Sounds like fun but I don’t think I could choose just one. In that sense Xangans are like Lays Potato Chips. “Bet you can’t rec just one.”

Oh, when you say “write a post about who you would nominate” do you mean a post as in a blog or a post as in a comment here? 

I just realized this is about nominations, not winners. I can be dense. So, I’m opening the envelope and from your list my picks are….

@bonmots – She’s my longest time friend here but there are other reasons for picking her. Her superb writing AND her incredible art. For her sharp wit and her thoughts on matters of humanity. The latter applies to my other picks. For encouraging me to write music again. For teaching me what flash writing is and although I’m not a writer and I don’t practice for showing me through her writing how to use words more succinctly. My narratives have improved greatly because I constantly find myself asking, which words in that sentence are unnecessary? Do I really need a comma there? And she’s just lots of fun in her sardonic blogs.. 

@slmret – Our friendship is relatively new yet we have a lot of fun joking back and forth. She has a great sense of humor. She takes wonderful photographs of sailboats, dinosaur birds, nature and man-made structures but here’s what puts her over the top. If you look closely at many of her photos you will spot black helicopters. 

@ZSA_MD – Her wonderful poetry expresses wisdom and humanity born of experience and the effort not to take people and life for granted. I believe she grew up in wealth and privilege yet her heart and the profession she chose serves the least of us. Perhaps what she and I have most in common is we grew up on opposite sides of the world but I embraced her culture and she embraced mine and both our cultures embraced us back.

@godfatherofgreenbay – Well what can I say. I’m allergic to cats. I’ve never wanted a tattoo and it only gets worse. He’s a Green Bay Packers fan. Yet he never fails to entertain. How the hell he puts together all those blogs with to quote “Alice’s Restaurant”,”colour glossy pictures with circles and arrows and a paragraph on the back of each one” week in and week out is beyond me. (Bonmots will enlighten me if I didn’t need that comma.) 

@grannys_place – Her posts are wonderful. A special shout out to Bert, the guinea pig who turned 7 this week outlasting his life expectancy by 2 years and still going strong. Granny is indeed selfless in all that she does. Being selfless doesn’t mean you ignore yourself. It means you think of others and spend what you can of your time and energy to make the lives of others better, and then some. It takes a big heart and a lot of wisdom. She embodies those qualities and shares with all of us, entertains us too. 

@RighteousBruin – For being a man of wisdom and compassion toward all and for sharing his enriching travel journals. How someone travels so much to so many places makes me say “sheesh”. Someone has to do it though and tag, he’s it.

@plantinthewindow – For the wisdom and beauty in his poetry. For the beauty and subject matter of his photographs I’ve admired for years. For his humanity. Everyone in my envelope on this Oscar night embody great humanity.

@angys_coco – For being one of my two favorite Canadians. For her voice on politics and her humanity. How many times have I used the word humanity during the announcement of my nomination picks?

@EmilyandAtticus – For being one of my two favorite Canadians. For having a beautiful and sweet heart. For supporting others. For sharing the wildlife and beauty surrounding her where she lives. In the time we’ve known each other we’ve disagreed only once, quite something because I am easy to disagree with.

@Vexations – For his insights, humor and his educational blogs. I don’t get to his site enough but lately I don’t get around much, being busy. 

@We_deny_everything – For insights, compassion and tenacity in fighting to do the right thing.

@MzSilver – For her entertaining posts, funny jokes and humorous take on things in general.

@TheTheologiansCafe – Okay I’ll give a shout out. Choose any topic and we probably disagree but there are never hard feelings. I’m happy he went dancing with his young daughter a couple of nights ago. I hope she had the time of her life.

@BoulderChristina -  And to the host of tonight’s awards. Though you’re not up for an award tonight you deserve one for your blogs, your comments, for working with a group of children in writing the story of your daughter and for sharing all you have about your daughter with all of us. You have a busy schedule but I know whenever you’re online because I see a multitude of recs of other bloggers.

To the few not on my list, I simply don’t know you well or at all which is my loss.       

@ZSA_MD - Thank you. You are one of the finest I know Zakiah. Thank you for the kind words. Though I appreciate and understand the sentiment (I’ve touched Ustadji’s feet) nobody needs sit at my feet. We’re all equal and look eye to eye. Of all the compliments Ustadji paid me the greatest was when he introduced me as his student and “my good friend”. We ate together hundreds of times. He’s an excellent cook btw. We told each other countless jokes. He loves Chinese food. When he stayed with me I’d often order dinner from a good but fairly typical Chinese restaurant. One evening I took him to a Chinese restaurant 1/2 block from the U.N. It was a classy place. Two waiters in white jackets stood near our table the entire time attending to us. The food is excellent. The following evening I asked if he wanted to go there again. He said no. He preferred the food delivered by the fairly typical restaurant. I could almost write a book about him and his brother Ustad Vilayat Khan or perhaps about my adventures with the wonderful musicians and people of your birth place. OMG a painter I knew for years. I have a lithograph of one of her paintings of Krishna. She went only by the name of Srimati. I swear when she showed me her painting of Kali I thought Kali was going to jump off the canvas and grab me. Her painting of Siddhartha was simply sublime. She was from Madras/Chennai and returned at the end of her life. She died there. There is such depth in your culture modern times can only veil thinly from those who have no interest to see.  Here I am getting carried away again.