To sum the month of May up.

May was a very eventful month. It all began with the sudden death of my uncle and being reunited with my cousins again. As you get older and settle into your life you lose touch with people who are doing the same thing. I realize that everybody is already aware of this reality of life. I've already written about my uncle Sam. He would spend the holidays with us his nieces and nephew instead if his own daughters. Two of them live in the same city as we (my family) do. Ones about 20 miles away and one now lives in London. The month also featured a particularly tough work schedule, save for the short time I spent on Martha's Vineyard last week. Next I received a call from my dear friend on the west coast. She tells me,

"I'm coming out east! To Concord!" Concord is where her mom is from. Her moms sister is very ill.
"That's great!" I said. "When?"
"Tomorrow!"
"How long will you be out here?
I don't know. A few days. A week. A month. I don't know. I'll be staying in Concord. I will probably go to Cape Cod for a bit. (More family) Then to New Hampshire (Friends). "

I fully understand how things work when you have to travel a great distance because of a family issue. Everything is done on the fly. I tried to coordinate our schedules which caused her to say,

"Oh there he goes, Mr. Plan. Has to plan everything."

Leaving out the details I did manage to see her for one evening. She is very spontaneous. Me? Not so. It was wonderful. I met a little more of her family. It was just an evening but I'm glad I saw her again. Maybe September or October, if all the planets align in, I'll go out there. Something we talked about last year.

Of course there's work. A very uneven schedule week to week. Hitting 40 years on the job on April 1.

On the other hand, I just had 9 days off in a row. A good chunk of it spent, as the snotty say, "Down on the Vineyard." It was quite enjoyable to come and go as we pleased. The ability to sit by the ocean on a beautiful day after about a minute walk. The streets had some vacationers, Asian, European, Jamaican, but there were no crowds anywhere. There were license plates from around the country. I even saw one from California. Now that's a road trip. Getting up early to see the sun break the horizon over the Atlantic. Eating well, not overboard but, indulging one's self here and there. That's the beauty of traveling off season. It's very tranquil. As planned, We left on the very day the first crowds started arriving for the long weekend. All in all a welcome ending to the month of May. At this point I had a short video at this spot but it doesn't want to cooperate at this time.

When I went back to work it didn't take long for a customer to mispronounce Wunderbar Baloney as "the wonderful baloney". I'm back doing the day to day routine. I'm also painting my kitchen, but that's coming along slowly. Well as I sit here we are under a tornado watch around here and a tornado warning in the western part of the state. These storms are getting closer. there are rumbles of thunder and lightning at the moment.

OK. Time for me to be off.
I'm outta here.