Dear Readers,

Last night, Momma and I gathered around the iPad in a state of high anticipation to watch the 32nd Annual IBPA Benjamin Franklin award show.  That’s Ben with the mask in the photo above, in front of all of the book entrants (1700 of them!).  Sadly, we did not win the gold in the Humor Category, but I do have to woof that I’m pretty proud of a silver Bennie!  (Momma, wearily:  “I know — a pawrticipation award would have been fine with you, Lina.”)  As you can probably tell, Momma, always in extreme competitive mode, is a bit disappointed over our loss.

She started out the evening in an excited and hopeful state.  The IBPA group had suggested all finalists send a social media post or two for their potential “red carpet” walk and Momma couldn’t fire them off fast enough.  One of the posts even made it onto the Bennie program, causing a presenter to remark, “Oh, and that’s one of our co-authors, I think.”  I was over the moon — she recognized me!  Here’s that post:

Momma’s mood tanked rapidly, though, after another finalist was named the winner of the humor award.  Here’s the presenter (Momma, not happy that he mispronounced my name, has now taken to calling him that nut with the red nose) announcing the winner:

Momma was devastated.  She perked up a bit though when the producers ran her acceptance speech for our Bennie.  (Finalists were instructed to send a in a short generic-award acceptance video, so the speech could be used no matter what happened.)  Our clip was videoed last March in Florida by our buddy, Roy, all around good guy and husband of my political sister, Rita!  Thanks again, Roy!  Here it is!

Since I wasn’t asked to speak, I’m going to give a big woof out right now to the IBPA program.  As Momma said in the video, we couldn’t be more honored or thankful to be a part of it and to have won an award.  And finally, we want to take this opportunity to congratulate all of the Bennie winners.  (Momma, not able to help herself, does plan to buy To Squeeze a Prairie Dog, though, so she can be the judge if it’s funnier than SSP!)

And so, as you can see, Lina’s life with a difficult Momma goes on — could another book be in the works?

Lina, Bow-Wow with a Bennie!

WOOFDA!