Well, it seemed like time to roll this thing over to May even though I've nothing in particular to say. A few miscellaneous items:

My son hit a home run the other night in little league. There's something about watching a home run that is the best single moment in sports watching for me (even when it isn't my progeny doing it) -- don't know exactly what it is. Even in the age of easy home runs in the major leagues, the drama of the pitcher vs. batter confrontation is fascinating to watch.

We have a Cedar Elm tree that is three years old and it began exploding growth wise last year and continues this year. I think it added two feet to most of its branches last year and is doing the same this year, with some branches growing more than that. It's almost like you can sit and watch it grow in the spring. When we bought it, it was pretty much a Charlie Brown tree -- it had sat pressed up against a building and most of the branches were worn off of one side. But I had been looking for one and it was marked for clearance, so we took a chance. Those who know what it looked like, can still see where the gaps are, but in another year it will probably not even be perceptible to us.

I can promise you it isn't the skill of the caregiver that brought this out of the tree, it was there all along just waiting for a fighting chance, and now there's no turning back.