It appears I need to take a lesson in speech and dialect. Or perhaps geography. Or maybe just a course on exotic men.

A month ago, I met a very good-looking male type, with a ridiculously sexy accent. Even though he told me clearly where he was from, I fixed him in my mind as a native of another continent entirely. Honestly, I plopped him mentally down in the one that sounds the sexiest to me - Australia.

But first, let's go back to the point at which we met. As you may recall from the way-back bipolar posting, I can be just the tiniest bit impulsive. Particularly when I'm happy.

Is it my bipolarism, or is it me? I suspect it's a combination of the two. Regardless, I like this aspect of myself. Except when it gets me into trouble. Which is most of the time.

Anyway, on Memorial Day Weekend, I was happy. That Friday, I had been offered my new job and signed a lease on a new apartment. Saturday, I blazed up to my former mountain home and a barbecue hosted by a longtime friend. We ate, drank and talked until the sunset, and then adjourned to a nearby bar.

By that time, I felt downright celebratory. In other words, very buzzed. So when a good-looking man sat down beside me, I did what any woman would do. Or, at least, what this woman would do. I made a smart-ass comment to him. I wish I could tell you what it was, but I know only that it must have been something divinely entertaining because he smiled and cocked his head at me in interest.

I liked the way he tilted his head. It made me think about kissing him.

The bar was loud and after a few failed attempts to hear one another, he summoned me outside. I happily followed, a gamboling puppy with its tongue hanging out.

We sat on the broad, wooden front steps on this old country bar, and considered one another further. Somewhere in there, he mentioned that he was foreign.

"I'm not hearing it," I said. "Keep talking."

He cocked his head at me again, then laughed and shook it. "Well, what would you like me to say? Let's see ...," he continued.

He could have stopped at the word "say," because I heard it loud and clear on "what." But I let him go on. And on. Because the accent was music, and I was spellbound.

I was, however, not entirely happy about this. I do not like a man to immediately get such a grip on me. Besides which, a guy with a weapon so powerful surely had used it on many hapless women before me. I refused to be just another of his many victims.

At length, he stopped and looked at me again. "Believe me now?" he asked.

"Yes," I said. "Damn you."

"Damn me?"

"You and that accent," I said, feigning annoyance.

"And why's that?" he asked, leaning in close to me.

I stared back at him silently, trying to hold back what would have been a huge smile. Instead of telling him what he already knew, it suddenly seemed - in my buzzed condition - a far better idea to take action.

"I'd just like to know," I said, "how it would be."

And I kissed him. I hadn't kissed a man in 14 months. I hadn't kissed a good-looking man in more than two years. I had never kissed an Australian. And as I later discovered, I never did.

"Well," he said afterward. "How was it?" He was smiling, his teeth gleaming white in the dim lighting.

I shrugged. No way in hell did I want him to know it was just as delightful as everything else about him. "It was OK."

He laughed loudly. "You are unbelievable!" He studied me, and I believe he saw clearly through my thin shell.

"I think we just might have something here," he said, the "here" coming out with a charming, soft "ya" sound on the end. The accent - definitely Australian. I knew it. "Do you?"

I nodded, keeping my tone nonchalant. "I think we might."

"But let's just see," he said. "It's my turn."

And this kiss was, I would say, slightly better than OK.

He asked for my phone number. But I thought that's all he would be - a handsome stranger brushing by me on a drunken night.

But the next morning, before my car reached the Front Range flatlands, he called, asking when he could see me again. With the new job, vacation and moving, I told him I'd be hard to catch for the next month. Nevertheless, he convinced me to carve out a weeknight for him two weeks later.

Roger invited me to dinner at his house. Two nights before, he called to give me his apartment number, "A".

"A for Australia," I chirped.

There was a beat of hesitation on the other end of the line. "Yeah," he said.

I arrived sober and, consequently, nervous. I also showed up dressed for summer, forgetting the mountain weather is no slave to any calendar. Just for fun, it sometimes drops down a snowstorm on the 4th of July, which makes viewing fireworks a most unusual challenge. A bit of frost in early June? How quickly I had forgotten that this was more likely than not.

