Maci 💋 My POV September 30, 2026 ( La Jolla Edgar moved his flight to Italy up by almost a day. Ana had not packed. Edgar. You do not do that to a woman. Especially an Italian woman going to a castle. She stared at him for a second and said, “You changed it to Wednesday?” “Yes.” “I leave Wednesday?” “Yes.” “Today Wednesday?” Edgar nodded. Ana walked away without another word. I followed because I wanted to live. 💋 Lucky for her, she had already started the sprint. Assignments. Professors. Packing. Laundry. Weather. Shoes. More shoes. Whatever Ana believes requires three different black dresses for four days. She had to explain why she was leaving school early. “Private castle in Italy. Restoration work. Art. History.” One professor reminded her that she was going to miss a nude drawing session Friday. Then asked if she could complete the assignment while she was away. Ana smiled. “Well, if it’s for college, I might be able to find a male model.” --- Ana has been very sweet to him since. Suspiciously sweet. Ava has been a little irritated. Not angry. More like the universe gave her friend the shiny thing she wanted and now she has to be mature about it. This is Ana’s birthday trip with Edgar. Italy. The castle. Whatever else Spencer paid for and refuses to tell us about. Ava is happy for her. She would also like everyone to remember that she exists. Mia fixed that problem fast. “Spa Friday after class?” Ava looked at her. Mood restored. I am beginning to think Mia may have a future in hostage negotiation. --- Yesterday felt like Friday even though it’s Thuesday. Ana is packing. Edgar thinks packing means putting four things in a bag and leaving. Jenny has been on her phone organizing whatever needs organizing for the trip. Kristin wants to hang out this weekend. Sam is coming Saturday with some friends. He told Jenny, Kristin, and me that we are going to love our dates. Dates. Blind dates. I hate blind dates. I would rather watch a great movie alone with popcorn and not explain my childhood to a stranger. Kristin is thrilled. Of course she is. She thinks strangers are just people who haven’t flirted with her yet. So I guess I’m going. --- Ava has added a few more plans for Friday. Steve (Samantha's boyfriend from Operations Headwind) invited her to a fraternity party Friday, and Mia is going with her. Mia’s boyfriend, Jack, is taking her out Saturday. Everybody has somewhere to be. Spencer, meanwhile, is very pleased with the Chicago real estate deal. Interest rates are keeping some buyers on the sidelines. Sellers are more willing to negotiate. Spencer pays cash. No bank. No financing drama. She walks in and pushes. She likes buying when other people get nervous. That is such a Spencer sentence. --- Last night I decided everybody needed to relax. That lasted about six minutes. Ana was upstairs packing for every possible weather system in Europe. Ava was studying for a test. So the rest of us ended up in the pool. Volleyball. Jack, Jenny and me against Edgar, Mia and Kristin. I made one rule. Edgar could only use his left hand. He looked at me. “No.” “Yes.” “Maci.” “You’re 6’3”, stronger than everybody here, and I am not dying because you decided pool volleyball is now a combat sport.” Kristin agreed. Mia did not. She wanted the weapon fully operational because he was on her team. Traitor. Edgar gave in. Left hand only. Three minutes later he forgot. The ball came toward him, his right hand went up, and every woman in the pool screamed at once. He stopped. Looked at his hand. Then at me. I pointed toward the edge. “Penalty.” He laughed so hard he missed the next serve. For an hour nobody talked about flights. Or contractors. Or classes. Or castles. Or dates. We just played. Mia celebrated every point like there was a trophy. Kristin distracted Jack on purpose. Edgar spent half the game trying to remember which arm had been legally removed. I think that was my favorite part of yesterday. Nothing important happened. We were just together. All but our Queen. Today Ana and Edgar leave for Italy. Ava has a quiz. Jenny has three phones attached to her body. Kristin is planning my social life without permission. Mia