It's a Sunshine Day, Though Not a Brady One

TAP TAP TAP!

Is this thing on? Testing. Testing. Testing...one, two.

Ahem. I would like to thank Tammy for bestowing the Sunshine Award upon me.

I haven't been this proud since I won 89th Place in the 80th Annual Writer's Digest Writing Competition, Memoirs/Personal Essay category. Uh huh. It was like when, in one of my favorite old movies, Dante's Peak, the motel clerk tells Pierce Brosnan that the town has just been named Second Best Place to Live in the United States, Population Under 20,000. Yep. That fictional town and I are both mighty proud. But I'm not gonna blow my top and lay to rest several minor characters.

What have I done, you might ask, to deserve this award? GOOD QUESTION! It seems that I am flinging out cheer willy-nilly over the innernets. C'mon! You KNOW the first person you think of when you hear the word SUNSHINE is Val Thevictorian. That's me. Sweetness and light. Kittens and unicorns. Cupcakes. With sprinkles! I'm a regular Pollyanna. Nary a cross word shall issue from my fingertips. What's that? I'm a big fat liar? Hm...have you been looking at my recent driver's license photo?

Lucky for me this award requires me to answer a few questions. What better subject to talk about than ME? And the format surely beats going down to the station and being hooked up to that polygraph machine.

FAVORITE COLOR: Green. Any shade. Neon, forest, emerald, with envy...

FAVORITE ANIMAL: Dog. Sorry, my cats. You are too aloof.

FAVORITE NUMBER: 4. For no particular reason. And in spite of the fact that two of my relatives used to work at State Hospital Number Four. Also referred to, by children, and not very politely, as The Loony Bin.

FAVORITE DRINK: A 44 OZ. DIET COKE!

FACEBOOK or TWITTER? What's that? I don't partake of such employment-terminating sites.

MY PASSIONS: my boys, my husband's quirky ways, Seinfeld trivia, and pretending that I'm a writer.

GIVING or GETTING PRESENTS: Giving. I pick out good stuff. I don't like pretending to like things given to me in good faith. It's the thought that counts, and contrary to popular opinion, I do not like to hurt feelings.

FAVORITE DAY: Friday. The whole weekend stretches ahead, full of promise.

FAVORITE FLOWER: Lilacs. That's what I miss most from my $17,000 house. We tried to dig up shoots and grow them here, but one died the first year, and the other took seven years to bloom. Then the goats ate all the low branches.

There you have it. What makes Val so sunshiny. Drink a cup of that every day, and you might turn out just like me! I think I might market it as Vitamin V. Can't be any crazier than selling people water.

Now, for the moment we've all been waiting for. Who shall receive this award next? While many of my readers (heh, heh, that makes it sound like I have a lot of readers) are worthy, I have decided to foist these awards onto the two dudes on my blogroll: Stephen, the Chubby Chatterbox, and Joe, the Cranky Old Man. If they already have a Sunshine Award, they can darn well accept another. Even if they don't want to respond to the interrogation. I'm sure each of them has a man cave where they shelve their awards, and polish them and talk to them like this clip of cartoon penguin surfer Tank, in Surf's Up, talking about his trophies. Okay. Maybe not that creepy. But I'm sure they can find room for one more.

Thanks again, Tammy, for the opportunity to revisit my favorite subject.