thanks so much for the encouraging and inquiring comments!!  I have been extremely waylaid with professional, personal and existential issues of late (even loading trucks last night for Katrina victims...what back pain today!!).  I will be back in the saddle within a matter of days.  From a literary sense. I am sorry for the "left hanging" sense that some have expressed.  I am left flattered, yet appalled with my own inability to follow through, even in my own element.

A appreciate my blog friends so...there is no adequate way for me to express it.