A good friend of mine called me up on the phone this morning – a rare sound these days – and asked me if I had seen the news. No, I said, I do not watch the news much anymore. I find that the news finds me if I need to know something. He clearly wanted to tell me something – he loves to keep Fox News on all day, or CNN, I can always hear angry ranting in the background, and he has a bad stomach – but I said, “you know what? I don’t need to hear the news. I have to go outside and give a carrot to a donkey.” Maria was already there.

When I got back, I called my friend and I said, “hey did you hear the news?” And he said, no, what is the news?  We love donkeys, I said, and Simon is doing well. And I said good-bye and hung up and went back to work on my E-Book original, “The Story Of Rose.” I loved her, also. But that’s another story.