Merry Christmas To Me

Today I waited.

I waited for everyone to go to bed.

For the house to get quiet and still.

For the creatures to settle in their stirring.

I waited, and then I made my way to the wall of words.

Untouched for a year, or more.

I ran my hands over those words like braille, like a blind one

searching a lover's face.

I came up with this:

Letting Go of The Grass

 “We will all eventually let go of the grass and go where the stars are”

~Patricia Polacco

Yesterday around 6:00 p.m., my Granny let go of the grass, and is now reunited with her husband, mother and daughter.  Eldest and I are heading out tomorrow morning.  My prayer is that it is a celebration of her wonderful life and the person that she was.  

Wandering Wondering

So I have stumbled back here today.  Stumbled because, as of late, that seems to be my default mode of movement: stumbling.  I lumbered through both my blogs, surveying the dust and neglect, and find that Russia seems to have, yet again, been a frequent visitor.  Doesn't it have better things to do?  Russia, go home, you've had too much vodka.

At any rate, my sweet Granny  miraculously took a turn for the better, and so I am wondering if and when I can get out there to see her.  Hitting the road might do me a world of good.  Shake off this numbness and wake up a sleeping soul.

So just thought I'd drop by.

The Day of Many Tears

I know.  I had a post, left hanging, from before.  Yes.  I get that.  Come to my house.  See all the 'to be continued's' evidenced across my house.  This is my life right now.

At the moment, I can't breathe.  I am typing, peering through swollen squint, from sobs that felt like my heart would literally break inside my eye sockets.

I got word tonight that my Granny, my Texas Granny...was not doing well at all, and was now from hospice into a nursing home.  She has developed pneumonia.  My Dad was sure it wouldn't be long now.

In a text back to him (do we REALLLLLLLLY  interact about such deep and personal things on a device, a slab of glass and plastic?)

'Dad...noooooooooo.....she can't go....I needed to see her one more time.  NO.  I can leave any minute.  I'll pack a bag.  I'll drive.'

His voice (of reason): It's better that you remember her the way she was.  It wouldn't do you any good to see her like she is now.

Me: (still via text...)  NO....  It isn't ABOUT me.  It is about her.  Whether she can hear me or not.  Whether she knows me or not.  I KNOW HER.  Even if all I do is cradle her whispy white head in my lap, and I hold her, and talk to her about the days when I would lay under her sewing machine, it is about HER.  To be known.  This classy lady that I could only hope to be.

She reminds me of Thanksgiving.  The kitchen, completely blown up from home-cooked goodness.  Yet she would come to the table, not a hair out of place, apron removed, and sit down to joke about the madness that ensued as dishes went left and right in random order, around the table.

My Granny.

I tried to sleep but the tears wouldn't stop.

So I found myself here.

I should have gone out there this past summer.

I should have sent more mail - handwritten letters, stuffed with pictures, and fall leaves.

My Dad doesn't realize that even though he tried to discourage me from going now, that I WILL pack a bag and hit the road, in the dead of night if I have to.

I want to tell her I love her, one more time.

Cynicism Timed Perfectly

I don't have time at the moment to post about this, but I plan to.  I had a moment where words and circumstances and cynicism collided in the perfect storm today.  I just don't know where I will land after the waves subside.

Article that is a piece of the puzzle:

http://www.intellectualtakeout.org/blog/fragile-snowflakes-or-manipulative-narcissists

Hold, please.

Analogies

I think in metaphors.  And analogies. All the time.  Well, I used to until my current life state took over, and now I just think in email titles, objectives and measurable verbs.  Invigorating ponderings, I know.

But tonight, an analogy of my life at this very moment landed in my lap (literally), messy and tumbling, stinky and full of spirit.

I had come home to a day that started on the shy side of 6 a.m. The usual sleepy stupor, followed by the customary frantic rush.

I pull up to my building to see my students, lined up outside of a locked door, in the drizzle.  Waiting on me - and I didn't even have my shoes on yet.  Apparently I had not made myself clear:  when I said we would move class time to 8 a.m. that meant every class period.  (Note:  A characteristic of millenials - they have to have specific and detailed direction, almost to the point of ridiculousness.  There is no figuring out how to connect the dots between point A to point B - they need the points, the lines, the start, the finish and everything in between).

Class conducted with little event - a quiet write, a quote read, Writer's Workshop demonstration, more work with various writing assessment tools.

After class I knew I had exactly 1.25 hours to get A, B, C, D, E and F completed before dashing out for the first of two candidate observations.

