ABSENCE MAKES THE LAUNDRY PILE GROW LARGER

The wife returned late last night from a trip visiting family in upper Minnesota.

They say absence makes the heart grow fonder. When you've been married for a while it comes down to absence making for larger piles of dirty laundry.

Well, not really. The laundry was done a little bit every day the wife was in Minnesota. You see Bob is self sufficient. I cook. I clean. I do laundry. I can do it all and do it very well.

But it's nice having the wife back home. I'm tired of only having the dogs to talk to. Their answers to the questions I pose to them is always the same: Woof, woof and more woof.

The sunflowers are in Minnesota, a stones throw from the Canadian border. That's were the wife's relatives live - her mother's side of the family.

Life in the midwest is so very different from life in California. Unless you've lived in the west and the midwest you have no clue what I'm talking about.

I'd move to Michigan, Nebraska, Minnesota, Kansas in a heartbeat. My kind of people live there along with my kind of politics, values, . . . the list could go on and on.

Sigh . . . .

I miss living there. . . . but I do not miss their winters!