has Jack. Sam is bringing trouble Saturday. And somewhere in Italy there is a castle waiting on two people who should probably not be left alone for very long. Especially if Ana has homework. - Maci 💋 @EdgerPoe516859 #MyPOV #WritingCommunity #FoundFamily #Collegelife Video by me and #Grok. Only two clips needed remaking. He was on his best behavior for me. I’m still thinking about trying another AI to help me make these faster. He behaved. I didn’t promise loyalty. @enchantedhottie @FunAva007 @AnaDivincienzo @kristin_md2b @mjcromwell01 @Susan_B_PhD @jennyDmond @thonlymiamonroe @seanachiejimK @TravisNei @WeHaveHope231 @TheTigreTwins @Jagsfan67 @Goddess_Kadi @JenneCameron @danielthedadtn @AlvinMaxMaxwell @AndyKnightII @Tattdwolf52

Maci 💋 My POV September 8, 2026 Aspen, Colorado Yesterday was... unforgettable. We finally got into the Wild Tour at Glenwood Caverns. Calling it a cave tour is a little misleading. It's more like volunteering to become toothpaste. Before we even started they handed us coveralls, hard hats, gloves, boots, eye protection, and headlamps. By the time everyone was dressed we looked less like hikers and more like a mining crew from the 1950s. Then they pointed toward what I can only describe as... ...a crack in a mountain. Apparently the man who discovered much of these caverns wasn't someone who looked at tiny openings in rock and thought, "Probably nothing there." No. He looked at them and thought, "I wonder if I can fit through that." That particular personality type is why the rest of us get to experience incredible places. The passages kept getting tighter. At several points you couldn't just walk. You turned sideways. Exhaled. Committed. And hoped the mountain agreed with your decision. There were moments when the lights were turned completely off. Not city dark. Not country dark. The kind of darkness where your brain refuses to believe your own hand still exists. It was strangely peaceful. The cave stays exactly 52 degrees year-round, which our guide explained is essentially the average annual temperature for this region. I had no idea caves worked that way. Every few minutes we'd emerge into another enormous chamber that looked impossible. Some were the size of a nice living room. Others felt like underground cathedrals carved one drop of water at a time over millions of years. Every sharp turn made me wonder... Who was the first person crazy enough to keep crawling? Then... As we were leaving... Our guide casually said, "Oh... and there are blind cave scorpions that live down here." Excuse me? We learned they have no eyes because they've evolved in complete darkness. There are also unusual microbes in these caves that scientists are studying because they may represent entirely new bacterial species. I'm very grateful they waited until we were walking out to mention the scorpions. Had they opened with that information... I'd have admired the cave from the gift shop. Walking back into daylight was surreal. One second you're inside a world that's been fifty-two degrees for thousands of years. The next you're blinking into warm Colorado sunshine wondering if you've been underground for sixty minutes... ...or twenty years. I'd absolutely do it again. @enchantedhottie, Spencer ... You're coming with us next time. No excuses. --- Now... Let's discuss Ava. Operation Get Ava officially began yesterday morning. I knew I couldn't simply prank her once. It had to become... An experience. So while she was sleeping, several completely innocent people who shall remain unnamed helped me relocate her favorite travel pillows. In their place sat a neatly folded note. NOTICE OF RANSOM To: Ava Collins Your pillows have been taken into protective custody by the Coalition for Justice Following the Great Swimsuit Theft. To secure their safe return you must recover 101 numbered rubber duckies hidden throughout the Collins Estate. Rules: • Duckies are numbered 1–101. • Some numbers have duplicates. • Some ducks may be impossible to retrieve. • Finding 101 ducks does not guarantee you've found every duck. • Complaining results in additional ducks. Good luck. - Management The best part? Nobody