April Witch

Some people write books the same way a carpenter builds a house, slowly word by word. Others write book the same way a sculptor carves a face out of clay, scraping away every useless word that is not needed. Some write books like an artist, using words as paint and brushing the story colorfully across the pages. Others write books like a musician, creating a rhythm with words that weaves thought the story like a easily hum melody. Some people write books that are just a hell of a good story. If you find a book that has either one of these things you are in for a good read. If you find one that has all of them you are in for a great read. April Witch by Majgull Axelsson is a great read.

The best way to tell you what the story is about is by quoting the book description from the book jacket end flaps:



" 'No excuses will do anymore. Time to put my sisters in motion.'

Desiree lies in a hospital bed thinking, dreaming. One of the children born severely disabled in 1950s Sweden and then routinely institutionalized for life and one of a very few to survive nearly to the century's endshe cannot walk or talk, but she has other capabilities. Desiree is an April witch, clairvoyant and omniscient, leaving her own body and traveling into the world denied her.

The working-class woman who gave Desiree up at birth took in three foster daughters several years later, and even as adults they know nothing of the existence of their fourth sister. Christina, abused by her psychotic birth mother and burdened by a sense of inferiority, is now a physician; Margareta, the onetime foundling, an astrophysicist who can never manage to complete her dissertation, is as restless and sensual as she was in her youth; and Birgitta, in her day the fastest, sexiest teen queen in town, is now a derelict alcoholic and substance abuser.

In spite of her physical disabilities, Desiree possesses tremendous intelligence, and she observes the world around her with great acumen. She has developed a very special relationship with her primary care physician, Dr. Hubertsson, who realizes that she could and should know something about her own background. Unbeknownst to him, she goes on to make supernatural use of this information.

Sensing that her own time is drawing to a close, Desiree also feels that one of the others has lived the life that should have been hers. One day, each of the three women Christina, Margareta, Birgitta receives a mysterious letter that inspires her to examine her past and her present, setting into motion a complex fugue of memory, regret, and confrontation that builds to a shattering climax.

April Witch created a furor upon its original publication in Sweden, where it was an immense bestseller. Addressing themes of mother-daughter relationships, competition between women, and the failures of Sweden's postwar welfare state, it is foremost a thrillingly written and fascinating story. "



The other theme not mentioned is the illusion that we have total control over our lives. In each case the sisters learn early that this is not true and react in fear to this, each in different ways. One struggles against that lack of control. One creates a life that from the outside looks perfect and under her complete control. Another by traveling, never staying long in one place. The last by giving in to the fear and living a life of absolute chaos.

This book can be difficult in some ways but the ending sent my soul soaring.

Update: The shock collar came yesterday and today we sent it back. We just could not use it. I am relieved it is gone. We will figure out other ways to handle the problem.

Absolute Power

Respect my authority!
-Cartman on South Park

My poor dog Emma's life is going to change this week. We bought a (ahem) "Gun Dog Training Device," un-euphemistically known as a shock collar. I know, I know, we hate it too but we have no choice. The other morning when my husband was putting the dogs into the truck for their run Emma took off. She had seen two bunnies and just started running. My husband yelled at her to whoa but she was too focused on the rabbits to listen. She ran as fast as she could after them as they darted in and out of the neighbor's yards, crisscrossing the street several times. My husband tried to catch her but she disappeared out of sight very quickly. He then drove around trying to find her and after circling several blocks found her trotting along the street that leads to our house heading home. When he called her she came reluctantly because she knew she was in big trouble. We have had this happen many times before but this time it could have ended badly. She just has to stop this behavior before she get herself killed.

Emma is a strange mixture of both obstinate and sensitive and I realized it would not take to many tries before she understands that she could no longer run off when ever she felt like it. I agreed to get the collar with the understanding that we would shock her the least number of times possible. Then as the day passed my husband and I thought of other times we could use the collar to correct her behavior. We could use it to stop her from digging holes in the yard. We could use it to stop her from eating out of Kate's dish. We could use it to stop her from barking all the time. We could use it to make her sit when traveling in the cab of the pickup truck.

Later that afternoon I was in the basement when I head Emma barking upstairs. It was the same bark she would use as a puppy when her ball rolled under the couch. It was her, "Hey, get out from under there," bark. When I went up to see what was going on I found her standing over her food dish. She looked at me, looked back at her dish and barked, "Hey, get out from under there." I walked over and looked in the dish and saw a spider crawling around. I got a piece of tissue, removed the spider, killed it and threw it away. Emma watched me and when I finished I said to her, "Ok, all done." She looked in her dish and then satisfied that the spider was gone went outside.

