how are you? como estas? come stai? comment allez-vous?

just finished a puzzle (from the NYT, even!) that was so hard & mentally-intensive for me, it made my heart jumpy & me anxious. but i finished it!! my brain still works. just read an article that says the brain begins to degenerate at around age 27; near-20 yrs later, i guess i should be grateful i'm not drooling & still can control my bodily functions! (that isn't a poor joke, i hope, but realization!) anyways, i've been reading all morn, catching up on magazines, learning a bit here & there, which i love to do (even if i'm a middle-aged person doomed to brain-failure)... i want to do duolingo, on which i've been practicing the romance languages of italian, french, & spanish. i've finally figured out if i go from hardest (french) to easiest (spanish), i do better. i think it's complementary, also fun, to do all three at once. the day i tried to add in german, i had a mental hardware-drive crash, so no more german... least for now! i have to wait til james awakens to do duolingo cause it's kinda like a video game, w/active audio requiring one to parrot back & figure out words & sentences... so i'm gonna go for a run, which'll not just smooth out my anxieties, but give time for husband to wake!
... too, i no longer am a laborer, but if you are, happy labor day to you! on the backs of workers has this great country been built... also, by the sweat of labor unions do we (i mean, you) now enjoy a 5 day, rather than 7 day, work week. honest labor is honorable & can bring meaning. may your work bring you a sense of purpose & fulfillment, as teaching did me for so many years, despite its many frustrations!

missin the spiritual sceneo, seein the hillbilly dino

this time of yr i'm SUPPOSED to be in the sequoias at a spiritual retreat w/women from all over the state, something i always anticipate happily... but on a dang day i was wiped-out-sick home from work, i goofed & ordered tickets for us to go see ron white that same night!! yes, tater salad, that suave & hunky lone star comedian (who had a markedly different look early on - see pic! i like it!!)... drat! but the guy's finer than frog hair split four ways, handier than hip pockets on a hog, slicker than deer guts on a greased doorknob, so we're going.
i'll miss out on good & serene times w/my galfriends, so i hope tonight brings lotsa laughs. (laughter! one of the sacredest human states!) :) & that maybe ron white will go back to his chubby good-ole-boy look, instead of texan-dean-martin...