WHERE HAVE I BEEN?

Oh, I don't know.  Around, I guess.  Here and there.  I don't actually keep track.  Has it really been a month since I logged on to blog on?  It's not like I've been particularly busy.  Oh sure, there was the trip to Maryland for golf and sailing, followed by a jaunt to NYC for fun and games and, well, you all know daughter D came to visit for a week after that, but really, busy?  Not especially.  Yeah, yeah, I know, there was golf and movies and lunches and dinners and long walks and long talks and dogs and new people and laughter, lots of laughter, and the beach and the gardens and the clinking of glasses, but busy?  Not really.  So there is no excuse I say, no excuse at all for not tapping out a blog or two to keep the old monkey mind lubed up and running smoothly.  None. Zip. Nada.  It's just, well, My Bad.

So...what can I do to make up for my lazy old self?  What can I do to make it all right again? 

Thinking.  Thinking.  Thinking.

I know!  I'll drink a lot of coffee and write nonsense!  Here comes some of that now! 

"The exclamation mark is over used," he exclaimed loudly!

The Republican Party.  (When it comes to nonsense the current Re-pub-lycans are a hard act to follow.)

The Denver Broncos will go 19 - 0 and be crowned the greatest team ever; better even than the Gabor's Bar softball team, but not by much, which  won titles in four consecutive years, going undefeated in two of them, that was managed by me and featured my sons and me as star players.  

Interjection:  The above paragraph may or may not be nonsense.  It is simply historical fact not yet recorded or, at least, it exists as such in my mind, a place where I often fear to tread.  And that, of course, is another story.

Sidebar:  I just tilted my cup to take another sip of now cold java and noticed the sludge sloshing about in the bottom of the cup.  Nasty looking stuff.  There is some sticking to the sides of the cup too.  I can't imagine why I drink this oily, dark, substance apart from the fact I like it and it makes my heart go lub dub lub dub in the morning when it is more inclined to go lub....................               dub.

Alrighty then, I'm almost done.  I've got to get back today to writing my novel which I abandoned some months ago because it got hard to write and also because it was awful; two reasons I know are not really good enough to inspire quitting.  I do lots of things that are hard, after all - bending over and tying my shoes comes to mind - and the world cannot really have too many bad novels if paperback best seller lists are any indication.  But before I go I have one or two more things to say that are removed from the nonsense category and border on those of import.

If only I could remember what they were.

I was going to end there with that lame punch line but for a couple of circumstances that cropped up featuring sneezing and dog vomit in that order.  You see I was just sitting here in my recliner, legs up and lap top doing what it was named for, when I began to sneeze.  Not once, not twice, but something in the thirties or forties seemingly without end.  My nose became quite suddenly a running, tickling, dripping faucet of clear liquid that I tried to stem with handfuls of tissues and vigorous blowing to no avail.  Although it is rare, this sort of seizure is not without precedent in my recent history, read living in Panama, and I have learned to keep Clarityne on hand for just such an event.  Ah-chooing my way to the medicine cabinet in the bathroom, I did not notice the also clear dog vomit, reminiscent of the goop leaking from my nose, on the floor -  when sneezing, one's eyes close - until slipping on it.  I did not fall, which is to say that my gifted-athlete status remains intact, but I did do a fairly comical slapstick version of man-meets-banana peel- arms-flapping-madly-to regain-balance.  You know the dance.  A You Tube version of such would surely garner many "hits."  I cleaned up the mess while still ah-chooing madly and giving the Clarityne time to kick in.  I would venture that this was proof that life is a comedy but for the knowledge that one of my dogs is sick and that's not funny.  

Okay. Now I'm done.