After Roger teased me good and well about my outfit, he fixed me with another look that said he wasn't done.

"Just where do you think it is that I'm from?"

I began to feel embarrassment rushing forward. "Um, obviously not where you're really from?"

"South Africa, not Australia," he said, grinning and watching for my reaction. "Don't you remember?"

In fact, I did not. Not even foggily. I blushed furiously, wondering if I should tell him I'd already nicknamed him "The Aussie" to one of my friends.

"The African" just didn't have the same ring. Wouldn't everyone envision a black, tribal sort with a bone through his nose? Perhaps wearing a loin cloth? (Which, really, didn't seem like a bad idea at all.) But the rest? Frankly, the whole Africa thing just didn't fit his image.

Besides which, the only thing I think of when I hear South Africa is "apartheid." Not exactly endearing. Say "Australia," however, and bouncing through my head go kangaroos and condensation-beaded cans of Fosters.

I would try just to forget this unpleasant "Africa" revelation. He was Joeys and beer, not racism and bloodshed. That was all there was to it.

Despite this shock, we had a very nice evening. Not only could he flirt and kiss and look fabulous in jeans and a T-shirt, he also could cook. Damn him again.

Nevertheless, I don't know if I'll see the African again. He reminds me almost painfully of my last boyfriend, and seems, like him, content with a lifestyle that involves little responsibility. In all that he told me about his history, I could not find evidence of a single serious relationship.

Perhaps I'm on the defensive, for surely, people don't reveal all on a second meeting. Regardless, things between us were left vague, more so on my part than his. The ball's in my court, and I don't know what I want to do with it.

I had lunch with a friend last week and told her about the African and my continental confusion. She was intrigued by my description of him.

"Something about guys with those kinds of accents," she said. "Isn't it funny how they're all good looking?

"I mean, if guys from Alabama all looked like that, would we start to think a Southern accent is attractive? And if he had a Southern drawl, would you have found him attractive at all?"

I think she has a valid point. Fair or not, a Southern twang would have taken a severe toll on the African's aesthetic appeal.

Between the accent and the face, Roger was born to charm; perhaps that explains the apparent lack of serious relationships.

Even if we don't go out again, I might just call him. But I'll do it during the day, when I know he's at work. That way, I can listen to the sweet, seductive music of his voice message - again and again. Or as Roger would say, "a-gain and a-gain."

Damn him.

Last night, I awoke to the sound of three pairs of paws in my bedroom. I fumbled for the light and saw George and Ally in pursuit of a blur of brown fur. It was a baby bunny, who proceeded to wedge himself between the wall and a leg of my night stand and flatten his small self as much as possible. He could not, however, still his sides, which heaved from his panicked flight. George stood over him, purring happily.

(OK, OK, so I didn't actually hear the bunny's paws, but it sounds better, now doesn't it?)

He had caught the little fellow and brought it, no doubt with great pride, through the window I've been leaving cracked open for him these summer nights. I'm guessing he dumped it in the bedroom so I could see and appreciate the prize he'd brought to me.

The bunny, aside from having a wet neck, was fine. I threw on my robe, and ran outside, across the parking lot and through the wet grass to a bush under which I placed the baby. When I returned, George was walking from room to room in confusion.

George is a hunter, and as a former farm girl who's often witnessed the circle of life, I'm fine with that. Most summer mornings, I open the back door to find a bunny leg, a few tufts of fur and, if I'm really lucky, intestines. Usually, it's a young rabbit. Sometimes, it's a full-sized rabbit. Occasionally, it's a bird, and my neighbor said she once saw him trotting proudly homeward with a snake dangling from his mouth.

None of these are endangered species. In fact, we're over run with rabbits here. The live ones are another story, however. I have heard their piteous and painful death squeals, and it is a truly heart-wrenching sound. If I catch sight of George before the kill, I happily free them.

Hunting and hanging outside is what makes George's summers glorious. Even in winter, he valiantly braves the elements, but not for long. After half an hour or so, he's at the back door. We spy him looking in at us through the glass, mouth opening and closing in a soundless plea to rejoin us. An hour or so later, he asks if he can give it another try. And so it goes until spring warms the world again.

