Letter to my Wonderful and Crazy cousin Donna: Donna, thanks so much for the beautiful knife set from Macy’s. I feel like Jack the Ripper on his birthday. Do you think Jack’s family and everyone (who really knew him) got him razors, straight edge blades and surgical instruments on his birthday?  There are so many strange and ironic coincidences in the world that people are blithely unaware of. Its a the kind of “useless trivia” permeating the universe that most scallywags think is stupid, but in my mind is alot better than invading the wrong fricken’ country and leading other countries into protracted wars on foreign soil where people there have nothing to do except wait for the next “infidel” to come and give their lives meaning (as a suicide bomber or blessed martyr). To me THAT is really stupid, ironic and horribly tragic. Cutlery trivia off the top of my competely bald head: A prime suspect in the knife wielding Jack the Ripper case was a certain James Maybrick. He later died at the hands of his wife, Florence Maybrick, who was found guilty for poisoning him with arsenic and imprisoned for it in Great Britain. Later again, she was released and came to the United States. She stayed for a season and wrote a book while staying at the Moraine Hotel in Highland Park Illinois on Lake Michigan……the same hotel my mother and father were married at. If you walk down to the lake in Highland Park at the location of the old now long gone Moraine Hotel, right along the ravine path you can still see bits and pieces of shattered china, broken glass and an occasional  knife or fork from the kitchen of the old Moraine Hotel. Shades of The Shining………….  Thanks again Donna. I love you very much.  Love, Cliff   PS  You outdid yourself with the oversized stainless steel Chinese meat cleaver. Just call me Beaver Cleaver……