Hey there. Let me say right out of the gate that I’m embarrassed that I haven’t posted anything in a while. I’ve found it difficult to sit down and write anything of substance this last week or so, though not for lack of material. In fact, we’ve had a number of blog-worthy things going around here, not least of which is our recent trip to Mexico (from which we returned with a new appreciation of, of all things, Cuban food). For me the problem is that I’m incapable of just jotting down observations or updates without trying to make a big thing of them.

You know how it is – you’ve got a few minutes to kill so you decide to jump on your blog. After a few keystrokes you’ve posted something like “Sup…not much happening here…check back latr.” Done. But just before clicking on “publish” you figure you’ll give that little posting a second glance. You start, innocently enough, by checking for punctuation and spelling errors. It then becomes clear that the grammar needs tweaking.  After about ten minutes of that you think maybe adding a joke or two would help. The next thing you know you’re off on a furious tangent about how absolutely horrible every single brand of frozen, precooked Italian Meatballs is, and before you’re done you’ve incorporated your personal thoughts on the care and maintenance of backyard citrus trees; openly question the character and parentage of Representative John Boehner (R – OH); name-dropped a nineteenth-century German philosopher; confessed to making up a story, when young, about hitting a cow on your bike; included a recipe for flan; and mentioned, with no little degree of forcefulness, how much you hate Ethan Hawke. Suddenly your little “update” is looking like something Ted Kaczynski may have excised from his manifesto in the interest of brevity. It is this way for me, and it’s why I’m not as prolific as I’d like to be. I mean, this stuff takes time!

Well, as I say, things have been going on around here, and I promise to get to them directly. In fact, there may even be something this very afternoon! What luck!!!