So. I am not keeping up with my previous month’s blogging activity, I know.  There have been a couple reasons – so let me share them. 

Memory Loss.  I once heard that when someone asked Lucille Clifton, a poet I love, why all her poems were so short, she replied that she had 6 children, and that while poems came to her all day long, she could only remember 10 lines until the end of the day when she could sit down with a pencil.  I know what she means.  I have had some zingers lately, but with the new summer schedule, landscaping projects underway, sudden resurgent interest in a tidy home and Dad’s stuff, I haven’t even been able to remember 10 lines, much less a great idea. 

Dad’s Stuff.  Ok, so I know I mentioned that my Dad has cancer.  And that’s the thing.  Dad has cancer.  I don’t, but because I love him, and want to hang out with him, I kind of feel like I am running along next to the runaway train yelling “Hey, what’s that?  How does that feel?  Whoa! What are you going to do about that?”  A lot of my time lately has been spent hanging out with Dad, going to doctors with Dad, or thinking about Dad.  However, in spite of all that, I hadn’t gotten around to asking Dad if he minds if I exploit his life all over my site.  His cancer is not mine, I know that.  But there I am running along side for some of it, trying to lend some sort of meager support, and it’s a big enough thing that it’s most of what I think about these days. 

So I asked, and his response was that it was fine, because then he could read it, and see how he is doing.  For the record, Dad, you are doing great.