No.  This doesn't occur in such efficient and successful fashion.  My input is needed.  Permission requested.  More feedback solicited.  This goes on daily when in the office.  Work does not happen in the office.  No, I mean it.  This is my favorite TedTalk because it is SPOT ON.  Here.  Enjoy.  If you work in an office, see if you aren't cheering, and fist bumping when it's over.



So fast forward and Cliff notes:  Observation 1 - best first observation EVER.  Quick lunch between and on to the next one where I almost made that candidate cry.  Three times.  It comes with the unwritten job description.

Fast forward to a zip home to check emails - two of which were DEMANDING requests from students.  Do they realize that you do work from sun up to sun down on their behalf, with barely enough time to eat or have any semblance of a life?

Dash off to my haircut (that I actually remembered this time) and then on the road again back up the road to meet my Best Girl (highlight of my day).

Pulled over by a coperino leaving the restaurant.  More texts and calls with requests.  It has been raining for DAAAAAAAYS.

And when I got home and plopped myself on the floor to put a diapy on my puppy that has now come into womanhood, my two dogs leapt at me, tumbling into my lap, pawing at me, crawling up my shoulders to my face, clamoring and competing for my attention, for the first scratch, for a loving word.

And that is my world.  In a furry, tumbly, stinky, messy ball.

Feeling Every Bit Like Friday Night

So hey there.

It's Friday night again - these are beginning to rub elbows, they're coming so close together, it seems.

Here it is - Friday night, the evening most folks live for, and I'm just contemplating cashing in my chips early, calling it a night...at the crazy hour of 8:30ish.  Walking on the wild side these days, I tell ya.

I'm feeling every bit of this Friday night, because I have the dual conflict within: part wanting to put on some music, light all the candles I can scrounge and dance like no one's watching (because no one is...no one home but me); and part: having been pecked and pulled by people every bless-ed day, and having had to talk talk talk because it is in the unwritten job description, the contract that I must have signed with the invisible ink, detailing all that would be on my plate besides what was posted for the position, officially.

Part of me just wants to pull all my limbs in close and shush anyone that dares try start any kind of dialogue.  Just sssshhhhh...Let's just sit here, quiet-like, and stare at each other.  Yeah. That'd be nice.
When your 'normal' existence is really so outside of your own personal norm, it can be taxing, to say the least.  Take Wednesday, for example.

Up at 5, starting in on my planning, a rush to work, a 2-hour intensive class, where I am not exactly the bearer of glad tidings. A slight pause between the next class only to cram to get ready for the next 3-hour class, followed by a steady revolving door of people, more people - needing, needing, always neeeeeeeeeding.  'Do you have a minute?  (talks nonstop), 'Hey, I saw your door was open...', "So I just needed to get out of my office before I lost it (so I came down to bug you in yours so that you could lose it....), this went on AAAAALLLLLL DAY.  All day.  I never started anything.  Impossible.

Work DOES.NOT.HAPPEN.IN.THE.OFFICE.

So I revisit my recent trek to my happy place.  Often.  In my mind.

I am so much older now. 10 years my own senior.  I feel it.  I certainly look it, but the funny thing is - I'm becoming more and more okay with it too.

oh, hello

Adele.  You lovely gal, you.  Hello. From the other side.

Always Home

So this bod made its way to the shore once again.  It was a perfectly perfect time.  Well, except I came down with bronchitis AGAIN but this time en route (Really, lungs???  Now???) so there was no turning back like last May when it hit me right before a beach get-away.  No, I was fully committed, fully entrenched in traffic and a packed car, pointed due sunset on the Gulf.  Did I say it was perfect?  Yes, entirely.

Here are my 'girls'.  Four friends, waiting for the kaleidoscope to warm the sky.  This trip was 'girls only' - my Best Girl, her soon-to-be Maid of Honor (her kindred), a childhood friend, and a 'new' college bud.  The best four gals I could choose to spend four days with, at the beach, or anywhere.

I always adore being with folks who are 'chill', laid back and just as 'go with the flow' as I am when I am at the beach.  The plan is, there is no plan, and the idea is to stay in bathing suits ALL DAY, just eating veggies and wraps out of the cooler.  We soon lost track of time, and began to have to remind each other what day it was.  The biggest decision of the day - 50 spf or 20?

Such great talks - about God, purpose, the future, now, relationships, marriage, babies.  It reminded me of what it was like to stand on the cusp of so many of the biggest decisions of your life, wondering about the mystery of it all.  They had so many questions, and I was humbled to think they thought I had answers.