I'm worried about George, and how he'll take our move. I'm more worried about George than Robby.

You see, we're moving into a third-floor apartment in a 700-unit complex. George has been an indoor/outdoor cat his entire life, first roaming the half-acre lot on which we lived in the mountains, and then here. During our three years in this townhouse complex, he has made friends with all the neighbors. I hear them occasionally, through my open window. "Hi Georgie!" Dianne will say. "How's the hunting been?" A couple weeks ago, I saw Jeff open his screen door at the sight of George standing on his patio. "Hey George, you wanna come in?" George declined.

He also suffers from an identity crisis of which he is unaware. George was raised with our dog and isn't sure what he really is. You may recall from a previous posting that he goes with the dog and I on nightly walks, sometimes very long ones, in rain, sun, dark of night, and snow.

For all George knows, he's mailman. Perhaps a dog. It's even possible he's a cat. I prefer to think catdog. But I think it's this confusion that makes him such an adventurous spirit; the dog goes for a walk, I'll go, too. She chases the ball? Here I come! Regardless of the activity, he refuses to be left behind.

Although our covenants here prohibit pets from roaming alone, George is such a happy spirit no one minds his frequent, independent forays. He lifts his tail flagpole straight at the sight of a human, and offers his head for a stroke, purring at high volume all the while. He is, for all intents and purposes, the townhomes' mascot.

But I don't see how his idyllic lifestyle can continue. And this makes me sad and concerned for him.

In such a large complex, I think he'll be just another cat, not the special little fellow he is here. Someone may very well grab him by his jaunty tail and try to keep him as their own. Aside from that, our new apartment does not have an outside entrance, but access through a hallway. Even if he got to know the area and the location of our unit, how could he get back in? I doubt I would hear his "I'm home! Let me in now!" cries.

Yet I can't imagine making George an indoor cat entirely. It's not just that he'll scratch my furniture to bits, or meow incessantly to be freed. He'll be sad, frustrated and confused. He'll tilt his orange head up, meeting my eyes, and give me that trusting, please-let-me-out look he has perfected so well over the years. And I will shake my head 'no' and turn away.

I want to let him sunbathe on the patio, and in fact make that his primary room. Yet I'm worried he'll see the ground below, and jump from the third floor to earth. He just might survive, but that's not a chance I want to take.

I wonder if George will be content simply with going for walks with Ally, Robby and me, or if, frustrated by his regular confinement and a deep instinctual urge to hunt, he'll bolt and wander back toward our building when he's darn good and ready. Maybe, I'll have to restrain his wild spirit with a leash.

You may say I've created my own monster, that he should never have been an outdoor cat in the first place. But if you saw him leap with manic energy high up into a tree, roll over and over in a patch of dust, or daintily sniff the flowers on a blooming bush, you'd understand why I allowed him such a lifestyle. And to revert again to my childhood, our farm cats knew no other way; it seems only natural to me that a cat spend most of its life outdoors.

That's ideal. This change is a reality I didn't foresee.

A friend who well knows my concerns offered to take George. This is a friend who has only taken a shine to two cats in her life: George and her sister's cat, Moe. I know she would care for him very well, but I drew in my breath in a shocked gasp when she offered. The thought of losing my Georgie, even to a dear friend, was horrifying to me. Aside from that, I don't believe he'd stay. I think he'd come back here, where we will no longer be, searching for his dog and his humans.

Robby will make new friends. Ally will be fine; it's me who will have to adjust to actually walking her down three flights of stairs outside every morning and night.

But just what will become of our Georgie?

Toastmasters is a pretty good gig. For $50, I got a membership and entertainment that far surpasses any Tuesday night TV lineup.

I joined Toastmasters about two months ago. For those of you unfamiliar with this group, it's an international club designed to give people confidence in public speaking.

So far, I'm liking it. I sit back and watch other people get up and tell fascinating tales about themselves, give persuasive speeches that make me instantly want to buy whatever it is they're featuring, or read stories with an impressive display of drama and feeling. It offers a wide array of weekly, one-hour entertainment. Never a re-run, often humorous, sometimes spontaneous and no commercial breaks. A far superior deal than cable.

