may I please be excused?

I seem to have wandered away from the table here. This is mainly a result of practicality. In two days, we are leaving for five so I am cooking to clean out the fridge and not pausing to take pictures of what results.

While I do that, and also contact a psychic to see if she can conjure a mental image of where we stored every single pair of swim goggles we own as they have vanished and we suspect they are all together, and also check the EWG’s Skin Deep website to see if we can purchase a sunscreen that does not feel like peanut butter, stink of wild carrots, cost $50 per tube or cause genetic mutations in endangered caterpillars, I can also be found guest-posting on my friend Suzi’s website.

There is a lot to be said for and about my friend Suzi. It is good to have friends who, when you call and say, “I need you,” answer “where?” before they ask “why?” I am wealthy in this kind of friend, and Suzi is absolutely and recently and frequently one of them. Here, also, is a woman who understands the implications of hundreds of pounds of gooseberries ripening near your home, and a person who will place a gentle boot at your back when you stand at the door of the plane, because she has helped you sew the parachute and is ready to dive right there with you. She’s a courageous chick, and we all know courage is not the absence of fear, but the willingness to recognize that something else is more important.

This is her post on where we intersect on these matters, and there is a link about halfway down to a post I wrote for her series, "Out Of The Mouths Of Babes."