There was also plenty of laughter.  These girls are just FUN with a capital HILARIOUS.  'Yo daddy let you date???', and the crazy poses, smuggled S'mores, morning yoga and weddings crashed.  There was the mock wedding they conducted, right there on the beach - Rev. Della and her Chaco Bible, declaring, 'With the ambitions congested in me, I now pop drop and lock it.  I now declare you husband and wife.  You may now lick the bride -(arm thoroughly licked).

Finally, there was dancing.  Oh, yes - we danced.  My hope was to find a restaurant right on the sand, and to our delight, there was one just doors down from where we were staying.  Barefoot on the worn wooden deck, we let loose to an amazing live band, dancing and inviting older ladies to join us, and fending off sloppy drunk (sad, pitiful) guys.  We had no time for that.  Get out of our space - this is girl time.

It couldn't have been more perfect.

Wonders of the Whenever I Get Around to EVER Getting Here

Yeah, I realize.  I'm technically supposed to be vamoose from here.  A wisp.  A memory of blogged words of days gone by.  I do pass through blogworld like a ghost passes through doors, often.  I'm just not really here.

You know that song, 'You've Lost That Lovin' Feelin'?  Righteous Brothers.

Okay, if that's too far waaaay back, Top Gun?  Oh, I loved that movie back in the day.  This song:

 My song currently should be, 'I've Lost That Writin' Feelin'.  

So Wonders -

Writing

Nada.  Nothing.  Zip.  Doodly-squat.

Reading

Tons and tons and TONS of wedding blog and lists and things pertaining to ceremonial matrimony. 

I'm finding that I really love it, and recall when I once wanted to do event planning.

Listening

These last couple of weeks when summer literally fell out of the sky in the form of cascades of rain, I have been in a jazz/piano state of mind.  So with Mulled Cider candle burning, a few of these have been my 'go to' tunes.

And perfect for yet, more rain:

Watching

To beat cabin fever, Hubs and I went to see 'Everest' last night.  First, it was refreshing to sit through a movie that wasn't curse word laden.  It WAS intense, and honestly, I probably reacted more emotionally to it than the average viewer because I happen to have a son who LIVES to scale heights unknown, and mountaineer, and ropes climb, and other such insanity.  A little close to home.  Hit me in the feels.

Thinking

I really should get on that school work I dragged home.  Yes. I need to hop to it.  Let me get right to it.  Yep....

 Wanting

Wanting, being of want....what do I want?

Needing

You know, I really don't NEED a thing. Okay, well maybe someone to come repair the leak and the ceiling that is now bubbling from the leak....but I really don't need anything.  

Looking Forward To

I have a short get-away with my Best Girl and a few of her girlfriends coming up in short order.  Fall break - aaaahhh.  We're heading to the coast.  I will once again stand silent on surf's edge, and breathe.

Wearing

Navy blue leggings and a red top.  No, I didn't intend to go all patriotic.  AND I didn't wear said leggings out in public.  Home attire ONLY.  Chumfies at its finest.

Eating

Getting ready to have some butternut squash soup sprinkled with pumpkin seeds.  It's that kind of weather.

Drinking

I will be having coffee as soon as I can get that thing percolating.  

Quote of the Week

The trees are about to show us how lovely it is to let dead things go.

To My Brother

You'll never see this, I know.  But right now, I am thinking of you, and how much brothers and sisters bond and fight and love and hate and become the best of friends, eventually.

Remembering the concert just a couple of weeks ago, light years, it seems.  Sharing in a revelry of your best, growing up years - drivin n' cryin', and remembering my own survival days.

To the concert where they played your favorite song, and you told me it was on repeat in your playlist, because, the lyrics - so profound.

They played my favorite song too, and I danced with abandon there under the Southern night sky.

Thank you, for including me.





'Have you ever seen the 
Blue Ridge Mountains, boy
or the Chattahoochee
To the Honeysuckle Blue

There's This

Writing - I am writing nothing........nothing but emails and short texts and LOL's and such of the sort...and my soul cries out.....I need to write something, to someone, of worth and significance.  But what?  To whom?  Why?

Reading - I have logged several books slated to be read soon, but this one - here's what I WANT to read next - 'Where the Wind Leads' by Ninh Chung.  A first-hand account of those who fall under the category ' Refugee'.

Listening - Explosions in the Sky, Penny and Sparrow...other independent artist....too many to name.

Watching - the light change across the sky?  the way the sun filters through the leaves at noon, at dusk, at sundown?

