Hello friends!

Greetings once again from sunny Arizona! I hope you are having a good weekend, and you and yours are doing well. 

I have to start  with my condolences, sadly once again, to the victims and their families of the most recent school shooting in Texas. I, as most people, share the frustration of the seemly endless series of crimes against happless students and educators in this country. As you know, one of my sisters is a middle school teacher, and I know everytime a shooting occurs, it shakes her to the core. She absolutely loves being a educator, but now she questions her own safety and that of her students. It is a difficult and complicated issue that needs to be resolved immediately.Coincidentally, I had just spent the last week in San Antonio, Texas myself, arriving home just the day after the the shooting.  

 I took a week off from my busy work schedule, and to escape the extreme heat here at home. Obviously going to San Antonio in May, where the humidity it's a lot higher, was it much Ava escape from the desert heat. I mostly wanted to rest my body and visit with my good friend Cathy. I stayed with her during my tour, and she was thrilled to have me back in town. I got the rest I needed, spending six days just lounging and seeing the local sights. I returned home on Wednesday and jumped right back onto fire.

 Speaking of fires, my next trip is already planned for San Francisco and Hawaii in early June. As fate would have it, we booked our flights, my two sisters and I who are going to accompany me, just two days before the volcano began to erupt!  I plan to drive to the Bay Area in about 10 days, and visit with the grandkids for a while, then fly to Oahu and stay with my good friend Yohana, who also hosted me during my trip. She invited me back to the islands to redo her bathroom tile, and make a mini vacation of it! My sister's Angela and Ester, have never been to the islands, and look forward to visiting for the first time. Obviously, the situation with the volcano is serious, and we are just waiting to see the outcome of the recent activity, and if it will affect our flights or or stay in any manner. I have grown a bug to travel and work, and have also received invitations this summer from friends  I  made in Iowa, Nevada and Michigan. As long as I can have the freedom to go as I please, I will continue to work and travel to wherever people invite me to!

 Unfortunately I don't have any updates with my book as I continue to wait for the editing process to run it's course. But as soon as I have news, I will certainly let you know! Thanks for checking in my friends and have a great day!

Juanjohn

Hello friends,

happy May to you, or as they say in the motherland, Cinco de Mayo plus one. I don't celebrate this holiday, and I don't think they even celebrate it in Mexico, it's just a gringo thing to sell beer and chips. I hope you are well and safe and recovering from your hangover if you did have a few too many coronas and lime!

 I went to a party at my cousin's for a while, but was home asleep by 10 pm. I have been dealing with an infection on my left eye,and looking out one side of my head most of the week, hence my delay in writing you. It's difficult to type with one eye and the screen irritates my condition even more. In fact this is the third eye infection this year alone, as my weak immune system continues to let me down. To add to the aggravation, the tempuature hit triple digits here in Tucson this week as the hottest part of the year now arrived. I had a huge backyard project scheduled this week, so the 103 degrees did a number on my head and eye! If you have ever worked in those kind of temps before, then you know what the blazing sun beating down on you all day feels like. Still I guess I prefer the dry heat over the nasty, miserable, humid conditions I experianced in the deep south while on tour.

 The picture I posted is painted on the side of the famous 'A' mountain here at home. "Red for Ed" stands for education and is the symbol of the local teachers union here in Arizona. The teachers here in my home state just came off a one week strike, and the red represents the colors they wore as they protested their cause. Now as you know I have always strived to maintain a neutral stand with all social, political, and religious causes, but since my big sister is a teacher herself and one of the striking educators, I of course have an opinion.I saw her stress and concern leading up to the work stoppage and then the actual strike. Arizona is a progressive state, with plenty of growth and resources, yet it ranks almost at the bottom when it comes to teachers and support staff wages. These people just wanted a competive wage and just funds for supplies and delapidated schools. The state loses hundreds of teachers each year as they take better paying jobs in other states. Having raised three kids of my own in the publis school sysytem as most of us have, I always felt teachers were some of the most under paid and unappreciated professional in our society. They apparently reached some sort of agreement yesterday, and tomorrow they will return to work, thus avoiding anymore disruption with the kids that seem to get caught up in the debate, and my sister will certainly now get some peace of mind and rest as she reports back to her class in the morning.

 I will now also get some shut eye, at least on one side! No pun intended. Thanks for checking in friends, and I hope to have an update with the progress of my book soon! Goodnite!

Juanjohn