That night as I lay in bed thinking about this I smiled. One thing I like about Emma is her spirit. Then I thought about the shock collar and was horrified to see that I was thinking of shocking my dog so my life would run a little smoother. I was willing to break my dog's spirit just to make my life easier. In less than 24 hours I had turned into Mussolini, willing to suppress my subjects in order for the trains to run on time.

My husband and I went back to our original agreement. We would only shock Emma to keep her out of danger. We would wait for her to outgrow the other things.
She will. Kate did.

Google Time

Searches made this week that brought people to Santiago Dreaming:

1. Pilgrim walk Spain
2. camino.santiago.walk
3. santiago women call
4. buck (bunk) bed
5. sex santiago (see a pattern here?)
6. Colleen Shannon (they were not looking from me as you can see)
and,
7. Does Emma Watson believe in ghost (I don't know, does she?)

Little Piggies

I have been helping out during Story Hour at the library on Tuesday mornings. "Pam," the head librarian, has 23 children between the ages of three to five and brought me in to be the enforcer. I'm the one who rounds up the kids who get bored or distracted and herd them back to listening circle.

Before Story Hour officially starts the kids play with toys that belong to the library. This keeps the children already there occupied as the rest of them trickle in. It also is a way to distract them while their mothers leave the room. Last Tuesday Pam and I notice one little boy, "Travis," carrying one of the metal toy trucks. He had wrapped one of the cords from the bucket of wooden stringing beads around the front wheels and was holding the cord out in front of him with the truck dangling from it. When he noticed us watching him he said, "This is a dead truck."

I laughed because that was not what I expected him to say but Pam laughed louder and then told me the following story. Travis's mom is the town's Vet and last week Pam called her out to her farm to look at one of her pigs. The pig was having trouble delivering a litter of piglets. The Vet came as soon as she could and brought Travis with her. Pam's husband was the one handling the pig problem and since Pam was doing other chores she did not get to the farrowing house until sometime later. When she opened the door to the building the first thing she saw was Travis walking around with a dead baby pig tucked under each arm happy as a...well, a little boy who likes to carry dead baby pigs around.

You Can Try To Take The Dog Out Of The Dog Or You Can Accept Reality

My dog Emma is a digger, just loves to dig holes. When I catch her at it she is always digging with great glee. I thought I had broken her of the habit but for about a week now she has been digging holes again. When I catch her at it I yell at her, call her a bad dog, and fill the hole in.

This morning when I got up and looked outside I found another hole and asked my husband what we could do about Emma's behavior, she was digging holes all over the yard. My husband said the reason she is digging is to create a cool spot where she can lie down and be comfortable in the heat of the day. Hearing that made me understand that Emma is just being a dog and my trying to stop her was unrealistic. I asked my husband to go out and start a hole next to the lilac bush by the back wall for her. Later when we looked out the kitchen window we could see Emma lying in the hole nosing the freshly dug dirt, happy as a...well, a dog in a hole.

Postponement

The doors we open and close each day decide the lives we live.
-Flora Whittemore


I have been pulling one tarot card a day from my Zen Tarot deck and on Saturday I drew Postponement. The card shows a woman standing in a gray landscape and in front of her is a picture frame and by looking through the frame she can see the landscape in its true colors. The woman is the same color of gray as the world around her but the blouse she is wearing is showing a faint rainbow of colors that match the colors seen through the picture frame. The book that came with the deck states that the woman wants to go through the picture frame (the colors developing in her blouse show that) but right now she can't seem to do it. She will wait. As the book explains:

There is still too much 'what-if' activity in her mind. Tomorrow never comes, they say, but no matter how often it is said, it seems that most of us tend to forget the truth of it.

I interpreted this to mean that I should not put off doing the things I already planned to do that day. I did briefly have the thought that the meaning of the card was deeper but I brushed it away.

I pick a card out of the Tarot deck by first shuffling the cards and then fanning the deck out evenly on a flat surface. Next, I lightly run my fingers back and forth over the backs of all the cards and at some point one of the cards will "stick" to a finger and be dragged out of its place. That becomes my card for the day. When I do this on Sunday morning the card that "sticks" is Postponement. Someone sure is trying to tell me something.