Now they want to spoil the whole experience for me. They want me to speak. On Thursday. Which looms ominously close.

This first speech is called The Icebreaker, during which newbies are invited to speak about what they know best: Themselves.

I'm entitling mine, "John Denver Made Me Do It." I submit it here for your review.

In 1973, John Denver's "Rocky Mountain High" was the #1 song in the country. I think that song is why I'm here. I think it's the reason a lot of Midwestern folks moved west.

I searched the Internet for proof of this, and couldn't find it. All I discovered was that there was a 1970s energy boom that prompted a population swell.

But even if I can't substantiate it, I believe those lyrics enchanted me and lots of other people.

Of course, I was but a wee, wee (OK, I was 9) person when this song was riding its highest, pardon the pun. But it got into my young brain. I wanted to see fire in the sky and sit around a campfire with friends and climb cathedral mountains. I've done all that, in my 20 years here - although the fire in the sky I saw was a raging wildfire.

I think this song stayed with me into high school. One night, I was riding bicycles with a high school friend on the rural roads around our hometown. Out of the blue, I said to her, "Doesn't Colorado Springs, Colorado sound like a beautiful place to live?"

She said yes, and we both agreed we've move there after we graduated from college.

Sure enough, after Cathy graduated from the University of Wisconsin, she moved to Colorado Springs. A year later, I followed her. It all seemed so poignant until I reminded her of our high school conversation and she gave me a blank look and told me she didn't remember that at all.

I like to think it was in her subconscious anyway.

So I moved here, then moved away, actually into those mountains about which John Denver wrote. I didn't move to Aspen, but to a ski resort community not all that different from any other Colorado resort town.

And then, I met John Denver.

He was the headliner for a mountain music festival near my home, and, as a reporter for the daily newspaper, I was assigned to interview him. Actually, I think I fought for the interview. I believe my friend and former fellow reporter, Jane, still bears a long scratch under her arm from me yanking it away from the telephone.

The day of the interview, I was nervous. I rigged a tape recorder up to the phone so I could keep the evidence of our conversation for years to come. I had already mapped out a series of questions. He was to call me at a specific time, and he was on the money. My voice was wobbly with nerves. His was flat with boredom. Halfway through the interview, I realized my questions required no more than "yes" or "no" answers. And that's what he gave. He chose not to expand, or even to help me as I quickly arrived at the end of the prepared questions and fumbled for more. John wanted to be done with it.

I am sure he had many more interviews to conduct that day, but it didn't matter to me. I was unimpressed, in fact, insulted, by his manner, which seemed a basic lack of courtesy. Nevertheless, I again took advantage of my reporter status to get backstage at the event and meet him. He shook my hand, and listened without a spark of recognition as I introduced myself. I asked for his autograph, simultaneously realizing I had nothing but a generic piece of notebook paper for him to sign. No CD, no book, not even a music festival program. He took the notebook with a grimace, slashed more than wrote what passed for his name, and held it back out to me.

Suffice to say, my infatuation with John Denver ended that day. But heck, I still like the song. And I still felt sad when he crashed his plane and died years later.

I stayed there in High Altitude, and watched a mountain of scars carved into the land, for 13 years. I even think I tried to touch the sun once. Or maybe that was the full moon, at bar time. At any rate, I stayed until the long winters, high cost of living and other, more-difficult-to-explain facts of high country life got to be too much for me.

Three years ago, I came back here, with an ex-husband in my rear-view mirror and a 10-year-old son who is the light of my life. I came back older, more mature and more appreciative of the everyday world in which most Front Rangers live. Where people commute, work, raise families and play on the weekends, often in those mountains that frame our world.

I think I've come full circle. After hearing the come-hither strains of John Denver's voice all those years ago, I'm moving again. This time, of course, to Denver.

Wednesday, I quit that job I hate.

I wanted the day to be over before it started because I felt so vacant emotionally about the place. There were few people I wanted to say goodbye to at all, and I dreaded any attempt some well-meaning person made to put me on the spot in some kind of staff-centric farewell.

I wanted none of it, a sad feeling and a strange one to me. Never have I felt so uninvested in a place of employment, even though three years of my working life passed in that building.

