Earlier this evening, I was telling my wife about Kossacks who were anonymously giving subscriptions and that one of the gifts went to Triciawyse, Queen of teh Pooties. I think the world of Triciawyse, although I've never met her in person. Her pootie and woozle diaries have been a daily comfort to me since I started lurking here in 2004. I was very pleased that someone had recognized her contibutions to the Dailykos community. I'm retired and my pension is such that I must put up with ads. It wasn't me Trish, but I wish it could have been.
While Mrs. ruleoflaw and I were talking about it, I went to my own profile page and saw that someone had given me a gift subscription!
I'm floored.
To the person who gave me the subscription:
THANK YOU EVERSOMUCH!
I started lurking here after George W. Bush got re-elected. I was shocked and depressed about four more years of Chimpy. I clicked on a dailykos.com link at some other website, (Salon? Atrios?) and read the diary. I liked the site, but then, I like a lot of websites. I visited dailykos a couple more times, read a few front page articles but never clicked on any of the diary links. I never bothered to join the site because I rarely read the comments and had no idea how the ratings system worked. I was on dialup at the time and opening the comments was asking for trouble. After buying a new computer with more ram and upgrading my connection, the comments were more accessible but I was set in my ways and rarely looked at them.
Then one day, I saw it.
The words in a diary title.
Pooties and woozles.
WTF is a pootie? I clicked on the diary and a menagerie of critters and crazy captions tumbled down the monitor. In the comments there were more pictures of cats and dogs and other critters. I laughed till my sides hurt. I had a very stressful job at the time and the pootie diaries were a joyful way to unwind after work. The commenters all seemed to know each other and Triciawyse was a sort of benevolent queen bee. They were having fun and I wanted to join in. So I did. I lurked among the pootie people and learned the jargon. Then I got a user name and password.
I was driven here by the idiocy of Chimpy McAwol but I stayed for the snark and the pootie diaries. When I bumped into another Kossack from Wisconsin, it was just "Hey cheeshead!" and move on.
Then Scott Walker blew up my State and my job and suddenly, the "virtual community" became real. I was actually meeting other Kossacks out in the real world. My daughter (knitolitics) joined. We were protesting and recalling state senators. Kossacks from all over the place were sending pizzas and cash to help us out. People from far away were saying nice things about my friends & I and the place we call home.
Together, we Kossacks are struggling to restore decency and fairness to our society. I am personally striving to live a life worthy of that struggle. Somebody felt that my presence at Dailykos.com was important enough to break out their wallet. I am humbled and deeply moved. Words cannot express the depth of my gratitude.
Once again, I thank that anonymous Kossack, as well as Onomastic and Dr Erich Bloodaxe RN for giving the wings to the idea of gift subscriptions.
And finally, thank you, Triciawyse.
You and the pootie people help to keep me sane and focused.