Wanting - something.  I don't have a word for the wanting.  It is tangible.  It is palpable.  It is a hint of taste on my lips.

Needing - Same as above.  And a kayak.  Still hocking that need.  Some sort of flotation device - means of water transport.  Yes.  Needing.  Badly. Desperately.  Honestly.

Eating - What doesn't make my stomach hurt.

Drinking - What makes me happy.

Wearing - A sundress - because it makes me happy.

Regreting - more conversation.

Looking forward to - putting on a big shin-dig.

Quote of the day- Keep close to Nature's heart... and break clear away, once in awhile, and climb a mountain or spend a week in the woods. Wash your spirit clean. ~ John Muir


Pic - I don't have one....so picture your favorite.

What Am I Doing?

What am I even doing?  I thought I was done here.  I did 'leave' it for a while.  I drift in, and back out again.  What in the world, and now here I go, posting this goofy 'list' of sorts...why?  I don't even know.  Really, I don't. But hey Cambodia! dropping by for a visit!


Writing - Still writing letters, and also very spontaneous and random journal entries.

Reading - The book of John, and a book called 'Awakening'

Listening - Maybe I do know why I am here....posting this absurd list...to share with the masses (all 2 of you) this latest song by City and Colour.  It doesn't even have a video yet to post.  You can go to their website, and then download the song 'Woman' from there.  I am hooked.  I hate to say 'addicted' but, okay - fixated.  It's on repeat.  Here are the lyrics (because words get me.  They really do.):

'woman, my love
is never-ending
like a sea without a shore
woman, I'm a fool
guilty of old crimes
But you are the one
I adore
woman, when the world
has emptied
and the planet
is covered in dust,
I will stand beneath
the silver moon
rising,
waiting to
resurrect our love.

You have to hear it.  Oh the sound of it.  It is worth the $1.29 download.


Watching - I did go see the movie about Brian Wilson's life starring John Cusack - 'Love & Mercy'.  Fascinating.  I learned things I never knew about the Beach Boys.  Other than that, not watching anything.  TV is a bore.

Wanting - Still a kayak.

Needing - A personal organizer and trainer.  If I could find someone to kick my butt and color-code my life - golden.

Eating - Food that is delightfully 'summer': organic garden fresh veggies, tomatoes, frozen blueberries...aaaahhh summer.  I have actually cooked like crazy in the last couple of weeks.  It is my escape to avoid things I 'should' be doing (like checking work email).  Hubs and Best Girl's sweetheart have been ever grateful for my procrastinatory outlet.

Drinking - La Croix - New flavors:  Apricot and Mango

Wearing - Pink, black and grey skinnies and a black top

Regretting - Missing out on the beach trip in May but.....

Looking forward to - a very last-minute jaunt to the beach next week!  One last hoorah before crazy cranks into full gear.  Cue Will Smith.




Quote of the day:   'A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another: just as I have loved you, you also are to love one another.  By this all people will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another.” ~ John 13: 34,35

Pic:

Must Watch

This movie is coming out.  I have a feeling I will go watch it by myself.  I'm okay with that.



' I think if there' s a sort of sadness for people under 45, it has something to do with pleasure, and achievement, and entertainment, like a sorta emptiness at the heart of what they thought was going on.'  ~ David Foster Wallace

So This Happened

I was working on another post about what can't be captured in pictures and thought I would post something else.  I suppose it's my blog and I can post if I want to (old song reference totally lost on 99.9% of anyone reading this at the moment).  Let me share with you what WAS captured on the trip that was priceless.  I share it because I have somewhat of a message about it too, but hang on - sometimes a parent just has to pull out the digital version of a foldable wallet picture holder and say 'LOOK...this is my baby.'

My daughter got engaged while we were out visiting her.  There's been a lot of water under the bridge since I may have last posted anything about her or any such person she may have been dating, and have chosen to keep a bit more of those personal 'life' things just that - personal. However, this is a big deal, and worthy to be shared.  It is not for me to plaster their faces and names, and details all over the intersphere.  No.  I share this picture because it speaks VOLUMES without any of that.

That is my hand (does anyone else look down at your hands and wonder who they belong to? All.the.time.) holding hers on the eventful day, showing off the precious treasure that was presented to her.  I know, I know...some of you want details.  All I"m going to say is it was a complete surprise (she didn't even know he was coming out there), and he came up on a canoe bearing a very special picnic basket and sunflowers, and involved her parents hoofing it through a hiking trail and climbing over trees and flora fauna to hide a camera to capture the moment.

