I Think

All the relatives are gonna come. Good luck, edgar.

bump

Normally, if you have got one, you are cursed with a whole family. I got lucky, I think. The reason I don't expect more, my dog Rocky has been barking and trying to get to the rat from day one. As soon as I removed it from the house, Rocky quit paying attention.

Edgar- putting the hammer down!
Rat-a-splat-a-tat!

So, did you have any rat-chasing-you-dreams that night?

Likely it has not been long enough since my viewing of Ratatouille, the cartoon.

I have some Cadbury Creme Eggs. I figured out how to eat them with the first one. Bite off one end. Scoop out the creme and wash it down the sink. Eat the chocolate shell.

Well, we had a memorial service for my wife's brother, today. He was cremated some days ago, and after today's service we had a barbecue gathering at a good restaurant. He was a fine man and well loved. We saw people that we had not seen in quite a few years and I got some family pics showing us all together for the first time in more years than I can remember. Cancer has taken quite a few of my friends and relatives.

Sympathy from here, but also glad you got to see them.

I'm very sorry to hear about your brother-in-law, and I know how you feel. My mother was killed by liver cancer when she was 58 and I was 23. Ugly, terrible disease.

Thank you both.
It was an odd mix, of sorrow and joy, this day. It shows how life continually builds and destroys simultaneously. Nothing to do but accept that it happens and go on with what makes you happiest, as long as possible.

Well said, edgar.

Sympathies.

Thanks, boida.

In case anybody wonders:
I am still editing my novel. Rewriting it, actually. Progress is slow, but that is because I second guess everything I write, several times. Eventually, I let a passage go and move on. One of these days, I will announce: Finished. Then will begin a quest for an agent. Who knows? (The Shadow?) Perhaps I will get it published.

Keep reporting your progress, but especially when you send it to the publisher.

Will do. I hope to get done while I am young enough to write a few more.

I have been neglecting this thread, but I want to keep it alive. Many online acquaintances don't know I think about other things than politics, youtube music and my dog. Lately I have been spending hours scouring the yard for poison ivy and thorn bushes. I have them under control, but some new pop up all over the place. This will be my best year for claiming the entire yard for my own. I want to raise the fence in the far back, to keep Rocky under control better. There is a wooden fence on the other side of my wire one. It was built by the residents of the other neighborhood and has the white road sign affixed - the one with black hash tags that warns the road has ended. The fence is at least twenty or
more years old and is sagging badly. The people in the fine houses in that cul de sac are showing signs they want me to rebuild it. But it is not mine and not on my property. I figure if they don't like looking at my home, once it falls, they will find it within themselves to do it themselves.

It never fails to amaze me how people who live in nice homes and think of them selves as above average are such tightwads. Five years on the board of my community organization taught me that some people think everyone else should pay for improvements and repairs and go nuts if the annual dues go up 5 bucks. I've got stories that will make your jaw drop.

They built it to shield their eyes from we trailer trash, so, I am confident they will take care of it, once they have asked me about it and I have told them what they can do about it.

I was involved with a nonprofit organization some decades ago that takes care of the developmentally disabled, and the board was unusual in that they supported the organization with their own money to help pay salaries, benefits, and annual bonus. Of coarse, the salary levels were low to begin with for the amount of education most of the workers had. Added to that, they were some of the most dedicated, hard working, people I have had the privilege to work with. When I went to work for them as Controller, it was under an annual contract on a part-time, flex hours basis, but after seeing the work they were doing, I dropped my consulting business and went to work there full time. I got several of my friends to become board members, and I got them to sponsor an annual golf tournament to raise money. When I left the organization, their balance sheet was much improved.