I noticed that I had put down 2006 as the date of my earlier essay this morning.  I corrected it, if you will notice, this time around.  But, I got to thinking that this is a good time to take a vacation.  Now, you may ask, how come you are talking about a vacation when you are retired?  My answer is that I have just finished working very hard as the President of my Condominium, have declined to be the chief target again and I have been writing these essays almost daily for many years.  I think I deserve a vacation and I am going to take one even if it involves dragging Carol kicking and screaming along on a cruise. (Carol, that is a joke!)

We are leaving on January 4, 2007 and hope to arrive safely back in port (we leave and return to Fort Lauderdale) on January 14, 2007.  I wonder if one of those science-fiction or utopian stories would come true in our situation and bring us back to January 14, 2014 or some other random date.  THAT would be some vacation and wouldn’t we have a lot of stories to tell.  What would the world be like in another seven years?

That is something to be the subject of another essay when I resume my self-imposed task.  I cannot think of a morning that will be worth anything unless I put myself down in front of this computer keyboard and start composing.  Actually, I can put myself down into another position.  That would involve, however, a subject for my left-profile sketching.  You cannot get up in the morning and find people waiting in line for you to stop scratching and yawning and begin to churn out left profiles.  This is what I plan to do on board ship for it is one of my pleasures to try to convert what I see into coherent lines on paper that will look like my subject’s left profile.

O.K., here is why I do left profiles.  That is the side of the face that you seldom see and it differs from the right side.  However, the real reason is that is the way my hand starts at the top of your head and flows down to the bottom of the neck and it is easier for me to COPY that side of the face.  I say copy, for that is what I do.  I see - copy and turn out left profiles which I guarantee will be a left profile.  If it looks like someone else or not the way you see yourself (you have a hard time seeing that profile without help of a mirror and that mirror reflects a different version of that side of your face) - sorry.  My fee is “interesting conversation”.  I provide a service and pass the time pleasantly for me for I enjoy the “work” for it is not work for me – it is part of my vacation and I can’t wait until I get back from my fortnight away from home to write once more and maybe have an appointment to draw someone near home.

See you when I get back.