But that doesn't mean I was without emotion. As I drove in, some happy song came on the radio, and I felt tears of happiness fill my eyes.

Working at this particular place was, for me, like reliving the hell that was high school. There, I was unpopular, encircled by a small group of friends, but otherwise feeling shy, awkward and uncertain of just how to behave, and as though everything I did was wrong. That had all changed after high school, and since then, I'd been popular, a beloved member of every staff on which I'd worked. I was generally the social coordinator, putting together Happy Hours and birthday remembrances, quipping and bantering with my fellow co-workers, laughing loud and often with them. I was feted when I left those places with a love that was genuine, and I left them with an ache in my heart.

Here, I could not win for trying. I don't blame it on myself, but on the odd collection of personalities assembled there. Competitive, back-biting and issue laden. Some of them have not spoken to one another in years because of issues that, in some cases, go back almost a decade.

The reasons why this staff was so dysfunctional are multiple and difficult to explain, and frankly, not worth reviewing. None of them so much as said hello in the mornings. Most of them hated their jobs. Few of them laughed.

Months into the job, I realized I'd become just like them. Because few people returned my morning greetings, I stopped offering them. Quickly, I began to hate my job, too.

I hope that gives you enough to understand that I was not just a disgruntled employee with no basis for my unhappiness, although I've sometimes blamed myself, thinking there must have been something I could have said or done differently. But unhappiness runs rampant within those four walls, and a co-worker who is among my favorites told me the infighting goes to the very top. Since they cannot stop it at that level, she said, how can they possibly stop it here?

Others have told me it's been a difficult place in which to work for decades. A therapist whom I saw about a year ago sucked in his breath when I told him where I work. "Get out of there," he said. "That place ruins people. Leaving is the best thing you can do for yourself."

I tried to explain during my exit interview that the place had such a reputation, but I'm not sure I got through to the human resources director. She nodded and made notes, but her lips were pursed the entire time, as though my words tasted sour to her.

Nevertheless, I put in a good day's work Wednesday. My mind was on finishing my job and getting out, so it surprised me when my editor said I had to go to the weekly staff meeting. When I walked in, the rest of the staff already was there. I took in the chocolate cake, plates, plastic forks and a bright blue envelope with disbelief. Somehow, perhaps because I felt so little for the place, I'd expected nothing. It had never occurred to me that I'd get the same small sendoff departing employees before me had received.

I was horrified to feel tears spring to my eyes, and my face quiver while I fought for self control. Perhaps, I thought, these people cared about me more than I'd ever thought. Perhaps I'd underestimated them all. I felt a dozen pairs of eyes on my face, all of them watching with fascination to see if I'd cry or not. I did not. Instead, I focused hard on the cake, cutting and passing slices around the room. I opened the card, glanced at the many signatures, offered thanks for the Starbucks gift card that slipped out from inside it, and asked to be excused.

I all but fled the room. Awkward and uncertain to the end.

Later, a coworker told me that another reporter had organized the whole thing. "You really have him to thank," she said. "He did it all."

Clearly, that implied that no one else had thought, or cared enough, to do a thing. I wished I hadn't known, wished I'd been left to believe it was a staff effort, perhaps even a belated way of showing some regret for not being friendlier or more kind.

Now I understood that was not the case. The knowledge hurt, and much more deeply than I imagined it could.

I thought of how different this parting was from my last at a much smaller newspaper, where an entire community had turned out to say goodbye - judges, mayors, county commissioners, the district attorney, co-workers past and present, and friends collected during my nine years there. Where people had written letters to the editor expressing regret at my departure, something my publisher said he'd never witnessed in his life. I cling to that memory as proof that the problems here were not me, that these co-workers missed the boat by not taking the hand of friendship I repeatedly offered.

But the doubt still lingers. My self esteem has been bruised by these three years, and it'll take some time to rebuild it.

Most departing employees send a companywide farewell e-mail, something simple like, "Thanks for a great two years! Here's my e-mail address. Keep in touch! I'll miss you all." But I'd already said goodbye to the few people I cared about, and I couldn't think of what I'd write. If I spoke the truth, it would say, "Thanks for an interesting three years. I'll miss some of you." Sending a chipper e-mail like the first would have been a lie. So I did nothing.

