Things have sure been lonely since my main man Fergal left 3 weeks ago.  I do have to admit my morning headaches and shakes are better but the voices are starting to come back so what's up with that?  And last week my other main man Steve took off for a week of R&R on some South Pacific tropical paradise.  Finding a bit of gold now and then helps a little but things got so bad that I frequently found myself wandering the empty evening streets of Greymouth, stopping in front of the sports store and gazing longingly at the volley ball in the window. "Willllsonnn;" I'd whisper making sure he could read my lips and then quetly turn my collar to the cold and damp and doing a classic Bogart, disappear into the night fog moving softly in on little cat feet. Ok, I am saying it straight up:  anybody who doesn't think the ending of "Casablanca"  is the best movie ending ever is a damn communist or at the very  least a leftist symapthizer and to all of you I say a pox on Bernie Sanders.

To make matters worse the wheather around here has been abysmal.  It's rained every day for three weeks straight .   And windy and cold? Oy vey!  But lemons into lemonaide - the other day I was cooking so, as usual, I opened the front door and the big glass slider doors to the back deck hoping to get a little cross breeze to keep the smoke alarm from going off. To get the full picture you have to understand that I live in a shoe box with a one parking space sized (and no not an oversized  handicapped spot either )"great" room with combined kitchen, dining and living areas with two tiny bedrooms and a Lou down the hall   Well as I said it's been pretty windy around here so instead of a nice gentle smoke clearing breeze I got an everything less than 20 pound... oops...I mean 9.0909090909..... Kg clearing  typhoon of biblical proportions.  Disaster?  Perhaps to the untrained eye but I noticed that most of what blew out the door were things that Helen would have waking up in the middle of the night in a cold sweat night mares about... I'm talking about your trophy sized, dust bunnies, your odd bits of incriminating evidence of previous indiscretions, last week's shopping list, your museum quality fossilized left overs sitting on the counter from God knows when and the occasional  pair of unredeemable undies lying on the floor to  name a just few.  Well I  know a good thing when I see one so now whenever  there is a nice brisk northerly wind I do a bit of tidying up........  It's nice when things just seem to work out for the best.

Saving the best for last I was back in the states last month to seee my number one main man Benjamin my absolute favorite grandchild.  He is the bomb.  During the week I was there I could see that he was getting stronger and more alert every day.  While we are  all stuned and relieved that Rachel and Bryan are turning out to be such great parents I am concerned that they are not spoiling the little guy enough.  I guess I am going to have to step up to the plate myself on that.  Also while face timing with me the other day Rachel was whining about how much a nanny will cost when she goes back to work in Sept. So I started thinking.  Why not rig up the phone so Ben is always on face time or better yet a bunch of super high def phones like the "Trumen Show?"  That way Helen and Margaret can take turns or more likely fight over who gets to gaze lovingly at him remotely hour after hour.  And if they see a problem?  Easy peasy quick phone Rachel who,  just a few steps away in her home office, could in a flash put some random multibillion dollar international bank merger deal on hold and quick like a buny run to change a diaper or someting.  And when he goes mobile?  What you never heard of go pro?  So what if both Helen and Margaret are too busy with something to watch the Ben meister?.....Like that would ever happen. .....  Just out source the job to some tech support dude in some third world country........I ask you;  In what universe do I not deserve a Nobel Prize?  I mean really! Elon Musk watch and learn!