So I thought I'd see what was "trending" on Google, so I could write a really up-to-date blog post. Here's what I found. 1. Hamilton Chicago - Tickets are going for $9000.

  Friday afternoon I was busily working away at my laptop. To be completely honest, I was multi-tasking – talking on my cell phone, sending an instant message and reading an email. Really, I am not sure how I was doing all of those things and probably wasn’t really.    

They say when something happens to your child you feel it worse than if it happened to you. I found that to be true last week.  

Pets never made a regular presence at "Grand Junction," the name (my daughter) Marisa gave our place on Four Square.  Occasionally we watched my nephew Douglas' hamsters; that seems ages ago.   One of the four-legged variety seems capable of infusing himself as if he lived here each visit:  

I am here. I am healthy. I am strong.   The first third of my life started out as a 4.5 lb baby with life threatening congenital problems that in other countries would have resulted in my demise. The second third of my life started out with my world in complete collapse due to a set of events that made me an uneducated, broke, single parent of two children who were five and two. Now I start the third part of my life.  

We have all been captive inside a mechanized telephone maze. Nothing infuriates me more than the frustration of the urgent need to get through to the party I've called, but being put in the holding pen. Invariably, the delay becomes interminable as the loop interrupts the cheesy elevator music to proclaim "your call is important to us please stay on the line". When patience is at end there is great temptation to hang up, but no!  You have gone so far and would have to start over and endure this gauntlet anew. And then, there is a disconnect or dropped call.

Renovations of the bathrooms in our offices were recently completed. In addition to the clean new look,  I noticed the new high powered hand dryer and the new paper towel dispenser which dispensed smaller sheets than I remembered. I began to take notice and observed many more high powered hand dryers in public restrooms.

These three men have eased my pain and I am able to love life more this week because of them. No one is more surprised than me.   Lin Manuel: