playing solitaire

So I have this strange little ritual before I go to sleep that has suddenly appeared out of nowhere:  no matter how late it is, or how tired I am, I can't turn off the lights until I've played a few rounds of Solitaire on my iPad.  Sometimes it's just regular Solitaire, sometimes it's some sort of newfangled variation with a fancy name (like "Freecell," or "Spider Solitaire," or if I'm feeling particularly dangerous, "Scorpion Solitaire"), but regardless, I need a good solid 30 minutes playing it nonstop, over and over again, before I can finally close my eyes.  I'd love to come up with some sort of romantic reason for needing to do this, like a story about my grandmother, and how she used to teach me Solitaire games on her well-made bed when I lived with her as a teenager in Trinidad (which is actually true). But mostly, I think, it's just the need to do something familiar and old-school to calm myself, before I can rest and recuperate, and meet the world in the morning refreshed.

(Okay, maybe there's a little nostalgia for my grandmother in there.)

Anyway, it dawned on me this morning that I hadn't sent out a newsletter for September, nor did I do a This Was A Good Week post here.  Please forgive me.  Even though this actually was a good week, truth is after 31 days of sharing a photograph a day with you here, coupled with being under some insane deadlines in my new job, it totally slipped my mind, and by the time I remembered, I didn't have it in me.  I'm feeling a bit dazed.  

So I'm going to spend the long weekend (it's Labor Day weekend here in the States) "playing Solitaire":  disconnecting from the online world a bit, and reconnecting with my family and some close friends.  A little something familiar, so I can rest and recuperate, and meet you refreshed.

So thanks for sticking with me, lovely people, and if you're in the United States, have a fun, safe, restful holiday weekend.  See you next week.