I pick up the book and reread the commentary and in addition to the above quote these lines right after it pops out at me:

In fact, the one and only result of postponing things is a dull and depressing feeling of incompletion and 'stuck-ness' today. The relief and expansiveness you will feel once you put aside all the dithering thoughts that are preventing you from acting now will make you wonder why you ever waited so long.

Well, that's correct, I have been feeling like my life is incomplete and that I am stuck. I have been drifting since January and all the good things I was going to add to my life then have quietly been allowed to float away. My eating habits have slid back to too much sugar and too many Cokes. I haven't been exercising, except to walk the dog once a day. I can tell my body is not getting enough water without counting the number of glasses of water I drink. I have not meditated once. Instead of doing any of these things I went into hibernation -it was easier. Now, Spring is here and I feel as if I am awaking from a long Winter's nap. Still groggy but ready to rise.

Postponement. Got the card two days in a row, so, what ever I am postponing is bigger that not sticking to New Year's resolutions. I know this but I don't want to face it. My life is changing and has been changing since the day I read that article about the Camino. The greatest change was finding out certain beliefs I held were true. Belief can be described as, "conviction of the truth of some statement or the reality of some being or phenomenon," no real proof needed. Some people say belief is hard but I say belief is easy, finding out that what you believe is true, that's hard.

Before I walked the Camino I believed certain things that I had either read about or heard about. I believed that people can be contacted by the dead. That people have a third eye and meditation can open it. That miraculous things happen to people while walking the Camino. After the Camino I know that miraculous things happen on the Camino because they happened to me. I know that it is true that people can be connected by the dead because my mother has been contacting me. I know that it is true that people have a third eye that can be opened by meditation because the last time I meditated I could feel a strange pressure centered between and slightly above my eyebrows. All these things scared the hell out of me, which is why it was hard for me to write about the Camino at first and why I stopped trying to contact my mother and why I stopped meditating. Doors have opened, doors I am still afraid to step through.

...we need to be willing to let our intuition guide us, and then be willing to follow that guidance directly and fearlessly.
-Shakti Gawain

In Remembrance

Jeanne Shannon
June 5, 1928 - March 22, 2002

Its The First Day Of Spring Today

When Spring Appears

Meadowlarks
give lusty cheers
when spring appears
when spring appears.

Buds and seeds
prick up their ears
and blades of grass
show eager spears.

And only icicles
weep tears
when spring appears
when spring appears
-Aileen Fisher


Winter is on my head, but eternal spring is in my heart.
-Victor Hugo (1802 - 1885)

Spring is] when life's alive in everything.
-Christina Rossetti (1830 - 1894)

A little Madness in the Spring Is wholesome even for the King.
-Emily Dickinson (1830 - 1886), No. 1333

Spring has sprung. We're free at last, people. Free at last. Thank you mother nature, we're free. Time to toss open that metaphysical window and check out that psychic landscape. See lots of possibilities budding out there. Time to hoe those rows, feed that seed. Pretty soon you get a garden.
Robin Green and Mitchell Burgess, Northern Exposure

(Photo, Lilacs, taken by me)

Random Thoughts

-I have now watched three episodes of Mad Mad House and I am not sure why I am still watching it. I keep waiting for "something" to happen. Although I must say I was glad to see Kelly get voted off last week. She was the one who described herself as Catholic and a "good girl." Well, she turned out to be Mrs Crabtree the school bus driver from South Park; the kind of person who lashes out at you when you innocently say hello.

- I went to the Metaphysical Fair while in Denver last weekend and stopped by the "do your own reading" room to check out the tarot decks they had put out. I did a reading with a wonderful new deck call Oscho Zen Tarot Cards and was blown away by the beauty of the deck and the reading. It is not like a regular tarot deck but gives you more spiritual and intuitive answers. My sister bought me the deck and book for an early birthday present.

-Spring arrived last week bringing with it Red-wing Blackbirds, Juncos, Sandhill Cranes flying overhead, new green grass, daffodil shoots, and temperatures in the 70sF/20'sC. This week we have leaped over Spring and into Summer. The temperature is now at 90.3F/32.4C. This could be a long hot spring/summer.

Have a good weekend everyone.

Rat Pack

I just finished reading Rat Pack Confidential:Frank (Sinatra), Dean (Martin), Sammy (Davis Jr.), Peter (Lawford), Joey (Bishop) & the Last Great Showbiz Party by Shawn Levy. I need a shower. These men (except for Joey Bishop who as he liked to say, "was a Mouse in the Rat Pack.") were a bunch of self-absorbed, cruel, insecure, arrogant, users. The kind of men who refer to women as "broads." The RAT PACK was an apt name for them. Funny thing though, I pity them and their empty hedonistic lives.