When I left, it was nearing deadline, the most intense time of day in a newspaper office. I stood up and glanced around, prepared to do a general goodbye wave to everyone, but most of them were on the phone, or bent over their keyboards frantically typing.

And so, my box of Kleenex and Starbucks card in hand, I simply turned and walked down the stairs, and out into the sunlight of a summer evening - the beginning of a brand new day.

Tim Kruger died a few months ago. I learned about his death only by chance during a conversation with a mutual friend of ours.

"I'd forgotten you guys were roommates," he said, "or I'd have invited you to the service."

Tim was my roommate for more than a year when I was in my mid-20s, working what I considered my first real job.

He died of a heart attack. Tim could have been no more than 50.

I felt cheated out of something by missing his memorial service, particularly since it had gone on only about 15 miles from my home, and even more when I learned Tim had been living all this time up a nearby mountain pass. All these three years that I've lived here, we could have been friends again. I know both of us would have liked that.

Tim was the quintessential nice guy. Shortly after we met, he asked me to dinner, and I said 'no.' He asked me to move in with him and I said 'yes.' The boundaries were set. We never spoke of them, and neither of us tried to cross them.

My friend Deb, who dubbed him Cute Tim, could not understand this arrangement. "How can you not just sneak down the hall at night and jump in bed with him?"

But it was easy. We were friends.

Tim had a rambling house in a semi-rural area of the town in which I was a reporter. He was divorced with a daughter that he rarely saw. He rented a room to me for $150 a month, a pittance that he swore made a significant difference in his monthly bottom line. Looking back, I think now he wanted some company in that house more than he wanted rent.

The house was in view of the interstate. To this day, I look for it whenever I drive that stretch of highway, hoping to recapture good memories in a glance.

Tim and I used to go together for drinks at the bar in a nearby town. It was a local's pub, in which almost everyone knew everyone. Jeff, the bartender, was a New York native with a correspondingly smart mouth and a wit that, while often cutting, was almost always laughter-inducing. We'd sit together on the bar stools on quiet Tuesday nights, drinking a little, talking a lot. He told me about his divorce, and the pain that drove him to smash some of her most precious items in her driveway. She had cheated on him, left him for another man. Tim was scarred, but still hopeful, and always searching for the right woman.

He listened when I broke up, temporarily, with my now ex, never appearing embarrassed by the tears I sometimes shed.

I remember spending hours in the kitchen with him on weekend mornings, lingering over coffee and talking, talking, talking. As much as we talked, I wish I could remember more of what we said. But all I really remember are the warm feelings of those sunny kitchen mornings. I guess that's more than enough, actually.

This evening, I got out my photo album and searched through it for the one picture I have of him. His eyes are downcast, looking at a blonde woman who's laughing up at him. I believe she was his girlfriend at the time, a member of the local ski club to which we both belonged for a while. Even with eyes downcast, you can see that he's a good-looking man. You can see his brown, wavy hair, well-cut cheekbones and, clearly, a kindness in the set of his face.

This picture is among many taken that night, the evening of my 25th birthday. He opened the doors of his house wide so that I could throw a big party in my own honor. Most of the photos show men and women grinning widely, their arms slung around each other, a couple are of people kissing. The one of Tim and the woman is really a terrible photo. I don't know why I saved it, but poor or not, I'm glad to have it now.

I don't know how Tim died, or how he lived the 16 years of his life between the time I moved away and his death. He visited me in the mountains after I left. I remember feeling somehow awkward when he stopped by my office, unannounced. After all those hours of talking, I couldn't think what to say. He never contacted me again, and I felt guilty, that if I'd been able to relax more then, we'd have stayed friends.

I knew he'd moved to a place up the pass. One night more than 10 years ago, I tried to find his home, and drove into a box canyon at someone's instruction. I saw a small cabin at the dead-end there, a light glowing in one window. I knocked on the door and found no one home. That was my last effort to reach him.

