it’s been awhile – went off to ohio for a bit to attend my grandmother’s funeral, see the folks, the siblings, the vaguely related, the old friends who are still there, various gas station attendants, one particularly attentive highway patrolman, the hot dogs at tony packos, a hotel counterperson and some incredibly fat buffet diners (in indiana on the way back.)

oh, my nephews too. i’ve only seen the kids twice in their lives. they didn’t remember that. they did have some nice toys to bang on the table tho.

decent trip, given that amys feet were swelling, the heat was (better than stl) stifling and, man, those indiana people were fat! i got a picture of a lottery sign that said “”hoosier millionaire”” which was well received with the stl crowd.

when we got back the first thing we noticed is that the weather here had gotten suddenly… livable. upper seventies with no choking humidity, even. this news was met with the inevitable, a drive down the road to grant’s farm to feed the goats and point at the monkeys and touch a camel chin.

today we went down to jeffco to meet amy’s mother and some guy named peanut. yeah, peanut. she was scared stiff that i’d be horrified and run screaming back to the safety of the county. i survived. smelling of smoke and covered in dog hair, but alive.

speaking of dogs – the one below is gone. she was way to afraid of the other dogs and cars and, uh, me. we relented and returned her to the safety of the boondocks. oi.