It is a pretty good rain so far today. It is more than just one of those that “just settles the dust”. The firemen are loving it this kind of rain. And it should be over today and it will serve to freshen up the whole outdoors. August can give that look of well used and this will help soften that up a little.

This evening Marla and Carol the Handler are coming in by rental car. They are staying at Kelly’s along with Mary Margaret. And also our Chief Instigator Cris Milher, Caminoheads South America Bureau Chief, will be flying in and I will be picking her up at the ferry dock. She is staying in the neighborhood at Charlie and Marcy’s. And I say Chief Instigator because this gathering was her idea in the first place when she said sometime last winter, “Why don’t we try to get all the bureau chiefs together.” Sounds pretty innocent the way she put it.

But now things have progressed from gathering to shindig and it hasn’t even started yet. Could hit a full blown hullabaloo by the time it’s over. Afterward when folks have moved on there may remain a sort of crop circle that can be seen from space. “Geez, what happened there?”

This whole thing seems to be akin to the situation when I was a kid. I spent the early part of my childhood in the city before we escaped to the suburbs. This was before the day of all the electronic gizmos obviously, back in a forgotten century. And our biggest joy was to find an empty lot to play in. Just a place, a venue to get together and expand in. That’s what the Veranda looks like to me.

I am going to take advantage of the rest of the morning to write a few words for a friend’s memorial service. So happens that it is this weekend and there was no way that I could get out there so I am going to write a little something that someone could read there. This morning seems like the perfect and only time to do that.

Well, that’s what it looks like on the ground here at the ranch. Hope to see most of you soon if not at the Veranda then someotherwhere.

empty lot loves, Felipé.