"Remittance man... black sheep of the family clan.

Broke too many rules along the way.

Remittance man... so far away from home,

No they’ll never understand the remittance man."

Nowhere... I’ve pretty much been nowhere. But in being nowhere, I’ve been at home doing it with great fervor.

The last day or so, I’ve been slowily getting back on the bloghorse by dropping a few news items of interest into the blog. That feels okay. I'm trying to keep the horse calm.

I’ve been (and remain) in the land of endless winter. People think that must be Alaska or northern Canada or something, but it’s really here on the mountaintop.

On March 29, my oldest step-daughter came home for 3 days to visit her father for his birthday. On April 1, I took her to the airport. When I got home it was snowing... and it kept on snowing... and snowing... and snowing. It stopped snowing at a foot. Then it melted for two days. Then it snowed another foot. Then it melted. Geez.

Yesterday was Easter. It snowed, but not a foot. I can remember going skiing on Easter as a child. We often had at least as many white Easters as Christmases. But not lately. It's a throwback kind of year.

Now, this seems just the latest in a long line of meteorological insults collectively known as the endless winter around here. We never really did have a summer in 2003 and with the recent snowfalls, it’s getting to the place where people are going out, buying guns and eating them out of sheer frustration and depression. It’s not a baby boom in this place, it’s an artillery boom.

So, as advertised by Preachy, we have had enough. In fact, we had had enough after the first foot of snow fell the day the daughter returned to sunny California (emphasis on sunny). In about two weeks, we will be departing for points only sort-of known to experience the cruising life (in a sunny and warm sort of way).

This has actually been coming for quite awhile. We have friends who may very possibly retire onto some kind of cruise ship and do nothing during their so-called "golden years" but travel from port to port, collecting their Social Security in places like Venice, Trieste and Dubrovnik. Being among the cruise-converted, and dear as they are to us as friends, the have the fire of the missionary in their eyes when it comes to cruising and have been determined to bring us into the fold for several years. Through no actual fault of their own, they won. We just couldn’t take it any more - we had to go someplace warm.

So we will... soon. Sooner, I hope.