Simply Sunday Morning

I woke up this morning about six thirty AM or so. I had slept well during the night and I dreamed, but I only vaguely remember that the dream was about something mechanical. I don't recall any other details. I fired up my morning pot of coffee and opened the apartment up to let the morning breeze and morning sun it. It is another beautiful day here in San Jose.

I am heading up to Chinatown (San Francisco) in about an hour or so, maybe less. I am waiting for my friends Pierre and Helen to come up from south San Jose and then we will head for our favorite dim sum restaurant, the Four Seas. We'll enjoy lunch, wander Chinatown, and then maybe drift into some other part of San Francisco before winding our way homeward. It should be a great day.

I saw the new James Bond movie yesterday and I enjoyed it. So far Daniel Craig has been an excellent Bond. As a result of seeing the movie I have been listening to a CD I have that is all Bond theme songs - LOL - so that has been amusing me. My favorite is "For Your Eyes Only" by Sheena Easton.

I have three working days before I go on vacation, so I am looking forward to that (the going on vacation part). This time next week I will be back in good old South Dakota. I will take one of my laptops with me, but internet connection is limited there. For me, going to South Dakota is very much like falling off the grid. I have AT&T for cell phone service and the Rosebud is All Tell, so I generally don't have cell service there. My folks have internet, but it is dial-up, so that is limited as well. I generally take a laptop for three reasons - to store and edit photos, to write, and to play the occassional game (I loaded the most recent copy of Hoyle's Casino on my PC).

When I am there I visit, I wander around, I read, I think, I write, I take pictures and I just generally slip into a very slow easy rhythm, which is often the whole purpose of going back to the ranch. Life is lived at a very different pace there. To be honest, it is too slow for me. I like urban living, I like the convenience of things, I like the diversity of things. Generally, after four or five days I start getting restless.

But, on the plus side, I do have some creative writing projects that have been hovering in the wings, waiting for me to get a chance to sit down and write, so I am looking forward to being able to spend some time doing that. Additionally, it is always good just to stop and reflect and the ranch lends itself to a relaxed reflection. I can already feel myself slipping into a more relaxed mode.

I had a long vacation in late July and early August, with my trip down to San Diego, and that was nice, but this feels far more relaxed. This is basically a purposeless vacation (yes, there are many things that I will do with old friends and family, but there is not a central organizing principle to it), so it will be a chance to just rest and relax.

Well, I feel like I rambled a bit this morning, but that is fine as well. Some days are meant for rambling. On that note, I will ramble up to San Francisco, then ramble to Chinatown, then the Four Seas, and then I will ramble through multiple plates of tasty dim sum.