Many things make me happy … I am if nothing else a basically happy person by nature. Even when I am depressed, I tell people I am a depressed optimist.

And I understand that there is a wonderful book out there … Fifty Shades Of Grey.

Quite the hot book, I hear. Lots and lots of unbridled passion and whatnot. And I am certainly a big fan of unbridled passion. Big, big fan here.

Hot stuff, really hot stuff.

Oh.

That’s grey … not hay.

So I had to laugh a few minutes ago when my friend Tracy from Ireland posted yet another cartoon about Shades of Grey. It made me laugh out loud.

Really … laugh out loud. For there was the ultimate Feminist Fantasy. For many women. And sometimes for me.

Lord knows, as a rule I would far rather be a passionate woman. Of however many shades are appropriate to the day. But I will not go into details … my parents read this, after all. But I am sure you get the drift.

But since my heart … having been broken last year … well, the idea of hot passion has been … shall we say … on the back burner. At least for now.

Instead I find myself being excited by the sound of buzzsaws.

This morning the local Township came by with two large dump trucks and a huge front end loader with pick-up claws.

They not only picked up all the remaining tree limbs from the late hurricane that were out on the street and our yards … but they also came up into my yard … and with buzzsaws in hand, they totally chopped up the remaining stalk of the 60-80 foot tree that had fallen the other day during Hurricane Sandy.

Filled one truck completely and part of the other.

This of course saved me a large chunk of money to have a private tree guy do it.

Now that’s hot stuff.