After a long, long time,

I'm back! I see that I went off to Oregon back in - what was it, September? - promising to write more on my return. So much for my promises.

Winter set in, cycling weather became rare to non-existent, work got heavier and more stressful, and it became a chore even to read Charlie's blog, much less to write my own.

Over the last few days, I've been trying to get a little better organized. I wrote three letters for Amnesty International the other night, and I finally set up a database to keep track of those. Just now I gathered my will about me, opened Charlie's blog, and saw that he has been gone almost as long as I have. LOL. Fair weather bloggers, both of us.

And now, as promised: The trip to Oregon was lovely, although the weather was not entirely co-operative. I bought two huge kites in Newport, one for us and one for J & F. The weather gods saw what I had done, and they were not pleased. All the wind disappeared and we were left with a breeze that couldn't flap the laundry on a clothesline, much less keep a kite aloft. When we did get wind, it came with rain, and I don't see myself flying a kite in a rainstorm. Never mind. The Turtle will be coming over in two weeks, to be used as a guest room for a few days while my daughter and her husband visit us. After that, I'll start packing for our trip to Mexico (scheduled for February 14, give or take), and I'll be sure to include the kite. I have visions of running along a beach at the Sea of Cortez, watching my seven foot delta kite soar overhead.

When I'm not flying a kite, cycling or paddling our new canoe, I plan to be reading and knitting. As we'll be gone two and a half months this time, I figure I'll need at least ten really good books. I found a copy of Under the Tuscan Sun and grabbed that, along with Armistead Maupin's Tales of the City. B, whose taste in literature is impeccable, lent me her copy of Memoirs of a Geisha. I went to see the movie the other night and enjoyed it very much. The photography was beautiful, and it set the mood quite elegantly - dark water running over pebbles, moonlight on floating leaves, flashes of kimono colour against a background of despair. If the book is better than the movie, which is usually the case, I have a great read in store for me. I've bought a novel by a Chinese author I don't know, on spec, and thrown in a couple of non-fiction books. Now I need to see whether Rohinton Mistry has a new book out, which would be wonderful, or failing that, I need to find at least four more exceptional books. Such a happy task.