Home

I'm loving vacation and getting away, and perhaps I am getting stuck in my ways, but already I miss my bed, my piano, and my bud, Ralph - although I'm not sure in which order. This being said, a cool thought for me is that the bed here is nice, I have a little stuffed dog willing to hang out and be cool, and there's a keyboard downstairs if I want, but this isn't home, and I'm saying that this whole thing is cool - missing what I miss - because it makes it clear that although this place is the home of dear friends, it isn't MY home. Last year, I didn't have that strong a sense of where my home was in order to miss it when I was away. So I like these feelings. They give me an appreciation for what I have and let me look forward to being back, because I love what I love. I can savor it.

It's nice to know that other places in the world are beautiful places to visit and experience, but at the end of the day, there really is no place like home. Sometimes I don't appreciate this as well as I do when I'm away from it.

Besides, I think Ralph sends little security updates to the stuffed dog here - don't know his name - and that one tells me, while I'm sleeping, that all is well back home. It's through the stuffed Jedi master animal telepathic link, which of course is far too advance for me, so I have to be told in REM state when I can give the messages my full attention. It's all very technical...