One chapter, I feel dirty, begins with a list of people who were linked to one or another member of the group. By the end of the chapter there are 114 name and then the words, "and a cast of thousands..." -that would be the prostitutes and call girls.

The Rat Pack lived Hugh Heffner's Playboy Magazine philosophy of sex without any emotional attachment. Sex as a way to relieve tension, like booze. In other words, masturbation using another person's body.

Peter never wanted to get involved. It was easier to have call girls than to try and romance somebody
-Milt Ebbins (Lawford's manager)

Frank loved hookers and used them a great deal. He preferred them because he didn't have to deal with them emotionally.
-Mrs. Jack Entratter (wife of Jack Entratter, Sands Hotel manager)

Dino used to f### every human he could.
-a hometown friend of Dean Martin

I've never had a day-to-day relationship with a woman, to the extent that I've never even spent a whole night in bed with a woman. Never. When it was time to sleep either they'd go home or I'd fall asleep on the couch or the floor.
-Sammy Davis Jr. to future wife May Britt

Could they see women as real beings with needs and intelligence? Did they ever communicate on a fulfilling level? I was secretly grateful that I didn't really see them as potential lovers. Had anything like that developed, I would have been in real trouble.
-Shirley MacLaine

As human beings they were maple veneer over plywood. Emotionally hollow men who used drugs, booze, and sex to try and fill that emptiness. I pity them because they were a product of their times and (mostly) clueless.

There was some sex going on, switching partners, group sex, it was there to be had if you wanted it, any kind any way....and when living got too depressing, hanging out with a group like that got your mind off it, for that moment at least it fogged your brain and you didn't feel so bad....Sex wasn't the point, though. You didn't want to be alone.
-Sammy Davis Jr.

Happy Saint Patrick's Day

Only amateurs get drunk on Saint Patrick's Day
-Jeanne Shannon

Everyone have a great day. For those of you who want to know more about Saint Patrick's Day go to St. Patrick's Day Traditions.

Home Again Home Again Jiggity-jig

Went to Denver Friday for a long weekend and came home yesterday exhausted. One of the reasons for it was that I got up at 0430 to take my sister to the airport and then drove home.

Still to tired to write much but I thought I would amuse you today with this tidbit. While in Denver I picked up a copy of Cyndi Lauper's reissued debut album, She's Unusual and had it blasting out of the CD player most of the drive home. You know how there are some songs that you like just because you like the music so you kind of half-listen to the lyrics? Well, yesterday I finally listened the lyrics to She Bop. Until yesterday the meaning of the lyrics zoomed by me like a 747- way over my head. How could I be so naive?

Nature Story

Climb the mountains and get their good tidings. Nature's peace will flow into you as sunshine flows into trees. The winds will blow their own freshness into you, and the storms their energy, while cares will drop away from you like the leaves of Autumn.
-John Muir (American conservationist)

Growing up we did not have a car so I did not visit the Rocky Mountains until I was thirteen and that was only because my siblings and I were taken there by the people who ran the foster home we were living in at the time. It was not until I became an adult that I started spending time in the mountains.

My future husband liked to camp and fish so when I started dating him we would do just that, camp and fish. At first it was a little nerve racking for me. I did not like the quiet and the fact that no one else was around made me jumpy. The whole experience felt dangerous and I was always waiting for Jason (Friday The 13th) to come crashing out of the underbrush waving a hatchet. But, I finally relaxed and started enjoying being there.

One day I was sitting in a folding aluminum lawn chair I had set up at the back of the car reading a book while my husband fished for trout in a stream beside the road. As I read I was conscious of the sounds around me, the muted roar of the water as it raced downstream, the creak of tree branches as the wind blew through them, a mouse scuffling in the fallen leaves, and the buzz of insects. Then a large insect dive bombed me and I instinctively raised my hand to brush it away. It darted out of the way and hovered in the air about a foot in front of me. I looked up and was surprised to see that it wasn't an insect but a humming bird.

