award:





Now I have to post seven random things about myself...

I like that award picture. I actually love roses, they're delicious. That being said, I prefer squash blossoms- stuffed with mozzarella, dipped in batter, and fried in olive oil and butter.

I’ve only gotten one speeding ticket in my life, and I beat it. I think I was doing forty in a thirty zone, but the road had multiple speed limits, and I was coasting down to the speed limit after leaving a fifty-five MPH zone. I showed up in court (it was an hour drive north), but the issuing officer did not. The judge dismissed the ticket. I made it a point not to thank him, because he wasn’t doing me a favor, he was upholding the law. I merely said, “Goodnight, your honor” after he dismissed my case.

I drink a lot of coffee, and I love coffee paraphernalia. Besides a drip-style coffee maker, I have a French press and a stovetop espresso pot. I have a big coffee urn in storage, in case I have to brew coffee for twenty or so people. While I can drink black coffee with no problem, I usually drink hot coffee with a little milk, no sugar. I really don’t like hot, sweet coffee. I drink iced coffee a little on the light side and kinda sweet- if I’m really ambitious, I drink iced coffee with sweetened condensed milk (a habit I picked up while dining in a Vietnamese restaurant). I drink almost as much yerba mate as coffee. I don’t drink much tea, and typically prefer it iced, with a little lemon and sugar.

I have a couple of verbal tics. Whenever anyone says "Take it easy" my response is always "Take it nonetheless". This confused the hell out of one of my co-workers. For months, he could never quite remember what my response was. There are a couple of friends that I never greet with a simple "hello"- whenever we see each other, we strike a "heavy metal" pose and bellow a long, drawn-out "YEEEEAAAAHHHH!!!" My friend J-Co picked it up from a co-worker who was in a metal band called Killerwatts. My brother Sweetums also does it, and it was a triumph when we got his demure, soft-spoken wife to humor a bunch of us with a hearty "YEEEEAAAHHHH!"

A few years back, a bunch of us traveled from New York to Washington D.C. for a friend’s wedding. It was a summer day, so we all wore shorts and t-shirts in the car, and then changed into our suits in a men’s room at the venue. One of my friends joked, "Heh, you clean up good." I responded, "No, I just dirty down real bad."

Speaking of "dirtying down", I’m pretty outdoorsy, so I often come home covered in mud, blood, bugs, scratches and what-not (no Santorum jokes! Yes, it's that link!). If I were to design a dream house, it would have an outdoor shower stall, so I could avoid tracking gack into the house.

While I enjoy doing these kind of posts, I always feel funny about sending out the prompts. Part of it is that I’m sure I’d send it to people who have already received it, what with all of our shared blogrolls. So, rather than sending the award out to other bloggers, I'm going to invite people to post random speculations about me in the comments.