#CakeForDinner!!

Another November first, another All Souls Day, and another birthday for th' late Doc Shaw.  

Not terribly long ago I left my Ohio home and all my friends and favourite haunts, and traveled 500 miles south to Charlotte, NC to take a job teaching elementary school. It's been nigh-on 8 years since I've been in a classroom, and as you might imagine I've been ridiculously busy-- by my calculations, I've put in something like 78 hours worth of overtime as a teacher, almost 2 full weeks worth of work beyond what a normal 40-hour workweek person might have done, and I'm exhausted.  I'm still not entirely sure where th' entirety of th' month of Sept. and Oct. went to, nor how exactly I find myself standing here at th' threshold of th' last 2 months of 2015, but I am.

Between work and planning to go to work and chores and journey I'm about to make to a local mechanic, there's been hardly any time to THINK about th' final 1/6th of th' year, let alone plan to write about it, but it would not be right n' proper for me to let th' sun set upon Doc's birthday without at least putting up a cyber-cake in his memory and telling him (and everyone else) that I'm thinking about him.

I am planning to participate in National Blog Posting Month o'er at my place, and as th' month goes on, I plan to put in some more meaningful words about th' 2nd birthday without Doc (and th' first one where I'm literally 3 states away from his hearth n' home), but I don't have th' time to do so today, ON his birthday itself.

Doc, if'n y'all can read this (sure you can, you're in th' spirit at my elbow, as Dickens' says in his ghostly little book), know that I'm a-thinkin' about you on your birthday, even in th' midst of this craziness.  there's a lil' block o' cake in th' fridge that I'll have later, and think about you some more.  I miss ya, brother, and hope you're havin' a lil' bit o' cake and a pint up there in Heaven today.