It is a Samsonville weekend. Bob is bleaching the deck, in preparation of staining it tomorrow. It is a strange time to be doing this, I think the martini he had at dinner is making him late night ambitious...

We will spend an extra day here this weekend. My aunt died on Friday morning, and the services will be Sunday/Monday. She was 90. That's a long, full life for sure, but still, it is sad. That's the fundamental truth of life - it is often bittersweet, if not downright sad. Her husband is nearly 96; they were married for 67 years. My grandmother, who died long before I was born, was pregnant with my aunt when she immigrated from Italy. My father told me this morning that his mother had to lie about having a baby or they would have sent her back to the old country when she arrived at Ellis Island. So Aunt Clara was born in America, and thirty years ago she left downstate, and relocated to my hometown in the Catskills. It was a whole new chapter in her life, and I think a happy one. That is the other thing about life - it is often happy, too.