Hey, remember me? I know it’s been a while, but I wanted to drop in and let you know that I’m still here. Mostly.

How many of us started January with confidence and optimism, or at least the thought that, surely this year has to be better? You may recall that even after 200+ inches of rain here in 2021, I was trying to be cautiously optimistic about the future. (See Dog Pee and Avocado Blossoms.)

That is, until the shit show that is 2022 exploded all over us in earnest.

Not to make light of the ongoing global atrocities, but how many of you of a certain age had Cold War Flashbacks on your New Year’s bingo card? (Shout out to my Gen X compadres.)  I did not.

I’ll resist the temptation to catalog more of our current insanities—chances are you already know about them and don’t need to hear it again. If you don’t yet know, you don’t need more crap to obsess about, more crap that’s mostly out of your control.

Then there are the small-picture, everyday life things that we all continue to experience.

Longtime blog readers may have noticed the lack of Pack Updates from our tiny corner of the world. Unfortunately, Ninja Kitty succumbed to cancer in February. He was given a couple of weeks to months to live back in October, but hung on in his typical bad-ass fashion, killing rats until the very end.

Soon after that, my silent but constant canine companion Fred had his third surgery for throat tumors. It was “successful,” except that the cancer had spread to his spleen. Fred passed several days later.

A couple of weeks after losing Fred, our family had a pretty devastating loss of the human variety, one I don’t think I’ve really begun to process yet. Whatever that means.

Yeah, the theme of 2022 so far has definitely been Grief.

Of course, not to sound morbid or like the Dread Pirate Roberts, but, Life is pain.

So now I am back on island and I am back at my desk. The house feels very empty, with my non-Hubs interactions limited to geckos and feral pigs, but I am starting to move forward again…

Specifically with that elusive eighth Sydney Brennan book, Memory Lane!

If I’ve been absent of late, it’s been forever since you heard from Sydney.

That’s why over the coming weeks, here at the Blog I’m going to help you get reacquainted, remind you where Syd started and where she is now in her journey.

Well, now meaning the spring of 2005, shortly after Grave Truth. 😉

So I’ll see you back here next week to reintroduce you to an old friend.

Note: if you haven’t read End of the Road (Syd’s prequel origin story) or Club Revelations (a strip club adventure that falls between Braving the Boneyard and River Bound), bop over to that Sidebar to get on my Newsletter list and read them for free. You can unsubscribe at any time.