Even in pictures, they don't completely tell the stories that lie within.  This picture doesn't tell the months of secretly working with her sweetheart to help find just the right ring or the trip down to the jeweler's to watch them put that center heirloom diamond in the middle (you can't trust folks as much these days).  It doesn't tell of the fact that this young man has completely won our hearts, but more so our respect - he is a rare gem in a world today of duds.  It doesn't capture the humorous fact that my girl is extremely observant, and noticed the day after when her Mama was no longer wearing her engagement ring months and months ago.

It also doesn't share the multitudes of stories that the center diamond surely has to tell of the hardships and joys, sacrifices and commitments, and the years and decades  of marriage it represents.  That center diamond was passed down from my Mom's mom's mother, to my grandmother, to my Mom, to me...and now to my Best Girl - from her great-great grandmother.  History, there polished and multifaceted... the weight of it, heavy with story, with  depth and meaning.  When I first sat and stared at the ring my daughter's sweetheart would be giving her, the breath caught in my lungs to think of all that that stone had been through, the experiences it had 'seen', the collective years it represented, knit together to now land on my sweet love's hand.

I knew my own story, and the impact of that knocked the wind right out of me.

I do not know much of my great-grandmother's matrimonial narrative.  I need to sit my own mother down, and have her tell me what she remembers.  I realize it would be told from a most narrow view, but narrow would be better than none.

I do know much of my grandmother's story, although I am sure, not the most intimate of details.  She passed away when I was in fourth grade, on my birthday.  I didn't get to watch her marriage with more understanding eyes.  Yet from my mother, it was one of pint-sized strength, bearing burdens and hardship, becoming best friends with your daughter (my mother), sweet tea, and tears of gratitude at receiving an electric dishwasher for the first time, at their 50th wedding anniversary.

Then there's my own mother's journey  - engagement after three weeks, then not seeing your betrothed again until the wedding, months later, in July - the 5th, to be exact.  The honeymoon in 'big ol' Gainesville, GA, at a  Holiday Inn, and a shrimp dinner shared because they didn't know my Dad's dad had also included meals in the reservations.  Oh, the stories I know of my parents' years, both witnessed and learned.  Each concession or compromise, ground stood and forgiveness given,
hand-chiseled into that precious stone. The night I overheard them talking about divorce from the cracked door of my bedroom, as a child.  They are coming up on their fiftieth wedding anniversary soon.  A testament.

My own story - while I'm still writing it...

How do I pen all of these stories that represent this gift?  Where do I start?  How will she know that not only does that ring contain a hand-etched diamond, French cut - 'they-don't-make-them-like-this-anymore', but years of yearning, and sacred and grace, spit-shined with fire and grit and tears?

Okay, so I didn't get to the 'position' I wanted to take, launched from this event - that, for another day.
This is all about story and history and love.

What is yours?

Just Under the Window

Much of travel or experiences can be captured in photos to freeze those moments for later, for reminiscing.  Recognizing this, I determined to hone in on the things that can not be photographed, but can only be felt, or noticed with the most acute attention is given to the details that most miss.  

As I had said, our trip started in Vegas, and while I joked about telling folks that to get a reaction, honestly, I probably had the most uneventful 'Vegas' time in the history of sin city.  I met up with Hubs there  for a conference for his work the day I'd delivered training to teachers in a school system during their post-planning.  I was coming off of a week of Mach 3 urgency of work demands as well as the respiratory issues aforementioned.  I flew in at midnight-ish on an airline that I wouldn't send my worst enemy to Hades on, and quite honestly, I couldn't have cared less that there was all the world at my doorstep - I was a slug.  

I never stepped foot on the strip.  

Confession:  for the first day I was there, I had a 'Say Yes to the Dress' marathon.  

My experience with 'bright lights, big city' was from the window.  Exhaustion can do that to you.  

So I watched Vegas from my window.  What I noticed shattered my thoughts into shards like the broken glass in the empty lot beside my hotel.  The place where we stayed was just off the strip at one end, with a large vacant spot where either a building used to be, or where one soon would be.  It had a couple of trees spread apart from each other, a structure that looked like a construction dumpster and a grouping of billboards by the road.  The rest was dirt and rock and desolation.

One afternoon, in the wavy heat of midday, I noticed a figure moving about near the grouping of billboard posts.  Zeroing in on the spot, I realized there were other items beneath that display - boxes leaned to, and a tarp, and stacks of things to make a wall.  Someone dwelled there, in the shadows of decadence - in a tarp-laden box.  Imagining the oven that must be that small space and the grit of each day, I thought about what I could do, if anything, besides stare at the cruel dissonance.  

