I’ve Got Mail

Somewhere between the Salton Sea and Palm Springs, 11/6/11

I’m back home after 10 days in California. It was also 10 days without the internet. I don’t own a smartphone and refuse to lug a laptop when I travel. I keep my load as light as possible. I once went to Africa for 16 days and took a carry on bag. When I came back through customs, the agent asked me where my luggage was. I pointed to my bag and said I was trying to travel light and he smiled and said, “I think you succeeded,” and then waved me through.

Our flight which was supposed to land in Tampa around 10:30 p.m. was about 45 minutes late – something about flying around a line of storms that extended from Memphis into the Gulf. Then it is a little over an hour drive to my little town. But when we pulled into my driveway, I got out of the car and looked up at the night sky and saw what I love, but hadn’t seen in 10 days, a night sky filled with stars. I kept looking up while we were in California and we were treated to a lovely full moon, but on those evenings before the moon rose, the only visible star through the light polluted skies of southern California wasn’t a star, but Jupiter.

After unpacking, yes, I unpack before crawling in bed. I would much rather dump dirty clothes in the laundry basket and put away stuff than have to deal with it in the morning, I logged on to the internet thinking I’d quickly check email. I had over 300 emails. I quickly deleted the junk and read the few personal ones which left 252 blog related emails. Only three or four were comments on my blog, the rest were notifications of posts from what I thought was a handful of blogs I follow.

Yikes! Don’t you people have anything else to do? Actually, I know you have other things to do because I read about them on your blogs. So, how do I decide which to read first? Do I go through and read my favorite bloggers’ posts first? Yes, I have favorites and no, I’m not going to tell you who they are.  Or do I go in the order in which they were received? Or do I try to read the old ones and read the new ones as they come in? This last option seems to be the best on the face of it, but what if I’m reading a post from today and there is a reference to something in a post from a couple of days ago, I won’t get the reference because I haven’t read that one yet.

Proof I made it to Taco Tia!

So I decided to answer the comments to my blog, and post a quick comment on Brainrants to let him know that he was off the hook and would not have to devour one of my thongs with or without the special sauce because I did find both Taco Tia and In-N-Out Burger while I was in California. The burrito and the burger (and vanilla shake) were very good.  I then started to read a few of the blogs from the 5th before getting in my warm, comfy bed around 2 a.m. I didn’t miss the internet while I was gone, but I did miss my pillow.

So today after a trip to the grocery store, I started reading your blogs in the order in which they were received. I’m now on the November 7th posts. I’m opting not to comment unless I am truly moved or laughed uncontrollably or some other extreme until I get caught up which I expect will be sometime in the future.