Lovely, Lovely Thursday Meme

Meming right along...

The next meme on my list comes to me from esteemed correspondent Snøskred, who blogs in Australia at Life in the Country.  If you visit her, do check out her photostream:  kitties AND kangaroos!

Snøskred has seen fit to bestow upon me a Thoughtful Blogger Award.

This award was originated by Christy Z. at Writer's Reviews, and it is supposed to be:

For those who answer blog comments, emails, and make their visitors feel at home on their blogs. For the people who take others' feelings into consideration before speaking out and who are kind and courteous.  Also for all of those bloggers who spend so much of their time helping others bloggers design, improve, and fix their sites. This award is for those generous bloggers who think of others.

Gee thanks, Snøskred!  I don't actually believe I deserve such a thing, since I am hardly a paragon of putting other people first, but it is very kind of you to think of me this way nonetheless.

The rules at award originator Christy's site say to pass it or one of her other awards on to up to five other bloggers.  As stated previously, I am not terribly good at following rules precisely, so I'm going to list as many people as I can think of who I feel especially deserve this kind of recognition, and they can pass it on to others or not as they see fit.

I think these people are more than ordinarily lovely, polite, considerate, and generally compassionate to their visitors and to other members of their various blogging communities, even when things wax heated in comments or at other locations:

Leslee at 3rd House Journal
Nora at Alphabitch
Jeanne at The Assertive Cancer Patient
Sognatrice at Bleeding Espresso
Goldfish at Diary of a Goldfish
Penny at Disability Studies, Temple University
MB at Find Me a Bluebird
Kay at The Gimp Parade
Dale at Mole
Jana at Pilgrim Girl
Elizabeth at Screw Bronze!
Patry at Simply Wait
Ron at Toad in the Hole

Now I have to gush.

We are all busy, and there is a difference between friendship in real life and online correspondence (though sometimes when we are really lucky that difference evaporates), and between public diarying and intimate correspondence, and for these and other reasons, many bloggers make it a practice to distance themselves from their readership.  You people I have listed are different.  You people are not just speechifying and preachifying, ranting and venting (though some of you are really good at it when you do), and your comments sections are more than just electronic guestbooks.  You people engage with us, your readers, where suitable and as much as can be reasonably expected, and you do it, well, thoughtfully.  Sometimes goofily.  You act like people, even in pixel, and you take the time to treat those of us who frequent your blogs and respond to what you share with us like people, also.

A perfect meme for Love Thursday, right?  You know, if Love Thursday were still around?  For yes, it is love -- linky love!  How very internet!

And to supplement the graphic, just like when you give someone a real award with a bouquet, here's a flower.  (Click to enlarge.)

It's more than a flower; it's an environment, and a gift, and I got it from feeding birds and squirrels.  I leave out seed for them, and they not only eat it but also plant it, and sometimes it blooms, like this sunflower is about to, and all in all the group activity amongst the lot of us creates a fertile, cozy environment for all sorts of things none of us specifically had in mind.

Here's another token of my esteem, the very sight of which was also a gift to me, and also nestled within an entire environment, the flowerbed at the local organic farm I frequent:   (Click to enlarge.)

The zinnias are planted to sell, and I personally go to the farm not to buy zinnias but food, but look:  more than just the farm and me benefit from its existence, from the farmers' work, and from my and others' support of it generally.

I'm awkwardly trying to make a point here about personal style, and about the kind of personal style I'm appreciating by passing on this award, and the kind of good I think it does in the world.  I don't think I need to bludgeon anyone over the head by spelling it out further; you're all wicked smart, and I'm sure you get what I'm trying to say.

But here's the part I should say anyway:  Thank you.

And carry on, please.

Comments

[elizabeth]

Congrats - well I think you deserve it - though wow, I have a hard time finding you (I keep ending up in your hiaku section) - congrats again.

[Christopher Bell]

Congratulations on your award, Sara!

[Sara]

Ah, Elizabeth -- I'm so glad you popped in, because actually I meant to include you but I forgot. This is no reflection on you; this is a reflection more on the state of what's left of my mind, and very embarrassing to me. I would rather look like a complete idiot, though, than leave out someone I think deserves to be recognized, so I have amended my list to include you. I haven't been reading your blog very long, but I see you doing this same thing that I so appreciate, genuinely conversing with people not just flailing into space. There's a place for good flailing, too, I strongly feel; I read two blogs that don't even have comments sections. But conversation takes extra and so deserves extra appreciation.

Christopher, thank you. It's a silly little thing, but it's always nice to hear that people like what we are doing, isn't it? And as an added bonus it gives me the opportunity to publicly appreciate still other people.

Of course, the ability to converse also depends largely on the people who show up, so I also want to take this opportunity to thank my commenters, who are a nice little bunch of people with unique vision, interesting things to say, and excellent senses of humor. Plus you all put up with all my puns, or at least don't complain too often.

Cheers, all!

[Michelle]

My dear, you are very deserving of this award, and I thank you kindly for recognizing me as well; I don't think I could not respond and get involved in comments if I tried, so I guess it's a win-win ;)

Thanks for the environments, and you know you're wicked smart (smaht?) too :)

[Sara]

Thank you, Sognatrice. And I know what you mean about the "win-win." :)

[The Goldfish]

Thank you, Sara. This is indeed a lovely Meme, very well deserved on your part and very much appreciated on mine. I don't respond to every comment, but I do try. I also regard my on-line friends as real friends. On blogs, I know all manner of strangers may be reading and not everyone with whom I cross paths on a regular basis is exactly friend level - and then there are on-line friends who I have met in real life, who I speak to on the phone etc.. Oh and AJ who I met on-line of course - although we still communicate by e-mail if one of us is not talking to the other.

