I mean, a full week without a post? You know I was intensely out of service for THAT to happen. First of all, my very good friend Dana’s father passed away last week and I had to leave last Thursday night to go to Westchester to be with Dana with my friend A in Dana’s time of need. Rick, her father, was actually someone I’d consider a friend as well and his passing was hard on ALL of us (us, being Dana’s former college roommates of 3 years). He provided one quarter of my New York surrogate family, in whose home I always felt welcome when work constraints kept me in the tri-state area for Jewish holidays and summer weekends. Rick was a man who loved wine, good food, sushi boats, numbers (he had a PhD in MATH, can you imagine?), and most of all, his family. His quippy sense of humor was my favorite (my family still jokes about his saying that he bronzed the oven in their home as his wife, Phyllis, does not cook). Dana, who frequently asks for my help to edit grad school papers, last Thursday came to me with a midnight request to help her write her father’s eulogy. And she did an EXCELLENT job, both with the delivery of the speech and with conveying to the large crowd the kind of person her father was. He will be missed, terribly.