For the next day or so, I found myself at the window, checking.  Sometimes I would see movement, and often nothing.  Finally, on the day we were to leave, we bought an extra pack of waters and took it over, hoping we would see someone to give them to.  On this day, no one was out and about, but instead we approached one of the (yes, there ended up being SEVERAL) structures and called out, 'Hello?  Anyone there?'  A voice responded, 'Hello!' from inside the covering.  'We're leaving these waters out here for you!'  'Oh, thank you!'  

I did try to upload a picture of the area from my phone but it didn't go through.  Observations like that - the stark contrast of need and excess existing side-by-side, can not easily be documented in its fullness.  The photograph does not capture the blast of heat when the dry wind blows, the grit, the lostness edged in a voice calling out from behind a pile of boxes.  It can not possibly encapsulate the ache in my heart.

It All Started in Vegas

I have rather enjoyed the reaction I have received when asked about my recent trip plans/itinerary and I say, 'It starts in Vegas (grin) and from there....'.  I especially get a kick out of particular folks' reaction.  Is that bad?  Probably.

The trip was a little over three weeks.  Spotty to non-existent wifi so any thought to post was only a pipe dream.  Actually I just didn't want to sit in front of a screen.  At all.  So there's that.  It was freeing to not feel tethered.

Here's one pic I'll share for now from the journey.  I was thinking about all the things that happen on a trip or experience that can't be captured digitally that is worthy to note.  Maybe I'll share a few of those things to capture that part of the trip.

The moon over Firehole Canyon

Echoing into the Halls of Empty

Hello?

                 Hello?

                                      hello?

Wow.  A little surreal being here in this big ol' white space, once so comfortable and familiar.  Why am I back after a nearly three-month hiatus where I had intended it to be a permanent one?  I really can not say.  I  also can not say that it won't continue to be permanent, and that I will then slip right back out the door, backing through the threshold of this place silently, pulling the door closed without a sound.

I don't know why I am here.  I haven't written a syllable of anything beyond student feedback and forms and paperwork and scribbled notes from meetings (endless meetings).  Maybe that's why I'm here.  Like cruising through one's old stomping grounds in hopes to capture a ripple of those old stirrings, that spark of aliveness, the pulse of passion that once was second nature.

Or maybe I am procrastinating.  That.  Yes, likely.  I spend so many bless-ED moments of my days delaying the 'have to's' and then frantically 'getting through it'.  There has to be some psychological underpinning there.  Maybe I should trot on over to the Pysch-Counseling Department and sign up to be a specimen.

I figured it would be quiet here.  Abandoned.  Russia hasn't completely taken over yet.  Guess that's good.  I walked back to my real hammock in the yard yesterday to discover its obvious neglect.  I immediately thought of this place, and my deliberate leaving of it.  Then I was compelled to return.  For what reason, I do not know.

There are adventures to be had this summer.  I had an inkling that maybe,  just perhaps I could just document those here.  Just for grins.  I don't know.  We'll see.

First up, I will be taking a solo beach trip right at the very end of the semester.  Directly after graduation.  Mid-May I will fling off the regalia and point Daisy south for the shores of the Atlantic at Delray Beach.  This girl is giddy.  Eleven straight hours of uninterrupted thinking time and tunes?What?

The next adventure occurs shortly after but with Hubs.  We will start out in Vegas (conference, not the craps table) and then make a trek northeast to Wyoming where both offspring will be employed all summer.  Not kidding.  They both applied for this National Park ministry summer intern job, and both got the job.  They will be gone all summer.  This will be a first.  We will camp our way there, possibly visit the north rim of the Grand Canyon since we saw the south end last summer and then hang out in Wyoming, my birth state, to commune with nature and, on occasion, our two kiddos, when they are able.  We will then meander through Missouri and from there, who knows?  We're thinking we'll be gone at a stint of about three weeks. I've never been gone that long before at one time.  There may or may not be running jokes about how long it will take for one of us to go completely nutty at the other's quirks.  I might need to start an office pool or something to take dibs on day/date/time that it all goes down.  Should be a all sorts of hilarity.

There are also talks of heading back to Nicaragua again, this time for a couple of weeks, living in hostels and wandering.  I might not ever come home.

I think I'll just sit here a while, in this comfortable quiet, and 'be' for just a little while.

I'm glad I dropped by.