It hung there in the air with its wings beating so fast they were a blur. All I could see was its body with the bright scarlet red splash of color on its neck and its green head and long beak. As I wondered why it had buzzed me I remembered I was wearing a red baseball cap. He must have thought I was food and had come to feed. He continued hovering in front of me, first moving a little to the left, then to the right, then dipping down and back up. The next instant he zoomed off. I think he stayed around so long because he was surprised by me and the fact that I was wearing a humming bird feeder on my head. From that moment on I felt completely at home in the mountains.

It's Good News Week

It's good news week.
Someone dropped a bomb somewhere,
contaminating all the air,
have you heard the news?
-lyrics from It's Good News Week


-Hundreds killed in train bombings in Madrid.

-Violence continue in Haiti and Iraq.

-In Baltimore a twelve-year-old girl is beaten into a coma by a group of women and other girls after being kissed by one of the other girl's boyfriend on a dare.

-Hockey player attacked by another player during a game and hospitalized with a broken neck.

-U.S. House of Representatives pass the Cheeseburger Bill protecting restaurants from lawsuits filed by disgruntled over-weight customers by a vote 276-139.

-Cost of war in Iraq now at over $105, 645,300+ and counting.

- National Debt now at $7,101,345,086,161.27 and climbing another 2 billion each day.

-George W. Bush still singing If Your Happy And You Know It, Clap Your Hands.

(I'm going back to bed, pull the covers over my head, and stay there.)

Dreams

The future belongs to those who believe in the beauty of their dreams.
-Eleanor Roosevelt


I was walking up a dirt road out in the middle of the open plain. To the left of me and parallel with the road was a two tier wooden fence. All around me were endless fields of knee-high yellow grass waving in the gentle breeze. The sky was cloudless with a bright hot sun but I was cool as I walked along. I was blinded by the sunlight for a second and then noticed I was no longer walking on the road but in the ditch beside it. I was surprised because I had not noticed the ditch before. I looked down and saw that the ditch was filled with hundreds and hundreds of wiggling pale-green baby snakes and that I was standing ankle deep in them. I stood still worried that I would accidentally step on one of them. As I looked at them I was filled with an overwhelming sense of wonder and joy. I woke up feeling relaxed and at peace.

Mad Mad House

Started watching a new series on the SCI FI Channel last Thursday called Mad Mad House. This is how SCI FI describes their show:

SCI FI invites you to experience life around the edges, in the colliding worlds of its newest alternative-reality series, Mad Mad House.

Five practitioners of "alternative lifestyles" a Wiccan, a Naturist, a Modern Primitive, a Voodoo Priestess and a real-life Vampire (known collectively as the Alts) rule the roost. Meanwhile, 10 ordinary folks move into the House as the Alts' Guests and compete against one another for the $100,000 jackpot.

Our Guests will live out a Survivor meets The Real World meets The Osbournes lifestyle and try to get along living under one roof together. The eclectic and unpredictable Alts will challenge them, judge them and eliminate them one by one ultimately deciding which Guest is most fit for life in the Mad Mad House.

Don't know about that The Osbournes connection unless they are insinuating that the Osbournes are freaks and if you like freaks you'll love this show. Anyway, I've seen one episode and found it interesting enough to come back next week.

The ten guests range in age from 22 to 50 with seven out of the ten still in their twenties. It's too early to really know any of them at this point but two of them stood out for me; Kelly who admitted she was a virgin, Catholic, and "a good girl" and Brent who was a Christian with a capital C and admitted he read the bible every day. The reason they stood out for me is because the Alts had said that one of the criteria for deciding who they would vote out each week was based on how open the guests were to new experiences. In the first episode the guests were invited to join in a voodoo ritual and some of them opted out.

At the beginning I was put off by Don the Vampire's too formal manner but by the end of the show I warmed up to him. Underneath that stiff deportment I could see glimpses of humor and warmth. He may end up being my favorite person.

"I've Worked For The State Of Colorado For Thirty Years..."

Security is a kind of death.
-Tennessee Williams


When I was 25 years old I hit the employment jackpot. I got a civil service job with the Colorado State government. It was everything anyone could want in a job; security, regular holidays, yearly vacations, two raises a year (one on the anniversary of when I was hired and one for merit), and a pension when I retired. After five years I felt I was in hell.

When I started I loved my job but with each passing year I loved it less and less. When I first started working the week would pass quickly and before I knew it was Friday. My second year I would look forward to the weekend and enjoy my yearly week long vacation. By the third year I would start each week thinking, "If I can make it to Friday I will be all right." My vacation week would pass all to quickly and I would dread going back to work. My fourth year I would dread each day and think, "If I can make it through the day I will be all right." I lived for the weekends and the thought of coming back after my vacation would depress the hell out of me. At this point I was burning through sick days almost as quickly as I was earning them.

