The Journey

Gratitude on a Hot Summer Night

By on • ( 71 Comments )

Hey, folks.

It’s one o’clock in the morning and still 92 degrees in Dallas.

I know some of you were expecting this post to be the conclusion of “The Bonnywood Embassy”, what with that “to be continued” teaser, and that is coming, but I wanted to share a personal milestone with you:

This is my 1,000th post on Bonnywood Manor.

Granted, as some of you know, I’m guilty of re-posting older material, so there might be a bit of quibble with saying I have made 1,000 “fresh” posts. But even when I recycle, I always review and I almost always make changes, some of them considerable. I seriously consider every post, striving to make sure that even the revisits feel current, hoping that no one feels “cheated”.

I knew this milestone was coming, obsessive as I am about stats and tracking spreadsheets and whatnot, and I spent a few nights in bed, lying awake and wondering what I should do for this post. Should I do a mammoth Past Imperfect? Should I do a “best of” list? Should I reshare my first post, ever? Should I bring back Ellen DeGeneres for yet another encore? Should I do a twisted allegory concerning a kumquat that just wanted to be loved?

In the end, none of that felt right. But this does:

Thank you.

Thank you for reading.

Thank you for coming back to read more.

Thank you for the liking and the commenting and the sharing.

Thank you for lifting me up on the days when I needed it. And the days that I didn’t.

Thank you for letting me rant when I just had to get it out.

Thank you for being kind-hearted people who understand that we are all flailing humans, hoping for better.

Thank you for being a friend. (We’ve traveled down the road and back again.)

(Thank you for putting up with the unceasing and obscure trivia. It’s in my DNA.)

Thank you for tolerating the multi-part stories that I never finished, the story suggestions I embraced but then never did anything about, and the overall randomness of what you might find next on this site.

Thank you for looking the other way when the jokes fell flat, because I know they sometimes do.

Thank you for the honest conversation that many people are missing in their lives. If only we could all speak the truth, all the time. Long road, but there is a light…

Thank you for understanding that accepting diversity is the key to the future.

Thank you for helping me look forward to that future.

And thank you for helping the little Oklahoma boy find his wings.

 

Categories: The Journey

Tagged as: , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

71 replies »

  7. Congratulations Brian. That’s a major milestone! A great deal of thought, energy, and time when into writing 1000 posts. Relax, celebrate, and then I hope you will get to work on the next 1000 posts 🙂

    Liked by 2 people

    Reply

  10. Bravo my liege …. that is an accomplishment to be proud of. And I will stick with you every step of the way forward because you, my friend, are one in a million and very very talented 💋

    Liked by 2 people

    Reply

    • I bow humbly, Mistress of Just the Right Words, especially since you (perhaps unbeknownst) hold the record for inspiring me to write the most number of stories that I have never actually written. So you simply must stay with me, for those eventual days when I finally follow through… 😉

      Liked by 1 person

      Reply

      • I am wearing that accolade from now on as a slightly ostentatious, sparkling tiara. I will wear it everywhere which means that when I go swimming I can wear my plush towel cloak-like and pretend to be Miss Congeniality (OK, I do that anyway, but the crown will make it feel so much more authentic …) and when I go grocery shopping people will smile and point and although I will know that they are actually laughing AT me, their worlds will be as happy, in that brief moment, as mine always is for knowing this joyous fact. *beaming …. or is it, beam me up Scotty* 😉

        Liked by 1 person

        Reply

  11. And I thought you were the strong quiet type! A millennia of posts deserves high praise, especially from another logorrhea sufferer. In all good fun, you’re a highlight of My reader always putting a smile on my face. 💜

    Liked by 2 people

    Reply

      • Gosh golly gee Brian… I blush easily…not a great quality for my oh so cool persona. Well, bless my heart…it’s only a hot flash.

        Thank you truly. Here’s to finding more Bonnywood figurines and architectural wonders to dull the seasonal post nasal hangovers with joy and laughter. Still my personal fave of yours.

        And if any of my readers need a good gaff-awing, and face it we all do – head over to the Manor of nouveau landed gentry-man, Sir Lageose, Lord of Bonnywood.

        Liked by 1 person

        Reply

  12. I’m celebrating today too (also with ‘wings’), and am so glad I was brave enough to venture into the Community as this was exactly the sort of thing I was hoping to find. Eclectic, quirky, leftfield, humour with a bit of surrealism. And the ‘Bonnywood Tribe’ (if nobody minds that moniker) that congregate and comment, are testament to what a fab thing you got going here. Congratulations on your 1000! 😊

    Liked by 3 people

    Reply

    • Well, as you know, I’ve already hopped over to The Lockwood Echo for your celebratory post, wherein we had a fine time with the fellowship of our kinship, so I won’t sully my comments there by lazily repeating them here, other than to say stumbling upon a tribe of any kind where everyone is delightfully supportive is a fine and wonderful thing…

      Liked by 1 person

      Reply

  13. And thank YOU for being consistently entertaining and thought-provoking even when deliberately silly or absurd. It’s always a treat to find Bonnywood Manor in the inbox. One thousand seems like a good excuse to celebrate.

    Liked by 2 people

    Reply

  14. Wow! That is some achievement, Brian. Congratulations to you. I am so happy to have stumbled across your blog. THANK YOU for making me laugh and smile so much.

    Thank you also for being so welcoming and supportive. I implore you to never stop being random, witty and spot on.

    By the way, are all those ducks still in residence?

