Confession: In the past year and a half, I received a Versatile Blogger award from Jana Rade of DawgBusiness and one from Sharon Castellanos of Grouchy Puppy, as well as a Lovely Blog award from Vera Marie Badertscher of A Traveler’s Library. And I haven’t passed them along.
That is VBBK (Very Bad Blog Karma).
The basic tenets of both awards are the same, except for the second section, which only the Versatile Blogger award requires. So without further ado:
Thank the person people who gave you the award: Thank you very much Vera Marie, Jana, and Sharon. All evidence to the contrary, I was very moved and appreciative for the recognition.
Share 7 things about yourself:
- I am in the process of arranging to have a swarm of bees on my roof relocated. Note that the word “relocate” is not a euphemism for “sent to bee heaven.” I don’t want to have ABK (Angry Bee Karma) in addition to VBBK so I am not planning to euphemize my bees.
- I honeymooned in two of the three Axis of Evil countries, Afghanistan and Iran, and one Cold War enemy, the Soviet Union. In my defense, I was a hippie, they weren’t Axis of Evil countries at the time, and I wanted to visit the Hermitage.
- I sometimes let Frankie lick my plates and then serve other people from them (after actually washing them).
- My Ph.D. dissertation was later published as a book, The Collected Poems of Paul Blackburn.
- Despite this evidence to the contrary, I often dream that I never finished my dissertation or that, because of some technicality, I have to give my Ph.D. back.
- My office floor is strewn with piles of paper, theoretically en route to file folders that are often mislabeled.
- I revise everything I write endlessly. This last revelation has been at least 5 different things.
Pass the Award to 15 as many as you have time for other bloggers you’ve discovered
In spite of having established a guilt-free zone, I worry that the people I didn’t choose for the awards won’t like me. I assure you, I love many other blogs. I owe all the following bloggers money.
I leave it up to the bloggers themselves to decide whether they’re Lovely or Versatile or both (note: If you’re Lovely you don’t have to share seven things about yourself, embarrassing or otherwise).
Dancing Dog Blog. Mary Haight brings a wonderful blend of compassion and serious smarts to a blog that is often the bearer of (useful) bad news — pet food recalls, puppy mill busts– but also knows how to have a good time with interviews of small pet business owners, say, and giveaways (my favorite was the monk-made dog biscuits).
Go Pet Friendly. Rod and Amy Burkert complement the service part of their pet travel website — which is extremely useful — with a Fetching News blog that often deals with serious issues about traveling with pets, in an engaged, often playful fashion. Great pictures of their road trips, too.
Dog Spelled Forward. Eric Goebelbecker tackles dog training issues with a daunting intellect and, at times, righteous anger. And did I mention funny?
Champion of My Heart. Roxanne Hawn manages to squeeze a LOT of topics — caring for aging parents, books, relationships — into a blog that has Lilly, a fearful dog, as its center, writing with wit and thoughtfulness.
Boulder Dog. Deborah Flick blogs from the heart while putting her moving tales of everyday life with Sadie, her fearful poodle, into a larger context of training theories she’s read about and worked with over time.
Dog Jaunt. Mary-Alice Pomputius brings a delightfully geeky (and exemplary) attention to detail to her reviews of travel-related products and dog-friendly transportation. Her site’s got a great new look too.
Fido and Wino. Shauna (whose last name I can’t find on her blog) is a sassy Woman with Attitude, endlessly upbeat about rescue without ever crossing the line into (shudder) perky. Her ROAR (Rescue Owners are Rocking) series, well, rocks.
FearfulDogs’ Blog. Debbie Jacobs’ assessments of working with fearful dogs is commonsensical, intrepid, earnest, sympathetic — and philosophical. I always learn something about the world from her blog.
Hmmm. I seem to read a lot of blogs about fearful dogs. I can’t imagine why.
Finally I am going to put my favorite vet bloggers into a single “You don’t have to pass this along because you’re way too busy” category: Dr. V at Pawcurious; Janet Tobiassen Crosby at About.com: Veterinary Medicine; Lorie Huston at The Pet Health Care Gazette; and Shawn Finch at Riley and James Fan Club. Although each has a distinct tone and style, they share a love for animals and the people who care about them.
To be continued with a Travel, Food, and Everything Else I Love to Read About — aka Kitchen Sink — edition
Don't be antisociable: Share!
Friday Focus: It’s pet transport, not travel
As a result of the helpful comments I received for the questions I posed on Sunday about pets too large to fly in airline cabins I learned the following:
PetRelocation.com explained the third point as follows: