We're number one! The morning newspaper announced that a local restaurant had been voted the "Manliest Restaurant in America."

I know you are on pins and needles wanting to know what their claim to fame is.

The nearly 13,000 brain sandwiches they sell each year.

Thanks to this prestigious award that number is likely to rise. The prize was given through AOL's humor and men's lifestyle site and the second place winner wasn't even close.

"There's definitely something about mashing up something's brain, frying it in a pan and dropping it on a bun that's guaranteed to put hair on your chest. This is a proud day for brain eaters throughout our 50 states and around the world," Editor-in-Chief of Asylum was quoted as saying from his New York office.

Yes indeed. Our little Hilltop Inn beat out the best of Chicago, Denver, Washington, D.C. and Boston.

The sous chef at Hilltop explained, in regards to the expertise needed to create a brain sandwich start to finish, "It's very hands-on. You have to be very meticulous. I don't let many people try to do it."

Last week visitors from Austria showed up to try the delicacy. They had read about the award and wanted to experience it first-hand.

Waste not, want not. And that's what I'm thinking about today.

It's the kind of weekend only a woman could love. Shopping from dawn til dusk, or until the shoppes close.

Beautiful weather, great bargains, a room overlooking the shoppes on Main Street, and good, good friends.

Saw Noel Coward's Present Laughter performed live; stayed up catching up on each others' lives until 2 am, critiqued jewelry and clothes, shoes and hats. Drove out to the covered bridge and dutifully took pictures of one of America's fast disappearing symbols of prairie life where we were sad to see graffiti covering the interior.

Had rings sized, bird houses critiqued, jackets purchased and ready for Fall wear, shod feet with Minnetonkas and relived the 'good old days.'

Make new friends but keep the old, one is silver the other gold.

And that's what I'm thinking about.

Today I am packing for a long weekend with friends. They are driving five hours from Ohio and I am driving three, meeting in Brown County, Indiana.

Originally we met while working together in a hospital system. We had a grand decade of developing programs and meeting the needs of women in the community. Meeting our own need for friendship we have remained in touch over the years.

China, Australia, Ireland, New Zealand and Greece; we have traveled together around the world. This weekend we will travel to the excitement of Nashville, Indiana.

However for each of us it is not the pleasure of a foreign or strange land that revs us up but the renewing and fostering of friendship. No one shares quite the history that we share.

Looking forward, and that's what I'm thinking about today.

There is a deep emotion felt commonly by every mother. I found this true last week as I was reading through Facebook updates.

Children are going back to school.

Far from the joy and celebration that the jokesters portray, mothers are not happy. In fact, they were sad. And worried. And wondering.

Sad because their little ones were growing up. Worried as they see their oldest climb aboard the big yellow school bus. Some wondering if they had instilled the family values deep and wide enough to withstand the pressures of the world. Preschool world and global world.

From one mom sending her daughter off to preschool for the first day to daughters being driven seven hours away to college, to daughters being sent on planes to foreign countries for the year.

Moms thinking one thing. Where did the time go and did I use it wisely to prepare her for this big step? Each step seeming farther and farther away geographically. And praying that it is not farther and farther away morally.

And that's what I'm thinking about today.

The dumbing of the American TV watcher.

In the past half hour or so I have seen the following advertisements on the tube:

A filthy mop sending a candy gram to its former owner; an attorney who says he'll deal with the government because I have enough to worry about; a commercial attempting to convince me that Cocoa Puffs are healthy; how to rinse my way to whiter teeth; the danger of not having a whole house security system with handsome young men in matching polo shirts waiting for your home invasion call; the further danger of having an accident on a lonely stretch of road without a car security call system; how uncool it is to have only 75 TV channels when you could have 300; the benefit of having a happy colon; lipstick that absolutely will stay on your lips for the whole day; a pizza that has three kinds of meat, veggies and a cheese cooked inside the thick crust...and on and all.

All designed to let me know that I could be doing things differently, better, and that there are companies out there who have only my welfare in mind.

Watching the golf tournament from Akron last week I spied an overhead blimp shot of the lake we once lived on near the golf course. Boats were out in the speed lane trailing 'tubers' and pontoon boats filled with Sunday afternoon 'sailors' taking advantage of their last lazy hours of the weekend and the last few weekends of summer. It looked very pastoral.

Tiger Woods won the tournament...big surprise. Not!

Funny, as I sat there watching the crowds make their way from green to green I wanted to be there where the action was.

Really funny. When I lived there and always received complimentary tickets through my work, I never once went to watch.

Ok, I went once to be part of some sort of professional pre-tournament golf clinic...heck of a lot of good that ever did me...but somehow thinking of the press of the crowd, the parking, the traffic jams, the humidity, the tournament just never seemed all that inviting.

So why is my memory filling me with thoughts of longing for something I never really wanted to participate in anyway?

I have no answer but that's what I'm thinking about.

Really curious. That very evening I turned on the TV again to see the Hall of Fame football game being played in Canton, OH. Oh how I missed north eastern Ohio. And no, in all my years of living there I never saw the Hall of Fame game either.

A thunderstorm swept through the area last week. Lightning illuminated the house after the power failed. Being in the dark was a lark...for a short time.

They tell you not to stand close to a window when lightning is in the area. How close would that be? What is safe? Ten feet? Twenty?

They say don't use the phone during a storm. If the electricity is on during a storm lightning can come right into the phone line and cause one heck of a nasty burn in your ear and your brain. Fair warning there.

They say don't take a bath or shower when it is lightning. I wonder if that means even if I am twenty feet away from a window and not using my phone?

When the storm was over the electricity stayed off. I read as long as I could by the natural light coming in through the window (very Little House on the Prairie). When darkness descended and the house began to get warm we drove to the grocery store to enjoy the air conditioning and illumination. We did not need anything at the store however by wandering around were able to pick up about $70 worth of indispensable items.

When we arrived home the lights were on again.

And that's what I'm thinking about.

More and more I come to value charity and love of one's fellow being above everything else...all our lauded technological progress - our very civilization - is like the axe in the hand of a pathological criminal.

-Albert Einstein