I'll bet you know Australians always shorten words and phrases, like barbecue becomes barbie. But that isn't a biggie. (In 'Aussie' or Oz, does biggie come from bigamist?) No challenge at all. Take a robust syllable word and boil it down to only two syllables -- Tasmanians become Tassies and of course Tasmanian Devils are also Tassies and thus this rather weird intro leads me to the nationwide story about Little Mary, a young Tasmanian Devil, who broke curfew and snuck out of her very fine sanctuary on the Gold Coast in Australia and roamed free for two weeks before she was found at low-ebb and returned to the ER Vet in the sanctuary, coddled, loved, repaired, fed until she was back to one hundred percent and showing her "Jaws" teeth in big smiles.

Hello all of you who celebrated the Summer Solstice. Those of you who forgot, it’s okay, I did too.

This is a precious month, the gateway to summer when you slather on the sun screen and roast as you cook hotdogs on a grill for all the teenagers in the neighborhood.