Here it is.
This was given to me by Pat. She's 74 years old, a licensed Lay Eucharistic Minister and Lay Eucharistic Visitor, currently a Parish Administrator and the Treasurer of her local Episcopal church. Given that she probably has a hard time reconciling all of that stuff with coming here and reading my occasionally ribald/blasphemous/cruddy attempts at writing, I am reticent about slicing and dicing her kind offering. However, that's what I do when I get one of these things, so I'm not going to be swayed by hazy notions concerning propriety.
"I Like Your Style!"
Well, I appreciate that compliment. I really do. But...
Look at that... thing. Is that a porcupine? I think it is. And it has some sort of hair beads on the ends of its quills. It's wearing a jumper and sandals. If I saw something like that coming towards me in real life, with its paws outstretched as if to give me a hug, my first reaction would be to run away screaming. I don't suppose that says anything really good about either my manliness or my Christianity, but it's the truth.
I know Pat means well. She's a nice lady. And the fact that a nice lady would be so kind as to give an award of any sort, to an old reprobate like me, should be enough to stop me from being a total weed and spitting at it. But, Damn! I'm hard-pressed to think of a more gruesome bit of cuteness.
In all fairness, I do have to say that I like the bible verse. I believe in the truth of that statement. I'm wracking my brain trying to come up with just exactly what type of gift the pictured marsupial might have, other than the ability to induce type-2 diabetes, but I think the idea is to just acknowledge that such gifts exist in all of us, even if when we put on a jumper and sandals we become the stuff of a bad STP trip.
The rules for this award...
Now there's something that truly rankles me. There are RULES when you get these awards. If you give someone an award, there shouldn't be any rules connected with receiving it. But all of these things come with obligations. Post it in such-and-such a fashion, and link to the person who gave it to you, then pass it on (like a case of the clap) to 16 or 20 other poor souls. There's less pressure involved in winning a Tony (although something like this is usually more indicative of actual popularity, I'll grant you that.)
Anyway, I'm supposed to bestow this upon some other folks. Now, given the level of vituperation I've shown here concerning this, you might logically assume that I wouldn't foist this onto anyone else. You would be wrong, of course. I am nothing if not full of schadenfreude.
(I think it's schadenfreude I'm full of. I know the word begins with an "S", but I don't recall it having quite so many syllables.)
Without any further ado (and we all know how hard that is for me) here are my victims:
Melinda, at From One London To Another. She is a wonderful writer and a truly nice person. The best reason I can think of for me to saddle her with this, however, is that she's too nice to fight back. She's also Canadian. I've never held that against her before, but tough times call for tough measures.
Sween, at Space Monkey Pants. I'm giving it to him because, while he may actually acknowledge getting the award here via a comment (and a funny one at that), he'll likely ignore it otherwise. And he's also Canadian.
Jinksy, at Napple Notes. She's not Canadian, she's English. Close enough.
Brinkbeest, at Brinkbeest In English. She's Dutch. That fact has about as much to do with this as Pauly Shore has to do with civility and good taste, but I've never before given an award to anyone Dutch and I feel I owe that nation something for the many hours of listening pleasure I've received from Focus.
(If it's any consolation to the good folk named above, I would have been more than happy to dump this thing in the laps of nothing but French bloggers, if I knew any. I don't, however, so you're stuck with it.)
And now, having insulted as many people as international law allows me to do in one sitting, I bid you a fondue. You may think that's a malapropism, but when you consider the cheese here, no.
Soon, with more better stuff.
UPDATE: Turns out I actually do know a French blogger. She's only been on my sidebar for, oh, two or three months now. D'Oh! OK, she gets it, too. Hi, Daisy!
UPDATE #2: Here's the payback you get when you try to be oh-so-snarky when given a lovely award by someone nice. I have been informed, by Shammickite, that porcupines are not marsupials. She is right, of course. For some damned reason, I was thinking of a possum while I was writing that bit. Double D'Oh!
UPDATE #3: Of course, Shammickite is a Canadian. She would have to be to point that out, of course. And, now, she has also won the award. Enjoy!
