This Year's Awards -- The Parties!

In honor of Handsome Partner's 79th birthday, June 27th, 2011, I have designated all of our annual awards to be centered on him and the people and things and actions that have helped him. Things are very fragile with him right now, crises more often, great loss of faculties, and it seems good to honor the people who are helping him continue to have a life!

Drumroll please for the 2011 Handsome Partner Awards, heretofore known as the Parties!

The award itself consists of my grateful thanks! worth every penny it cost you....and the enormous fame that accrues to being mentioned here in Field and Fen. Try not to let it turn your heads, but feel free to write acceptance comments..

First, the Party for Being There In Every Way When It Counts, goes to the wonderful local First Aid Squad whose members have been in our house more times than you can count, and who have been unfailingly kind, considerate and very professional.



Their cadets were at the store doing a pr stint and fund raising, and I wanted to honor them as future EMTs.

Then the Party for the Most Giving and Friendly Library staff, more than you see in the picture, goes to the other libe I go to, not the one you hear about all the time, who've been honored in other contexts.



Every person in this picture, seen here doing what they do ranging from solving patron puzzles on the computer, which has a new system which we are all learning to navigate, to repairing equipment there and then, has been great friends to us both, never failing to ask for HP when I get in there, exchanging views on The Wedding and what I'm wearing that I might have made and so on. They add a texture you can't describe to our lives. They make it all about us, not about them. Thank you.

And there's Claire Garland, whom I've never met, but whose Party Award, is for Best Book with Far Reaching Consequences! Her book Knitted Babes was the launch pad for the Dollivers.



I changed the designs, adapted, took great liberties, and the Ds. not only have a life of their own and followers, but are one feature of the living room that HP still recognizes and greets happily with "Good morning Dollies" every day. The joy they've brought him is something I hadn't expected, but he still has a great sense of fun, and I thank you, Claire, for your designs.

To a horticulturist whose name I don't know, goes the Party Award for the Most Cheerful and Faithfully Returning and Multiplying Perennial, the Stella d'Oro daylily, which blooms reliably right before HP's birthday each year and celebrates with him for six weeks.



at this point, his senses have faltered to where color and shape are more and more important, in the absence of being able to read much now. To see these huge flowers on the patio, is a daily joy for him, and so it is to me, too.

I have no idea who to give the Best Herb Party to, probably some deity or other, for the few scents HP can still smell and love, and I show you here the rosemary, basil, sage, oregano and thyme he loves.




HPs medical personnel have been honored before, but now we have a new honoree, Helen G., who has become a rock for us, coming in two evenings to week, doing HPs evening care and letting me go out without a care. Party Award for the Latest and Greatest Support Person, in every way, to our whole family goes to Helen.

Last, dear Blogistas, step forward at your computer and take a bow for Best Possible Internet friends, all of you who have written, sent greetings and cards and emails and just generally been there for us, follow our story and give me support that is so significant day to day. It's huge, you can't know how huge.

This includes the lovely people like Minimiss who sends funny and beautiful and touching email pictures, many about animals, a big favorite, and Eepy and Annie and Heather who write actual mail, making sure that there are interesting stamps for him to enjoy, too, and Rhonda who sent him Lapsang Souchong tea when she found he loves it and I can't find it in this region, and MaryAnn who sends marvelous animated greetings for all kinds of seasonal reasons, and Linda who sent me a care package that included items he enjoyed, from Ireland, and on and on. And the C. family, Harold, Jean and my old friend Heather, all of whom have made me feel like an honorary member of their group.

There are a lot of wonderful people, and please consider yourself included if your name doesn't appear here.

We're so lucky.