Did he die alone? Was there someone, hopefully that right woman, in his life? Were he and his daughter close after all those years? He must have still felt some connection to the small town bar we both knew so well, because the bar owner arranged the service at the tiny town hall there, and held a celebration of life at the bar afterward.

I only wish Jeff had told me Tim still hung out there. I wish I'd have had a chance to hug him, have a beer with him and exchange a few more chapters of our lives with one another.

I'd like to ask Jeff for the answers to my questions about the end of Tim's life. But perhaps some things are better left unknown. If the answers are sad ones, it will break my heart.

I'm settling instead for a bad photograph, and memories sadly dulled by the years. Time gives us only so many opportunities to reach out and reconnect with the best of those we've left behind. Without warning, your chances are gone. Mine with Tim slipped away from me months ago, without my knowledge.

I encourage anyone reading this to reach back while you can, seek out the people you've always meant to get ahold of again someday, make the phone call, bridge the gap, reconnect. Time will only wait for you so long.

My son and I brought two little pieces of Wisconsin home.

They flew the friendly skies Saturday from Madison to Denver, too, comfortably warm in their new quarters. We found them two days later. One wood tick was doing business behind Robby's ear. I don't want to talk about where mine was, but let's just say my reaction to its discovery was an alarmed, “What the hell is that?”, coupled with the panicked thought that I had picked up some bizarre STD.

Wood ticks are as commonplace in humid Wisconsin as mule deer in urban neighborhoods flanking the Colorado mountains. They're as much a part of the Dairy State as cheese, beer and big rivers – which is really where this story is headed.

I don't much enjoy talking or thinking about bodily functions, much less hearing them; in fact, I don't allow Robby or his friends to produce audible farts unless it can't be avoided. I know that's extreme, but it's one of my weird things. But this seemed blog-worthy, and if I stretch the definition of completing 12 new feats in 2006, it just might fit.

Last week, I peed in a river.

This is significant because my failure to do so in college cost my sister and I a once-in-a-lifetime experience of our own.

We decided to partake in an annual float down the Mississippi River. Most of the folks who did this early summer event were fellow college students, but the city and river authorities cleared the way for it. They shut the river down to barge and boat traffic during the four-hour event, when hundreds of people – almost all accompanied by tubes full of beer - floated a few miles down river.

Neither my sister or I can swim, but we both wanted to participate in the annual event that truthfully was nothing more than a floating drunkfest.

We packed up our 12-pack of beer and three tubes and started down the river with everyone else. It was a sunny day, perfect for river floating and beer drinking. After both of us had consumed a couple of beers, Nancy announced that she had to pee. Or perhaps she didn't even announce it, maybe she just silently did it; I can't recall.

Lest you think she and the other tubers were polluting a River-Runs-Through-It, crystal-clear body of water, let me paint for you an accurate picture. It isn't called the Muddy Mississippi for nothing.

Standing on the shore, watching it flow smoothly by, it's a wide and picturesque body of water, a powerful, ever-moving force. But step more closely and look down into it and you'll see nothing but cloudy, brown water. The bottom is under there somewhere, but just how far down is a mystery. And what's floating around in it also is a great unknown.

I kind of like its dirty reputation. It is, after all, a working river, transporting barges and the goods they carry from the country's north to south side.

It's the antithesis of Colorado, where the emphasis is on clean-and-healthy everything. Rivers here are puny things that churn up muddy water only during spring runoff. Otherwise, they're cold, clear streams. Standing next to them, you half expect to see a grinning, still-hunky Mark Harmon emerging from the woods with a Coors beer in hand, as he did in those long-ago Coors ads. (Dating myself, I know)

Colorado rivers say, “Look at me. I'm pretty!”

The Mississippi says, “I'm busy. Love me or hate me, I don't give a rat's ass.”

Anyway, when the beer provoked the urge to pee in this dirty body of water, I couldn't do it.

My sister was in disbelief. “Please, just do it.”

“I'm trying,” I told her. “I can't.” Nevertheless, I kept drinking beer, and my need grew correspondingly stronger.

But even when things got painful – extremely so – I couldn't pee in the river. My sister and I had to paddle for shore. Somehow, in that quest, our beer floated down river. Even though I quickly found a sheltering bush that made for a wonderful bathroom, we abandoned the rest of our float.