The last year, the last year was the worst. I was now doing prison time. My days were split up into two hour segments. I would think, "If I can make it to morning break I will be all right." Then, "If I can make it to lunch I will be all right." Then, "If I can make it to afternoon break I will be all right." Finally, "If I can make it to 5:00 PM I will be all right." At the end of each day I would mentally cross it off the calendar. By this time I hated my job so much I was subconscious trying to get fired. I would come in late and sometimes take hour-and-a-half lunches. I no longer listened at staff meetings and once when my boss asked me what I thought of what he had just said I replied, "I don't know, I wasn't listening."

Now, the thing about a state job is it hard to get fired. Even with all the crap I was giving my boss he was trying to find ways to keep me engaged in my work by moving me around and giving me new assignments but none of it helped. At that point I did not even know why I was behaving the way I was. What was my problem? I had a job other people envied, I made good money, I was up to two weeks vacation a year, and I had job security for the rest of my life.

Then that fifth year I attended the retirement party of one of my co-workers. At his party the man got up to make a speech and said, "I've worked for the state of Colorado for thirty years and liked fifteen of them."
He had spent fifteen years of his life being somewhere he did not want to be doing something he did not want to do. I thought, "My God, I'm doing that already."
I gave my two weeks notice the next day.

Quitting was scary. No, making the decision to quit was scary, I had people (co-workers) tell me I was crazy to quit because if I did I would loose all that money the state had put into my retirement account. That I should remember that while I was working for the state I was not eligible for Social Security credit. If I quit now I would get less money when I reached retirement age and started drawing Social Security. At first this talk worried me but then I realized I could not live my life hampered by what may or may not happen in the future. Not quitting would be the crazy thing. So I picked up my share of my retirement account (less my car loan) and walked away. I knew I had make the right decision because as I left the credit union with my check I felt like a great weight had been lifted off my shoulders.

Hello

"Well, I'm back."
-Last sentence in Lord Of The Rings by JRR Tolkien

The last two weeks have felt like a month. My sister (T) is visiting from the Netherlands and we (my sister M and I) originally expected her to arrive in Denver on February, 23rd so I drove in on that date. I planned to stay until Wednesday of that week and then come home but T's plans changed due to business and she did not arrive in Denver until Friday the 27th. Since it did not make sense to drive back home just to come back to Denver a couple of days later, I ended up staying the week. I didn't mind staying longer because I always enjoy visiting my sister M and my niece.

We had lost a week so T's Denver plans were also changed and instead of coming out to Kansas to visit me on the weekend of March 6th, T and I drove to my little town the day after she arrived and then back to Denver the following Tuesday, March 2nd, our niece's birthday. That night we celebrated my niece's birthday and the next day I drove back home.

Throw in driving my niece to and from school each day during that first week, the fact that I am not used to driving or living in a city with so many high energy people anymore, the fact that we drove in and out of rain/slush or snow showers with a pretty good crosswind trying to push my car off the road on the drive to my house and you can see why the whole experience wiped me out.

The good part was spending time with my sisters and my niece. The fun part was joining my sister T in teasing our niece. She is at that age where anything her adult relatives do is embarrassing. In the restaurant at my niece's birthday dinner we sang Happy Birthday to her while she pretended she wasn't there. The next day we drove her to school. The rules are that when we drop her off we drop her off at the far end of the block away from her friends, that we do not hug or kiss her before she get out of the car, and that we not talk to her once she is out of the car. This day, as we drove away, my sister rolled down the passenger window and yelled at her, "I love yoooou." We drove away roaring with laughter. I found out the next day when her mother and aunt drove her to school she told her aunt not to do anything to embarrass her that day.

Funny, during the week I was in Denver the only access to the Internet I had was at the library and at first I thought it would be hard for me not to write each day or to read other people's blogs each day but I found out I did not miss it. I have been reading other blogs now that I am back but not with the same intensity as I did before. I feel disconnected from things. Out of the loop. Do I need a break? Have I run out of things to say? I don't know. I just know that right now I do not feel the need to write like I did before.

Hello, I Must Be Going

I cannot stay, I came to say I must be going.
I'm glad I came, but just the same, I must be going.
-Groucho Marx

Hit the ground running last week and still have not stopped. I will try to be back later in the week. Take care all.