The short answer: It appears the Sabbatical schedule is taking shape. Let me tell you where we’re going (though we’ll probably end up someplace else…)

• St. John
• St. Vincent
• Bequia
• Grenada & the Grenadine Islands
• Puerto Rico

Odds are we’ll be sleeping in hotels, guesthouses, condos, lodges, resorts, and no doubt a shanty and airport and broken-down bus at some point. The itinerary is coming together in that way that 555-piece puzzles do: First around the corners; then the edges; then chunks of the multifarious middle. Then, abruptly…OO-bop sha-BAMM! It all somehow fits.

Leaving you to wonder: If it was all there in the first place; why was this so hard!?!

Kind readers, forgive me for neglecting to babble about the flurry of planning activity that precedes taking a 69-day Breakaway. But gosh, it just don’t make great reading. I know: I read it all…and then deleted half of it (not nearly enough).

Anyway, planning takes on a life of its own. I can’t keep up with it myself—to say nothing of the rest of life’s demands.

Tonight, BTW, that includes directing dozens of grade school musicians who will be serenading diners at the school’s annual fund-raising spaghetti dinner. (Funds go toward a class BreakAway for bonding and science to a lakeside retreat Up North.) With my 6th grade violinist, we shall perform 4 Beatles songs: Eleanor Rigby; Hide Your Love Away; Yellow Submarine; and Blackbird.

“Take these broken wings and learn to fly.
All your life
You were only waiting for this moment to arise.”

Thanks, Paul.

“And we live a life of ease.
Everyone of us has all we please.
Then the band begins to PLAY.”

Thanks, Ringo.

• COUNTDOWN: 43 Days
• ODDS OF GOING TODAY: 90%…a new HIGH! : )