LAST EDITED ON 05-23-12 AT 11:54 PM (EST)

Good Evening.

I am so sorry that it's taken me so long to acknowledge your generosity, but as you'll see below, I've been a little busy with my most-likely-billionaireship.

So, the first thing that I want to say is how proud and happy I was that you thought that I was the most likely among us to attain that lofty goal (pile of money). I mean, for someone who in seventy years has never been within a country mile of a million, the thought that a billion might be just around the corner was pretty heady stuff. That and the rum.

And so I did what I usually do when the prospect of real money wafts tantalizingly by my window : I spent as much of it as I possibly could before I got it.

As you'll see, the shopping spree (it will take me years to pay back the family's frequent flyer miles) included the purchase of several Queen Elizabeth hats and purses (I know, I know).

But I love them and Her Majesty is having some sort of anniversary party and I really got caught up in the whole thing. So, I have these hats. And I have pictures of these hats.

And, as I always do at the slightest suggestion of a pending windfall, I phoned real estate agents until I found one whose credit reporting system was on the fritz (obviously) and we spent several merry old days wandering through some pretty amazing subdivisions. Far, far away. And I have some pictures of those, too.

Note: If you see anything that you like, I have the young man's name. But, I suggest that you not mention mine.

Anyway,

I'm back home now and I have to be honest: I'm beginning to worry that the directions that you surely meant to include with the Siggie Award have been lost in the PM. Because, I've read all the fine print on the back of the thing (I just love Tribe's little secret communiqués, don't you?) and there is absolutely nothing helpful to someone on a once-in-a-lifetime scavenger hunt.

I mean, surely there are directions. A cheat sheet. The address of the local House of Karma. Certainly you can't have thought that someone who has had as much time as I have had to actually earn a billion dollars would all of a sudden become - as my grandmother sometimes put it - broke out with work. Particularly that amount of work. Good Lord! Being wildly optimistic, I only have 20 or so years left. And I am slow, people. Really slow.

So, if any of you have any idea just how I'm supposed to live up to this new expectation - I thought expectations had gone the way of hot flashes and a waistline - please let me know.

In the meantime, here are the pictures. And some little shout-outs for all of you. Because all of you have made the Lodge a really welcoming and fun place this winter. So they're "Thank You(s)" of a sort. And there is also one for me. Because I think of myself as warm and fuzzy (or, at least, tepid and blurry), too.

And just a brief note about being this Season's Loser Lodge Winner:

Yes!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Usually CT and Abby and Cats let me play around near the top of the board until the last week of a game and then - swoop - I'm toast. But I actually won this time. Not by much. But enough.

I'd really rather have the billion, though ...