Yesterday was Tuesday and Tuesdays are the “new movies at Redbox” day. I rented Kite Runner and Love in the time of Cholera – the first will demand that I find the book so I can re-read some parts and the second will leave me with . . . well, I don’t know what. I wasn’t particularly interested in renting the movie or seeing it, but felt it was an investment in my reference knowledge base. The book was a bestseller, but I didn’t read it; the movie is a convenient “Cliff’s Notes”. I have to confess that I just don’t care much for South American subjects and, quite frankly, I am not a fan of Gabriel Garcia Márquez, even though he won the 1982 Nobel Prize. So we shall see.

I think last year at this time I was in San Diego, totally soaking all the things I have come to totally love about the place: breakfast at Kono’s and sipping a soda on the balcony of of the little coffee house. The staircase is through a non-descript doorway and lots of times – given the right time of day and year – you may have it to yourself or have to share with only a couple of folks. Last year, one day the wind was strong off the ocean and sand was blowing right at us, but there was a sheltered corner and we stayed quite a while.

The beach was deserted and the little booths that sell sweatshirts and sun umbrellas and tee-shirts to take home for relatives were shuttered. Sand drifted like snow. I think I would have been happy there to stay all day, just watching the occasional person pass beneath us. I was lured away by the mall and the Apple Store.