Sum-Sum-Summer Time

So, I've been a bit absent from the whole blogging scene. I have also been delinquent in my reading, my weeding, and my paperwork. What might have caused this breakdown in responsibility you might ask?

Well, like many things, there are multiple reasons, but the major one is that I have been having too much fun. There, the cat's out of the bag.

You know your life has taken some strange turns when having too much fun is a confession on par with say - smoking dope with the pope. I remember when having too much fun was the norm rather than a guilty pleasure. Be that as it may, for the past three weeks, I have been indulging myself in pleasure.

An old friend from thirty years back flew into town a while back and after picking her up at the airport and visiting with her for an evening, I drove her north to my old hometown where she now spends half of her time. The other half is spent in Washington state near Seattle. It was a wonderful visit, both here and up there. For me, it was a one day trip where I got some visiting in with my mother in addition to a lovely picnic on the shore of Lake Superior. I drove the 150 miles home going over the events of the past couple of days and realized that I was going to miss my old friend's company.

There were many emails sent over the next days and a few phone calls too. Because she flew into the major airport in my current home city, her return flight would also depart from there. That meant that she needed to get from my old home town up north back down this way prior to flying out. Since my children were asking to go north for some cousin time, we planned a four day family visit that would culminate with a return home bearing an extra guest.

This plan was modified late in the game by extending her stay with us so that she and I could both attend a fund raising function for a local personality who has political aspirations. All told, we spent nearly seven days in close company. While that time was most enjoyably spent, very little of it went toward those activities mentioned at the beginning of this post.

Suffice it to say that I was sorry to see her depart through the air terminal doors as she began her journey to her western home where she would once again take up the role of mother and parent to two nearly adult children, chief cook and bottle-washer, matron of a modest estate, and den-mother to a herd of chickens, a passel of rabbits, various dogs and cats, and one horse.

We will see each other again, though I will miss her next trip back this way because of our upcoming excursion to points east. When we return from that trip, we will have a two day recovery period before we head north for our annual mini-family reunion and blues fest on our great inland sea.

In the meantime, I have a ton of chores and responsibilities to attend to. We are no where close to being ready to embark on this major trip that we have planned. Perhaps "planned" is too misleading a word. We have semi-planned might be better. Right now, all I have are the passports, the plane tickets over the pond and back, and some emails from strange places alluding to reservations that may, or may not actually be waiting for us, and given the recent unrest in the airline industry (especially the one we have tickets on), the probability of hitting snags on the way over and back is significant. When you combine all of that with the fact that I will be doing a chemo session two days before departure, you have a mix that will probably ensure material for further blogging - if I survive the process.

Regardless, I pledge to bring you all along with us (in a virtual sense of course) as I hope to continue to update this site whenever I can find a wireless hot spot. So, stick with us and forgive the occasional lapse in posting. Just assume that I am having too much fun. Ta.