acknowledged the ducks. Nobody. She found Duck #7 in her hiking boot. Duck #18 floating in the bathroom sink. Duck #26 sitting in the refrigerator. Duck #41 buckled into the passenger seat of her SUV wearing sunglasses. Duck #58 appeared inside her backpack. Duck #73 was taped underneath her dining chair. Duck #81 was at the bottom of the pool. One was frozen inside an ice cube tray. One was wearing a tiny cowboy hat. One was wearing a tiny construction helmet. One had a little paper crown labeled... Queen Duck. I may have smiled at that one. Then Edgar quietly opened his underwear drawer. "...Why is there a duck in here?" Nobody answered. By lunchtime Ava was opening cabinets with genuine suspicion. By late evening she proudly announced, "I FOUND ALL ONE HUNDRED AND ONE!" I smiled. "I know." "..." "...There were one hundred thirty-seven." Her face. Absolute betrayal. I'm still laughing. --- Last night (labor day) Edgar grilled. At one point he looked up and asked, "Why is grilling automatically the man's job?" Kristin didn't even hesitate. "Because you refuse to let anyone else touch the grill." Fair point. He made his famous one-inch-thick burgers again. There were seven of us eating. I'm reasonably confident he prepared enough food to feed a youth football team. The Oliver and Isaac approved. Which is really the only review that matters. After dinner we all ended up back in the hot tub and pool. The children declared war. Ava attempted revenge. Kristin immediately switched teams and held Ava in place while Edgar contributed several strategically timed cannonballs that created tidal waves. I would like the record to reflect... I simply observed. Before bed Edgar and I read stories to the boys. After they were asleep he asked if I'd look over the leadership presentation he's giving on Thursday. I glanced at the clock. Looked at him. Looked back at the clock. "Sure." The man genuinely enjoys talking about leadership. He had slides covering Leadership and Self-Deception, The Five Dysfunctions of a Team, Tribal Leadership, and Deming's work on systems thinking and quality. If you've never read Dr. W. Edwards Deming... Take an hour sometime. You can still see his fingerprints on modern world. At some point during the presentation... I stopped being a very helpful audience. The next thing I remember... I woke up tucked into my own bed. In my PJs... Blankets exactly the way I like them. I'm choosing not to investigate or think how I got there. --- This morning Kristin appeared at my door. "You ready?" "You voluntarily want to work out?" She pointed directly at me. "This is your fault." Clearly she'd finally discovered what I'd done with her smaller clothes. To her credit... She laughed. Then said, "But I'm still working out." So before most people had finished their first cup of coffee... The three of us Kristin, Ava, and I had already finished Pilates... Yoga... And a mountain hike. All before eight o'clock. Labor Day is over. The short work week begins. And somewhere in this estate... There are still about thirty-six rubber ducks. Ava has no idea where they are. 😇 - Maci 💋 #MyPOV Video by #Grok and me. Today’s video was my longest yet. Grok allowed me to reset my account, giving me more video credits... and I wanted to use them. I also played with some of Spencer’s images. She’s so fun to play with! @enchantedhottie @FunAva007 @AnaDivincienzo @kristin_md2b @mjcromwell01 @Susan_B_PhD @jennyDmond @thonlymiamonroe @seanachiejimK @TravisNei @WeHaveHope231 @TheTigreTwins @Jagsfan67 @Goddess_K_T_Kat @JenneCameron @danielthedadtn @AlvinMaxMaxwell @AndyKnightII @Tattdwolf52

This is the stom I played and Maci sang at the talent show. "Storms" by Ember Frost (1st Cut) - Written and Played By Edgar Collins © Edgar Collins. All rights reserved Listen to it and give me feed back. FYI: Maci did the video. @enchantedhottie @FunAva007 @Katgirlxmeow @AnaDivincienzo @seanachiejimK @TravisNei @WeHaveHope231 @TheTigreTwins @Jagsfan67 @Kadi_Kat_ @JenneCameron @danielthedadtn @AlvinMaxMaxwell

Maci 💋 Confidence is attractive. Competence is unforgettable. That applies everywhere. 💋 #Leadership #WomenInLeadership #Politics #NYC