And hello again; Trace has already told you about the good news we were about to spring on you before Mike and Dee's really bad news so I'll hit the ground running news-wise. It is, as she said, a great place to get away from it all; I'm not quite sure that her hope that my folks, Ardith and me can get together and work things out but we can at least try. A lot more water might have to go under the bridge before Mom and Dad can complete the step called making amends but at least they're trying. In any event, Paul and Rosie like the view so even if things don't quite work out, it's not a total loss.
Speaking of total losses, you know what happened with Big Daddy Caine last month; his attempt to shoot down the Survivor's movement fell all to bits when Doctor P talked to the media about what he'd seen over the years as a dentist. Watching Anthony's jerk of a dad get outed as a vengeful ostrich and that sleazy crook Arsenault revealed to be a cynical merchant of panic was pretty cool; I've had enough of those two to last a lifetime. It almost sort of redeems John himself; not that he seems to care, of course. He's said and done a lot of questionable things over the last few years and let a lot of people down. We got to talking after the interview and he allowed as how he'd done a lot of damage over the years; he wished he hadn't but couldn't see how he could do anything other than not do bad any more and how that wasn't enough. I tried telling him that last was plenty but he seems determined to feel bad about himself. Ah, well. If he wants to do that, we can't really stop him from doing so; at least he'll be a little more appreciative of what he has now so if he takes Trace up on her invite, he'll be better company. I just hope he works on his table manners; as you know, he and his family eat kinda messily.
As for Mike and Dee, I'm going to honour their silence until they choose to break it. What I will tell you is that, for some reason, Liz and a bunch of the others had a pointless row with one of their relatives; it seems she wanted to share a funny story about how the tinfoil hat brigade (her words) blamed our radiation problem on living in cities. Since you can cut the tension in Colorado with a knife, the poor girl was the victim of what I believe they still call a meltdown. The reason for that, of course, was that Liz was sort of insecure about whether Anthony was really okay with Things As They Stand; she, as she said, didn't want to tempt fate and wanted to see if he felt the same. I hope my telling him what she really meant cleared up the broken glass feeling he had but, well.....
Man! Look at the time; Trace and I have to head up to Ottawa for another meeting so I'll have to cut things short. I'll let you know if John (it's gonna take a while getting used to calling him that) took us up on Trace's offer or if he went to Doc McAulay's place and all the rest of the news.
See you next year,
Gord.