Winners & Losers

I read in next month’s Mad Mag that gardening is “relaxing,” but I bet uber-gardener Karen Johannsen wasn’t busy fighting back a dandelion insurgency when she made the observation. I just came in from the backyard, where I wielded this AMAZING hook-shaped, ax-like tool in last year’s vegetable garden called the Cobrahead. I bought the handy-dandy weed weapon at the magazine’s Green Expo last month, where I can attest to you that I was relaxing.

No, the ten-minute exercise in futility on this dusky Thursday evening, alone in my backyard jungle, was anything but relaxing. It was more like a mass murder. I must’ve ripped up and yanked out the tenacious roots of two-dozen dandelions, easily a foot-high and aiming to take over my garden and my yard like a tumor on the brain.

Relaxing. Right.

Inside, I wash my dirty hands, check on the kid sawing remarkably large logs in her bedroom, and toss my muddy flip-flops in the corner. That’s when I notice my toes—the coiffed, pedicured peds I spent fifty-five dollars on three days ago and hours before the big awards dinner at The Peabody in Memphis. At thirty-seven years old, this was my first indulgence in affairs of the feet.

After the pedicure, I spent a few more hours in seminars, soaking up the web-saturated conversations and resolving to take home the hints, tips, and words of wisdom to justify the expense of a business trip in these heady economic times. Then I threw on my fancy new dress, slipped my swanky red pumps onto my pedicured feet, and marched downstairs to win an award.

We took third—bronze—for general excellence in city-regional magazines with a circulation of 30,000 or less. We took gold for multimedia, a nod to the work we do with sister station WISC-TV and web wonder Channel 3000. Both are stellar honors. Both put Madison Magazine head and shoulders above our peers in the industry, as well as our local competitors, who couldn’t qualify for a prestigious award like this because they aren’t audited or opt not to abide by the basic guidelines of journalistic integrity. That’s another story.

Thanks to the City Regional Magazine Association for judging us worthy. Thanks to my incredible staff of writers, editors and designers. Thanks to Neil, my compass-slash-navigator in this fascinating and complex city. Thanks to my family for being my biggest fans. Most of all, thanks to Madison, Wisconsin for making a Harrisonburg, Virginia girl feel right at home these last fourteen years—without a fancy-dancy pedicure.