I t's the dog days of summer, the garden and the gardener are tired, almost as good a time as winter to have some fun. As an antidote to all the seriousness in the world of gardening and blogging, I welcome you to the 1st (and possibly last), long awaited (by me at least, as I was going to do this in the winter, but I didn't want to interfere with the Mouse & Trowels), totally unanticipated (drumroll, please) Bizarro Garden Awards .
In the grand tradition of American ripoffs "Sanford & Son," "The Office" and "Life on Mars," comes the Bizarro Garden Awards, stolen inspired by Going to the Dogs' OMG Alternative Garden Awards. Bizarro refers to the exact opposite, as in "Bizarro Superman" and "Bizarro Jerry."
Like all of the above, the original British version is superior (all right, I might be being unfair to "Life On Mars" as I haven't seen the American version, but, come on, having an American cop compare something to "Starsky & Hutch" just doesn't have the weirdness factor of a Brit saying that). While Bizarro would require these to be for the worst of something, we're ignoring the strict letter of the law, so to speak, to allow for best ofs as well.
To borrow and paraphrase another Seinfeldism, they're the awards for the rest of us. Nothing official here, no sponsors, no prizes, you can make up your own nomination categories, nominate as many as you like. As I'm from Chicago, vote early, vote often; you can even vote for yourself. These awards are about fun; any mean-spiritedness will result in your immediate ejection and you will not receive the commemorative nose hair clippers and statue of Victor Mature.
Here are a few categories to kick things off:
- Plant You Love to Hate
- Favorite Plant You Can't Grow
- Worst Plant Name
- Worst Weed
- Worst Bug
- Worst Neighbor
- Gardener Most Likely to Get a Nasty Comment From PETA
- Guess Who's Coming to Dinner: gardener you'd most like to come to your house and cook for you
- Anyone Can Host: gardener whose house you'd most like to visit for dinner
- Gardener you'd most like to party with
- Garden you'd most like to party in
- Best Gardener Who Doesn't Own a Computer
- Favorite Dog
- Favorite Cat
- Favorite Chicken
- Cutest Kids
- Mad Hatter - gardener who looks the best in a hat
- Best Garden Hat
- Best Garden Shirt
- Hoe d'culture - favorite garden tool
- Extreme Hoarders: gardener with the best tool collection
- Oldest garden gloves
- Funkiest Garden Art
- Best Cartoons or Drawings
What do you think? I'll post my answers shortly.