    Liked by 3 people

    Reply

    • Maddy: Thank you! And I implore you to keep doing exactly what you are doing on your own site. You have a masterful knowledge of movies and film history, but this is outshone by the refreshing and engaging way in which you compose your posts. You have the hard-to-achieve ability to write with a direct but gentle honesty that is rare.

      Speaking of the ducks…

      Maddy and Melanie: There are still mini-ducks all over this house, although I have rounded up most of them due to their eventually-annoying placement. Duckis Giganticus has been shoved off the coffee table (he was obstructing my purview of the TV from my normally-assumed position on one of the couches in the den), but he has not yet been deflated. He is currently ass-up, leaning against the fireplace that we don’t utilize during the summer months…

      Liked by 2 people

      Reply

      • Thank you so much for your kind words about my blog. It means a lot to me. Your support has meant a lot to me.

        Instead of letting them lounge around the house, maybe you could put the ducks to good use as guards of Bonnywood Manor? They could loudly quack to alert you when cold callers and people you don’t like are approaching the manor gates…

        Liked by 1 person

        Reply

    • Thanks, Barbara! And I’ve enjoyed following you. I realize I don’t often comment, but you are very prolific and it’s a bit hard to come up with something clever for each of your missives. Still, I have a great time perusing all the wonderful things you have to share…

      Liked by 1 person

      Reply

  16. Thank you for: Being consistently funny, even when you didn’t really mean to be.
    Sharing joy, a commodity that America is in serious lack of.
    Uniting at least one weird person (me) with a community.
    Proving that gender doesn’t matter, all that matters is understanding and love.
    Being my friend. We’ve never met, but our souls did at some point somewhere. They were fast friends and we had the happy experience of meeting now.
    Smiling and laughing at my poor efforts and giving me hope.
    Proving to me that I’m not alone in the particular flavor of sense of humor that I have.
    Proving that trivia is a good thing and not the quality of over occupied minds.
    Putting up with my long and windy comments.
    Sharing in the ‘furkids have a voice too’ fantasy that I like to indulge myself in..

    You’re simply the best. And we all love you, you know that, right? ❤

    Happy 1,000! What a milestone! :p

    Liked by 3 people

    Reply

    • Ah, where to begin? Well, let’s just go right to the deep stuff. Your comments made me cry, but in a wonderful and satisfying way. I completely understand everything you said, echoing my own thoughts concerning the serendipity of our journey together. I firmly believe that kindred souls can instantly identify one another, based on just a word or two. We have a radar, we people of a certain shared experiences, and that radar is rarely wrong. We might differ slightly with a few minor things, but those are tiny bits, and the overall sense of affinity is the important signpost. Let’s never lessen the importance of kismet…

      Liked by 1 person

      Reply

      • 🙂 Do keep an eye on that gigantic duck though. Now deceased hubby used to blame his flatulence on ducks…saying “I stepped on another duck…” Well my thought is that that giant duck might blow y’all throw the wall if it got windy for some reason. Also I never asked, what does Scotch and Cleo think of that huge yellow looks vaguely like a cat toy thing? I’m so very glad for kismet.. ❤

        Liked by 1 person

        Reply

  17. Not everyone can attract the attention of lots of people, but obviously you have done it! I thank you for thanking your readers, and I know your readers (myself included) thank you for entertaining us in many and varied ways. Thank you for representing and encouraging siliness or whatever else one might feel. Too many of us get too tied up in “not offending” and bury our thoughts and emotions, which is not healthy.

    Liked by 3 people

    Reply

  20. Is there a cake? Did you blow out all the candles?

    This island of sanity, wit and humor in a bitter troubled world is what this soul has needed on many days.
    Thank-you, be well.

    Liked by 2 people

    Reply

  22. This is a lovely post and sorry that I’ve been quiet. (Have a release coming up and it sucked all the time from my life.) Congrats on hitting the 1K mark. That’s amazing. Please don’t stop. I need the laughs and carry around the Assman Cometh chapter from Screaming in Paris in my head to stay sane and in a good mood. Hope to finish your book this week whist avoiding crinkly packages. If others don’t understand this inside reference, they need yo buy your book.

    Liked by 2 people

    Reply

    • Oh, no worries about intermittent lulls. As long as you pop in every once in a while with a bit of charm and wit, I’m perfectly happy.

      Thank you for reading “Paris”. To be honest, very few people bother to do so, to the point that I often forget I even have books out there that I should probably be promoting. Life goes on. But yes, other folks should read it just for the Assman Cometh reference… 😉

      Liked by 1 person

      Reply

  24. Wow! That’s quite the accomplishment, and a perfect response to it. Well done!
    I still remember when I first found your site and how I was immediately swept away by your creativity and imagination. I still am. ❤

    Liked by 2 people

    Reply

    • And I still remember when I first found your own site, my heart percolating with admiration, and then I made that tremendous snafu concerning your given name, when all I wanted to do was share the love, failing miserably. But at least I can now use that snafu as a nostalgic reference point, even though everyone else has moved beyond it… 😉

      Liked by 1 person

      Reply

Leave a Reply

Fill in your details below or click an icon to log in:

Gravatar
WordPress.com Logo

You are commenting using your WordPress.com account. ( Log Out /  Change )

Twitter picture

You are commenting using your Twitter account. ( Log Out /  Change )

Facebook photo

You are commenting using your Facebook account. ( Log Out /  Change )

Cancel

Connecting to %s

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.