I've been back home for 5 days. It was good to be back though I did enjoy the trip. Well, I mostly enjoyed the trip. I could have done without my camera being stolen but such are the times. It is HOT here just like you said H. Hotter than hot really. And so, so dry. The past two days it has clouded up and I've heard thunder in the distance but not a morsel of moisture has fallen here on the hill. The grass is turning to straw. If cap and trade gets passed we'll roast in our own homes. Today I am melancholy. (I think that's how you spell it) I've decided that it's time to go through my great aunt's things. She passed away last December. It feels kinda odd touching her clothing. I'm almost half way through the deed. Earlier today I could almost hear her voice and I thought of how we don't fully appreciate things, whether it's people or "stuff", until we are without them. At 96 she was still full of the spirit of life. And even toward the end she had the will to face it all head on. I will always remember her laugh. So much like her sister Ruby's. In 96 years she lived history and in the final few she talked of it often. For most of her life she was a democrat. For no other reason than that's what her dad was back in the day. I wonder about that blind sort of reasoning and wonder if that's not why we're in so much trouble today. I never argued politics with her, nor religion. She had a unique take on both and I agreed with neither. However, she seemed timeless....she would always be there. She saw more, heard more, and did more than most of us can even dare to dream about. And so today, her lifetime is being packaged and indexed. This goes here and that goes there. In the end it will be the whispers of memory that keep her alive for I can't help but remember the beautiful lady with the funny laugh whose last thought was to call her great niece because the time had come for her to go home and she wanted a familiar hand to hold in her own.