Certainly, if you didn't live on the other side of the world, I would have you round to chat over tea and cake. :-)

[MB]

"more than just the farm and me benefit from its existence, from the farmers' work, and from my and others' support of it generally" Yup, that's the way the world works and you said it wicked well.

"You act like people, even in pixel..." made me chuckle. Congratulations, dear Sara, and thanks to you for acting like a real person, I'm glad you're out there, too.

[Sara]

Thank you, ladies!

Goldfish, you do very well indeed, and just so you know, I would also like to have you over for tea any time you might find yourself in my neighborhood. Not likely, I know, but not impossible. We could totally make jam tarts, and they would be fabulous, even though we might cheat and use store-bought crust. ;)

MB, I am so happy to see you here. I have missed your poetry and am overjoyed to see you've made a new entry at last over at your place, even though what you have already given us is so much. (Just greedy, I guess.) Here's to the treasure of your fertile mind and warm heart.

[Librarian Girl]

Nicely put, Sara! Woot!

[Sara]

Woot to you, Librarian Girl! Nice to see you here!

[jeanne]

Food porn? Girl, I will give you food porn.

These aren't my recipes, which are coming tomorrow, this is just what I ate from my garden today.

Midmorning:
Smoothie made with boysenberries, yoghurt, and a dash of milk (organic, natch) It's a lovely pinky-purple in color and very thick if you freeze the berries, as I do.

Midafternoon:
Feeling a little peckish after several hours on hands and knees cleaning and oiling my 1908 fir floors, I wandered out to the front garden, dug a few new potatoes, boiled them (they cook very quickly), and ate them with butter, salt, and pepper.

Late dinner:
Zucchini and green onions. Fresh picked, sliced and sauteed in a dab of butter. A sprinkle of salt, and I ate on the front porch, which is now open to all my friends.

Most of my summer "cooking" is not much more complicated that this, but I'll come up with some real recipes and put them on my blog tomorrow--what fun!

Jeanne
www.assertivepatient.com

[jeanne]

Oh, and thanks for sharing your award with me! I'm touched. I feel that my online friends are becoming real friends, and I plan to meet one of them, Jacqueline on Rebel1in8 in New York at the end of the summer.

Unless or until traffic to my blog gets to be too heavy, I certainly try to respond to everyone who writes to me, especially people who are in distress--even though I won't tell them what I think they should do. And I love the online debates, like our recent one about privacy and blogging. Learned from that one.

Jeanne Again

[Ron Sullivan]

Well, thanks! And as antisocial as I've been lately... Well. Thanks!

You deserve that award not only for how you are here, but how gentle, civilized, and caring you are at other people's blogs. Mine, for example.

Thanks for that. It's a lifeline, you know, and incredibly precious.

[Sara]

Thank you, ladies!

Jeanne, I look forward delightedly to your further food porn. I also look forward to reading about your in-person experience of Rebel1in8's gorgeous clothing line. And of course, should you ever find yourself in eastern Massachusetts, do let me know. There will be iced tea on the balcony.

Ron, you have been going through such a bad and dark thing lately, I'm impressed that you're even able to get out of bed, let alone ever show up to talk to people pleasantly online. But still you contribute your lovely bird pictures and food pictures and delightfully twisted sense of humor. Even in pain, you manage to be a voice of reason and delight. And that's why there are so many "Ronnabes"!

[Kay]

You people are not just speechifying and preachifying, ranting and venting (though some of you are really good at it when you do), and your comments sections are more than just electronic guestbooks. You people engage with us, your readers, where suitable and as much as can be reasonably expected, and you do it, well, thoughtfully. Sometimes goofily. You act like people, even in pixel, and you take the time to treat those of us who frequent your blogs and respond to what you share with us like people, also.

Hey, thanks so much!

I have to admit, though, that once in a while I write something (usually this occurs in comments where I'm more off-the-cuff than posts) and think, "Oh, I'm so full of crap! Someone call me on this."

Generally, people look politely the other way.

But I do consider the people I converse with frequently online as friends. I've met just enough of them in the flesh, or had them buck me up when very ill last year, to know that some online acquaintances are friends I don't happen to have met in person. Yet.

And comments to blog posts feel strangely like getting snail mail because there's that little flush of excitement: "Yippee! What's she got to say now?" And what's better than mail, right?

[Sara]

Ha ha ha ha -- I have not found you to be full of crap, Kay, not once that I can remember. Usually you crack my mind open to possibilities I never imagined, leaving me too full of thinking to actually say anything. And people who've known me awhile know how rare it is for me to ever find my mouth stopped up by my brain, so that makes you fairly remarkable on yet another count. :)

Cheers!

[leslee]

Oh thank you! That's so nice to see, here when I've been too busy to visit and feeling guilty about failing to keep up with my blog friends. I still think this is an amazing medium to "meeting" some thoughtful, fun, genuinely nice human beings. Such as yourself. :-)

[Sara]

Oh, please, Leslee, you're one of the nicest people on the internet.

Real life trumps blogging, period. We all have other things to do besides this, and most of us understand and accept this about each other, as reasonable people should. You're just so very welcome whenever and wherever you do show up, and I wanted you to know that not just your presence, but this aspect of your presence, your infallibly gracious manner of dealing with others, was appreciated. :)