Offline for a Sunday night

10PM, Sunday evening. I've just now turned on the computer.

Oh, I was online this morning, checking out the Sunday funnies, tracking visitors and feeding the virtual pets over at Facebook. Even did a little virtual shopping with Julie, who's in need of a washer and dryer. I just wanted to try and be of some help, offering ideas and suggestions, but the lady knows what she wants and makes up her own mind. I respect her for that.

Left a little after Noon to go check on The Kid. Getting out there was a little more difficult today: The interstate (known affectionately around here as the Parkway East) has been seeing weekend closing for the past year or so, and it's been dumping traffic onto side streets that can barely handle the existing traffic.

Instead of taking one back way, I took another, and ran into traffic. Sigh. I did a few maneuvers, took a few side streets and short cuts I know, and...offered my opinion...to drivers who decided that going ten miles under the speed limit was all right before I got back on the Parkway, past the construction zone. What can take me 45 minutes on the weekend took about a half-hour longer, no thanks in part to the guy in front of me who figured waving at me might piss me off more. Little does he know I use that trick all the time.

The Kid was pretty good today. Talkative, funny, in good spirits. I stayed for almost two hours (only to get some...interesting...news, which I'm not ready to share just yet, before I left), and we had a good time. She can still make me laugh on occasion: When I first got there, she was lying in bed, and she woke when she heard me come in. I leaned over and asked what she thought she was doing, and she said "I've been institutionalized"...meaning she was put to bed even though she didn't want to go. It was funny...to me at least.

Had a good downpour while I was there. It was needed. It'd been so hot and humid the past few days, I'd been holed up in the air conditioning, unwilling to go outside and swim...er, ah...walk anywhere. After the rain, it was cooler and less humid, and much nicer.

Went and did some grocery shopping. Stopped for a bite to eat. Got home around 6:30...only to find the power was out. Wonderful. Called the light company and they said it was due to "equipment malfunctions" and service should be restored by 11:30 PM. In other words, the storm tripped the circuit breaker on the transformer out front (again) and they'd send a crew around to throw the switch whenever they had five seconds.

Oh, well. Wouldn't be the first time this had happened, won't be the last. Put away my groceries and wondered what I was going to do now.

My original intention tonight was to watch some DVDs: I have season two of Robot Chicken and Venture Bros. that I haven't seen yet, and I was going to watch some of those, but now...no power means no DVDs.

No biggie.

I got my portable CD player (remember those?) and my portable speaker ($11 from Woot, and it has excellent sound) for ambiance, and the stack of National Geographic magazines since the beginning of the year I hadn't yet cracked...and I had myself an offline Sunday night.

It's been awhile since I've had an offline night here at home. I'm either chatting with Julie (and I wouldn't trade those evening for anything) until she went back to work and had to go to bed early, or I'd been online blogging or surfing or playing games or whatever, so it felt really nice to just sit in the chair in the corner of the living room and just...relax.

Sure, the power was back on shortly after 8, and I could've gone online then, but I still had a few more NatGeo's to read, and it was...peaceful. The music ranged from Beastie Boys to Springsteen to Neil Young to Keiko Matsui (who's album, White Owl, is currently playing), it's been a nice night of music and magazines, with occasional updates from Julie on how the new tattoo is coming along.

Oh, one other thing. As I was sitting there, reading, I'd look up and out the front door on occasion. One such moment, I looked and saw...well...

An old friend and traveling companion's ghostly image, reflected in the glass. A few photos later...and there was this. I'm very fond of this picture, for some reason. Something about it, I really love.

Now it's 10:30. I've blogged, I'll go check my mail, see what else is happening in the world, wait for my love to call (unless she gets home too late and goes to bed, exhausted...she's had a busy weekend) and just be.

Amazing how nice the offline world is to visit every now and then. ;)