Hi everybody. Today is my first day of vacation. My boss wanted me to relax for a while, so I decided to take some time off. But taking it easy, relaxing and just hanging out does not seem to be what my wife had planned for me. She keeps my busy all the time. There is so much to do around the house. Like cleaning our little garden pond and giving our goldfish some fresh water and so on. Blah, blah, blah. Well, just to keep my wife happy, I fetched four crates of water from the basement, and grabbed the noodle strainer from the kitchen.

After I had removed all that green slimy stuff from the pond, I began to add the fresh water – I had just emptied bottle No. 17 – when my wife comes racing around the corner waving her arms and shouting at me. Was I completely nuts? Why was I using her stainless steel gourmet-style strainer to gather up that slime? And why was I pouring expensive French mineral water into the pond? And then she suggested that it was about time for me to go back to the office. Well, she didn’t have to make that suggestion, did she? Just imagine – and this is only “Day One” of my so-called relaxing holiday!

I have to tell you a little story. This morning I woke up with terrible back pain, so I went to see my doctor right away. Dr. Gerry Winterbottom, an old school buddy of mine. “Tom,” he said, “you are working too hard and sitting in front of the computer too much. You need some exercise. Why don’t you try Laugh Yoga?” I couldn’t believe my ears. “Oh c’mon, you must be joking! That won’t do any good at all. Never heard of such a thing,” I said.

But Gerry insisted that Laugh Yoga was just the right thing for me. Anyway, I thought about it for a while, and the next day during my lunch break I went out and bought a gym mat and a yoga-for-beginners book. When I got home after work, I rolled out the mat, stretched out my arms like a swan, bent my right leg as if I were a flamingo on the prowl … suddenly my wife Martha and her friends (who had been at choir practice) walked in and stared at me with utter astonishment. Suddenly all of them began giggling and then screaming with laughter at a fever pitch. Hmmm, I thought. So this is Laugh Yoga. Very funny! Isn’t life just great?

Boy, was the weather really hot last weekend! Even with all of the windows open all night, I could hardly get any sleep. And then in the morning what a nasty surprise – my wife Martha and I had some uninvited guests. The entire ceiling was covered with hundreds and hundreds of small black bugs – goodness knows where these insects came from. Probably wanted to join us for breakfast, I thought, but they better get out of here in a hurry!

Anyway, I grabbed our super-duper 3000 watt vacuum cleaner and sucked the little beasts right up. I was really proud of myself until the phone rang … with the vacuum still running, I quickly turned to grab the phone. That was a BIG mistake! Before I knew it, the cord of our antique table lamp (an heirloom given to us by my mother-in-law) was being sucked up into the cleaner. That was it! The lamp was shattered, and what a way to start the week. How did Martha react? Oh well, that is another story…