I'm exhausted.  So much has happened just since Monday.  The fam took the Dutchman on a surprise overnighter to Las Vegas for the big birthday.  I was, of course, invited but in an uncharacteristic move, opted to stay home with my own family, about a dozen of them, to watch the first night of the Democratic Convention and help Nicky get started on his promise to provide counseling to them.  You remember how he decided he could do more good out in the world rather than in the hills of Santa Monica at the monkery. 

The littlest Dutch boy is always saying how "messed up" my family is.  Well, it's true that over the years I have collected quite a menagerie of little ones who have experienced at least some degree of misfortune in their mysterious lives.  Remember, we don't all have one stable, loving home.  I mean sometimes mean, little kids outgrow us and toss us to the goodwill or even throw us away.  Sometimes their moms do it thinking we get too dirty and dusty for their precious little ones when all they have to do is clean us up a little.  Sometimes the family dog attacks us and shreds us to death.  And do we even get a funeral?  Not usually.  Everyone fusses over the child who is heartbroken over the loss of little Boffo or Pinky or BooBoo but who really thinks about us?  Who really takes the time to put us back together?  (May Papa Harry rest in heaven for his surgery on Fluffy's neck.)  We can get stuck in corporate gift baskets and end up being the only part of the basket that isn't edible or drinkable which is all those office dopes care about.  Or we are put up for sale in a store with literally hundreds of others who look exactly like us.  Don't they know that we may look alike, but we each have our own souls?  No wonder we're all messed up?  Nicky's got his hands full.  He is already starting to show the wear and tear.  No amount of meditation and prayer can protect him from the knowledge of what we have all been through.  I just hope he can help us make sense of it.  At least he cares.  That's worth a lot.

So we pulled an all nighter because there wasn't really anyone around to turn off the tv when we were ready to go to sleep.  In fact, we left it on so long that the screen finally went to some default setting of grey with instructions as to what buttons to push to get the picture back.  Nicky took us through a group therapy, in the dark, in the middle of the night, with no one home but us, just by the dim light of that grey default screen.  There were a lot of tears but it felt good to talk about our pain and suffering and fear and hurt.  It may have been a little more than poor Nicky bargained for, but he hung in there pretty darned well.  I think he learned more in one long, dark rainy evening about the human condition than he could have in a lifetime at the monkery.  (OK, we think of ourselves as human.  What constitutes human is similar to the conception or birth argument.  Only difference is we can't get enough people excited over it to get it on the political radar so we can even argue about it.  You humans have a lot to learn about life.)

I didn't even wake up last night when the big thunder storm rolled through.  It was good to have everyone back home.  Everything as it should be.  We don't even realize what it means to feel safe and cared for.  We sure get a big dose of what it means when we're not!  Ask Nicky.  He now knows more than he ever wanted to but he will tell you that it is good to be of service.

The little Dutch boy is opening a restaurant soon.  I see it as an opportunity to get my first real job.  I know I can't be a cook or a waitress or a cashier.  But I was thinking maybe a marketing specialist.  Once people realize that Gina Rose, of jabwab fame, works there, imagine what that could do for business.  I could chat and be charming and just let them get to know me.  And then they would tell their friends and bring in their kids and they wouldn't even have to admit that while they like the great food, they really enjoy spending time with me.  Yeah, I think it could work.  Maybe I will just let the little Dutch boy ask me on his own.  Like it was his idea.  Then he can get all the credit for it when I put his new place on the map.  This helping others thing is really fun. 

GR