As you all know, I'm something of a curmudgeon about awards, but once in a while I can make an exception. I received the following message in my email last night and felt I should share it along with my gratitude for the lovely (though undeserved) honor.

Our dragons had their weekly meeting to pick the top wordzzle of the day.


The rules were simple. You had to post by 6:00 Eastern time to be entered.
Then you had to have fantastic writing that amused or enlightened our dragons.
Variety also scored points.


On this the year anniversary of the most important contest on the net ( dragons like to think they are important) the task was made doubly hard by the return of several people to the writing. This, of course, meant more reading. At least they didn't have to read Dr. John's or Betty's blogs because they can't be considered. Even if they could Elijah John's grandson interrupted the meeting of the dragons and knocked one off of the computer. If Dr. John was in the contest there would be lots of points off for that.


But today when all were read there was no question in the dragon's minds as to the winner.
The award goes to the Queen of wordzzles, the master of words, the great picker of phrases who today gave us three examples of how good she could be, all completely different. She had a little thing about her, a story on everybody's life, and a intergalactic adventure. All with superb writing.


That of course my dear Raven is you.
Congratulations

The rules for this particular honor do seem to have been stacked in my favor. On merit, I think we probably had a 14-way tie, so I gratefully receive this honor on behalf of all my fellow wordzzlers - whose creaitivity and cleverness are awesome and inspiring. Many thanks to the dragons and their spokesperson.