The Mudflats

Well, the Muckrakers Ball was a blast!  Spouse and I arrived at 7:00 and Rumrunners was already filling up.  We were greeted by the wonderful people at Cook Inletkeeper who welcomed us and guided us to the back room where a huge spread of food awaited.  I was a bit nervous, but decided in the interest of not keeling over (since I hadn’t had lunch) I’d have some food and a pomegranate martini – for medicinal purposes only, of course.

I had such a great time mingling and meeting people.  The house was packed. There were environmental people, political people, bloggers, friends from my pre-blogging life, and everyone was in high spirits.  There was a big table with lots of literature about Cook Inletkeeper, and a board member explained to me that every $150 donation would receive matching grants from a variety of sources and CI would end up receiving a total of $600 by the time it was all done.  I thought that was pretty amazing.  I grabbed an envelope and am going to make sure that my magic growing donation of ($150—>POOF!—>$600)  goes out this week.  If you’d like to do the same, or join Cook Inletkeeper and support their important work of protecting the Cook Inlet watershed at any level, click HERE!

At about 8:30, the time came to give my speech.  I had been really nervous for the past couple days.  I don’t mind public speaking, but this is the first time I’d ever received an award, nevermind from an organization that I have so long admired. 

~Your emcee for the evening, Shannyn Moore

Shannyn Moore gave me an incredible introduction.  Then, right as I stepped up on stage, they handed me the most amazing, gorgeous, awesome award I have ever seen in my life.  It was a little golden RAKE!  There was a brass plaque on top, and the whole thing was mounted on a slab of granite.  How cool is THAT?!  I felt like a little kid at Christmas, and my well rehearsed opening lines that I assure you were full of pithy insight and deep gravitas, turned into a giddy, “Wow! I got a golden RAKE!”

~Shannyn and I examine the Golden Rake

I found out later that the rake maker is Mako Haggerty of Mako’s Water Taxi service in Homer, who was at the event, and I got to tell him in person how awesome I thought it was.

I ended up talking about the power of blogs, and social media, and how we are really in the middle of a communication revolution.  I talked about how each of us now has the tools to reach out via blogs, Facebook, YouTube, Twitter and a host of other means to make sure that the issues we care about are shared, and understood.  Environmentally speaking, we want to save what we love.  And we love what we know and understand, and we only understand and know when people explain to us and share their own knowledge.  So, how amazing is it that every single person has the ability to do that all on their own – to speak in their own voice, as their own editor, and send it out to the universe.

I also mentioned that my 8-year old after hearing me on the phone the other day said, “Mom, did you win an award?” and I said, “Yes, I won Muckraker of the Year!” and knowing my screen name he said, “Well of course.  That’s your name.”  I explained that I’d be performing a little experiment to test this new theory.  Now that I’ve won the most coveted prize of all, I was thinking about chaging my name to AKPulitzer.  Or perhaps AKLotterywinner.  Hey, you never know.

Then, the speech out of the way, Phil Munger at Progressive Alaska kindly bought me pomegranate martini #2, which I very much needed at that point.

Then tickets were pulled out of the bowl, and the giving of prizes began.  Mudflatters will be pleased to know that our very own WfAK (Writing from Alaska) won the “split the pot” drawing!

She walked out of the event with more green than she came with!  Congratulations!

More mingling, dancing, eating, and general merriment.  I got back up on the stage and asked everyone to wave to all of you who weren’t there.  Shannyn said, “You’re going around the globe!”  So this is a big Mudflats greeting to YOU!

This morning, I slept in.  Buf the dog and I have the house to ourselves, and I’m sitting with a cup of coffee watching the amazing sunrise over the Chugach mountains, turning the snow a luminous shade of pink, and thinking how lucky I am.  Thanks to everyone who was at the event in person or in spirit, all of you who make Mudflats what it is and have supported me in various ways over the last year and a half, and thank you to the Board of Directors at Cook Inletkeeper for honoring me and Mudflats with such a great event. 

And, I have a GOLDEN RAKE!

~Me, the Golden Rake, and Bob Shavelson, Executive Director of Cook Inletkeeper