I am back...with a vengeance...

     I am back!...(please hold your applause until the end of the blog).  After a "summer of silence" (not intentional), the words and voices in my head...(good voices), have driven me back to the computer keyboard and back to my rightful place in the "blogdom".  I hope you all had a great summer...(Bizarro winter here in the desert).  Needless to say it was unbelievably hot this summer(winter) with record breaking heat and loooooooong stretches of 100+ degree days.  Throw in some haboobs (dust storms), some violent thunderstorms and flash floods, and it was a pretty typical summer(winter).  I have probably explained the bizarro angle, but here we go again.  Winter, traditionally, is the season where people huddle indoors and go out less frequently...that's summer here...(except for me because I love the heat).  Summer is the season where people take vacations...people take vacations to Arizona in the winter.  Fall is the season of falling leaves and trees and plants dying until rebirth in the spring.  Fall, here, is when the cactus flowers and the trees bloom...(and my allergies are out of control).  Hence the bizarro world where everything is opposite...(don't get me started on Daylight Savings Time!).  So really there are 2 seasons in the desert, FREAKING HOT, which goes from middle May until middle October, and ABSOLUTELY GORGEOUS, the rest of the time.  Absolutely Gorgeous came last week and is spectacular to say the least.  Cool evenings and 80 degree days with plentiful sunshine and blue skies.

     Good news,bad news alert...Over seeding is almost done in the valley...(replacing grass on the golf courses with rye grass, a heartier winter grass that will take the lower temperatures). That's the good news.  Grass is not the only thing growing at the golf course...so are the greens fees to play as the snowbirds make their way from the Midwest and Great White North (I'm talking Canada, EH?). That's the bad news.  But a couple of overtime shifts at Desert Highlands or a weekend or two at the Convention Center will help...(let's face it. I would sell my blood for greens fees!)  But, luckily it hasn't come to that.

     Some important people had birthdays during my absence and I think I got them all via some sort of media, social, email and the like but re-wishing happy birthdays to Toni Ann, Bob, Mom, Bob (bro), Sheryl, Beck, Veronica, Natalie, and Loretta and anyone else in the mix from June 2 until the present...(I'm old--I forget things).  Prayers go out to Uncle Charlie and especially Aunt Joan in this time of need as Charlie has been ill and has been moved to hospice care in Pennsylvania...I have many wonderful memories of Charlie and the cousins (those I remember, but where are my damn keys/!) and I will always treasure them.  I believe in all my heart that Charlie has a special place with God when He finally calls him home.

     And finally...I chose this day because the World Series begins tonight, and lo and behold, my beloved Mets are IN IT!  I remember wishing in May that all I wanted was meaningful baseball being played by the Mets after July and the All-Star break...and boy, they did not disappoint.  Beating the Nationals to win the division, then the hated Dodgers (that's the DBack fan in me) in five games and then sweeping the Cubs (remember Cub fans, Back to the Future was a "fantasy" movie for entertainment purposes only).  And here they are playing in the World Series!  I never thought they would be good this soon.  I figured with all the young pitchers it would be a year or three before they came along, but who's complaining?  Kansas City is a formidable opponent (they were there last year) but anything could happen...LET'S GO METS!!

    Glad to be back, hope you feel the same...Much more to come.  Health and blessings to "y'all"...