I suppose it may be the year of the clouds

That's what my great-aunt Marie would say, upon leaving the house, to see an overcast sky. No one knows what she meant by this. She, at the not-so-early age of 93, died a couple of months ago after living what was for the most part, a full and healthy life.

My ENTIRE FAMILY exists amongst the docile villages just north of Kansas City, MO. I return once a year, or so, for visits. Save this summer, where I have driven back and forth over a couple weekends for my aunt's funeral and related reasons. I will yet return to the shire one more time, to visit the townsfolk, in my voyage to the western shores.

“But Shawn, according to your first blog entry you should be long gone to (and back from) the west coast by now!” you exclaim in confused madness.

Indeed! (Please calm yourself.) My vacation was delayed due to the aforementioned project at work going overdue, to no big surprise. I will be leaving, for my belated reclamation of the soul, in one short week on August 11th. So, in the six weeks since I was first scheduled for departure, stressful (albeit engaging) work, the trips down home, along with other smaller engagements and complications, have kept me rather busy.

“But what about the Tibby?”

Thanks for asking. He's miraculously running without incident in recent weeks and months, except for a blown tire en route from KC to Mpls, which I believe I can hardly hold against him.

Behind the veil of the daily grind and the trips down home, California had become so clouded that I began to doubt whether the golden state was still attached to the continent, and whether Monsieur Tibbs and myself wouldn't careen off the edge of the earth in a dual suicide, like the chick-flick heroes we were indubitably destined to become.

Alas, now that at last the smoke is clearing, the Atlas makes it apparent that the left coast is still with us; and now that I have a degree of finality at work, I will finally get a finale to the wonderfully grotesque web of Summer 2006.