Over the years, my sister has often reminded me of my urinary failure and the toll it took on our planned day of drunken fun.

Last week, while we stayed with my sister, she and her husband were working. Both their kids were in school, which left Robby and I with a couple of days in which to find our own fun. We discovered a tubing business a few miles away and decided to take the three-hour tour. This was the Wisconsin River, smaller but no less grimy than its neighbor, the Mississippi.

As the resort bus transported us upriver to our drop-in site, the driver and I struck up a conversation about change, agreeing that we both liked it, congratulating ourselves on the fact that we believed life can sometimes be more fun when you don't know what lies ahead. In other words, we mini-bonded.

It struck me then that I'd neglected to buy some beer, a regret I voiced aloud.

“What kind do you drink?” he asked.

“Any.”

“Tell you what, when you come in, I'll bring you one,” he said.

I felt our bond grow instantly stronger and knew we'd have been friends if circumstances had allowed it.

About an hour into our trip, I had to pee. We paddled to a sandbar, which offered just enough weedy protection to do the deed. As we lingered on shore, burying our toes in the sand, I heard the sound of a faraway engine. Coming toward us was a yellow dot that took the shape of a jet ski.

Wouldn't it be just too cool if that's him bringing me my beer?, I thought.

Happily, it was. He (I never did catch his name) beached the jet ski, grinning broadly, opened the hood, and handed me a grocery store bag heavy with ice and two cans of beer.

“I'm a man of my word,” he said. “You got another couple hours out here. Enjoy yourself.”

With a nod and another grin, he roared back down river.

This small kindness made me extremely happy. Celebratory, in fact, and thirsty. Too thirsty to remember the beer/pee connection. I drank them both within half an hour, laid my head on the back of the tube and watched the sky go by. It made me pleasantly dizzy. Robby sang and bounced cheerily. We were both at peace.

In short order, I needed to go to the bathroom again.

But before paddling cross river to shore, I decided to give it -pardon this very bad pun – the old college try.

Perhaps it was the fact that we were alone on the river instead of bobbing along with hundreds of other merry-making people. Maybe it's the maturity of my bladder. It could have been the utter state of relaxation in which I found myself. But I peed in the river.

Once, twice, four times in all.

I was absurdly proud of myself. So was my sister.

And the ticks were so excited by the news they gave us an escort home, Wisconsin style.

Technology is an addiction. This I've clearly realized in the last half dozen days. I'm on vacation in small-town Wisconsin, stunningly beautiful country, and much of it contentedly isolated from modern-day conveniences.

Like Internet access. And cell phone service.

This is the first time my hands have touched a computer keyboard in five days. I stroke the familiar keys with more affection than I suspect is healthy, delighted at our reunion. But my cell phone remains frighteningly still, registering no service provider at all and not so much as half a bar.

This, I understand, is what vacations should be. But how bereft I feel.

Of course, now that I've checked e-mail, I find that nothing earth shattering has happened. My Colorado world continues to turn smoothly without me. My dog and cat are in good hands. I've given notice so my office is already getting used to being without me. Sad to say, this is to some employees' delight. Not to mention mine.

I should relax, go float a lazy river and drink a few Leinenkugels.

Unfortunately, this freelance life means there's work to do. So I'm up this a.m., while my sister and husband - both teachers - are finishing their final days of school, researching and making phone calls with my calling card. It feels ... satisfying.

And I'm blogging, which also fills some strange gap, not to mention alleviating my guilt at not having posted for 10 days.

So here's a mini-update post that I'll continue upon my return home.

My son just awakened, tousle-headed and smiling as he remembers he's still on vacation, hanging with his rarely seen Wisconsin cousins. We are indeed going to float a river today. We'll rent a canoe, take in the spring-into-summer brilliant, lush greenery of early June Wisconsin, eat some more deep-fried food and find one of the many great and abundant cheese shops from which to purchase souveneirs. (spelling?!? no time for that).

We are off, into the humidity. (Which, I must add, wreaks havoc with my hair. Certaintly at least half the reason I moved away). Where the heck is that bug spray anyway?

A happy hump day to you all.