with thanks

Things have been a bit higgledy-piggledy around here and my usual contributions to the blog have been curtailed for the last couple of days.

But I did want to pop in and say thank you to the donors who showed up out of the blue yesterday and contributed towards the repair of the zendo roof.

It has been a while since I posted the donate button to the right on this page. I posted it in the winter and there were some (thank you) early donors. But now it is spring -- the time when, if the donations pick up, the job can actually get done. Anyway, I was surprised and grateful yesterday... and could use a few more before I can actually have someone do the job.

The writing hiatus relates in part to trying to piece together a newspaper column that I write on a monthly basis. The older I get, the harder it gets to bang out a satisfactory 750 words ... something that, if my capacity to talk-talk-talk is any yardstick, I ought to be able to do like falling out of bed. These days, I can pick a topic pretty easily, but the magnetism of that topic is no longer what it once was. The igniting importance simply doesn't ignite as once. It is harder to write.

And then there's the household full of people and getting fuller. Not only are my daughter, her husband and my younger son filling out the domestic tableau. Now, it seems, my older son, who just graduated from college, will also join the herd in a corral that was large enough for pint-sized people, but shrinks by leaps and bounds as everyone fills out, has differing adult-sized plans and comes and goes as if it were Club Med. I like and love them all and that's a consolation, but ... well, it gets confusing for an old duffer like me and more confusion is not something I need.

So it goes.