Hey kids, sorry for the delay in getting anything written. I've been down with a humongous case of the blues lately. It's seen me attempt to eat and drink my way out of sorrow to horrifying results. I've had little to no motivation to throw the old leg over the top bar. Depression is a maddening thing, no doubt. But I see light there at the end of the tunnel and Mama didn't raise no moper. As the wifeage likes to say, "the pity party is coming to a halt sooner rather than later so get your shit together." She's a tough one, but then again you already knew that.

Pitched my Mom off a cliff up at Sea Ranch this weekend. It was a glorious afternoon. We walked a bit on a bluff trail that overlooks the ocean to a place where my Dad and Mom used to hike to. There's a bench that is mostly obscured from view from the trail and they liked to sit there and reflect on life. It is known in the family as the "secret bench" as few even know that it's there. We took turns sprinkling her ashes off the cliff and then the Grandkids, one at a time, took a long stemmed rose and threw it off as well. It was a beautiful moment. As we left, when my Dad thought nobody was looking, he blew a kiss to the area where we spread her ashes and said goodbye. I almost walked into a cypress tree for the blurriness in my eyes.

We had a great time taking the kids to the beach. We flew kites and built forts and played in the waves. We also went tide pooling and found starfish, anemones, hermit crabs, and the like. I also went abalone diving for the second and third time in my life. The first time was like 20 years ago with my Dad, and truth be told, I couldn't really get down to the bottom and find any. My brother Michael (pictured cleaning the booty) had been only a handful of times, but seemed to know what he was talking about. I scored two on Sunday, one of which was legal. We went back out on Monday and Michael and I both limited out while my brother Matthew lent his support (code for coming out of the water smelling more like a skunk than abalone). As you can tell from the photo, I've already got my Cat 3 upgrade on the ab diving as I got Michael to clean it all. That's just savvy tactics if I say so myself.

Hope you are well. One final celebration to get through this weekend and then you might see this plus sized Well Fargonaut back on the path to fitness.

Johnny GoFast