Hi! I just came up for air, and look what I've been missing...what a great thread!

Carol C - you have a great sense of place and timelessness. It sounds a lot like some of the best moments in my trip to Cuba. Add to the scene little sand lizards that bask in the sun and scamper away when you come too near, then stop and gaze at you intently with jewel-like eyes. As the afternoon sun begins to wane, brightly coloured chameleons emerge from the shrubbery, resplendent in astonishing colours...bright blue, deep indigo, leafy green, golden brown, chocolate, and coral pink...each one in a colour scheme of its own choosing. These lizards are clearly expressing nothing more than sheer joy, as their colours in no way serve to camouflage them. I have always really like lizards.

This is what you do, folks. Find one whom you love dearly and take a walk under the shining moon. Listen to the ducks quacking sleepily across the bay (and make sure it really is a duck...that's an in joke). Stop at a local cafe for a late snack. Then go back home and lie around for hours and hours in the arms of the one you love...and drift...and drift...and dream. Do every kind thing you can think of for them, because kindness returns seven-fold to the giver.

Maybe life can get better than this, but if so, I sure don't know how.

Time passes slowly up here in the mountains
We sit beside bridges and walk beside fountains
Catch the wild fishes that float through the streams
Time passes slowly when you're lost in a dream

Once I had a sweetheart, she was fine and good lookin'
We sat in the kitchen while her momma was cookin'
Staring through the windows at the stars so high above
Time passes slowly when you're searching for love

Ain't no reason to go, in a wagon to the town
Ain't no reason to go to the Fair
Ain't no reason to go up, ain't no reason to go down
Ain't no reason to go anywhere...

Time passes slowly up here in the daylight
We stare straight ahead and try so hard to stay right
Like a red rose of summer that blooms in the day
Time passes slowly and fades away

- by Bob Dylan, who also said...

May God bless and keep you always, May your wishes all come true.