Restaurant patios and enjoying people....

And still no Indys!!! Really miss reading what all those folks have to say about everything everywhere.

Had breakfast, as usual, on the hotel patio this morn. Along comes one of the delivery men. A young man. Very nice guy. Has a copy of a novel I wrote with a Navy SEAL about his two tours in Vietnam. Said he really liked it. Then I find that he, himself, had seen combat in the Army in Iraq. Two tours. More, both he and his wife were there, she being Army too. And they'd wed over there. Was sort of strange that they weren't allowed to marry here, but could in Iraq.

Anyway, it seems that when he joined, he was trained as a tank mechanic. He got over there and suddenly he's assigned to fix trucks! Strange things happen in the military. :))

I really enjoy sitting on the patio. Always meeting interesting people. Last week met an 80 year old lady who asked if she could join me. Feisty as hell, that lady. And then of course the English historian who joined us last Friday.

As a writer, I'm fascinated by other humans. Not a thing in this world interests me more. Everybody has a story and every one of them is interesting. Writers are observers, so I sit on that patio or on the back porch of the Deli at Seaport and just observe. Yesterday, I see this youngish couple take a table on the plaza below. She waits. He goes and gets a pitcher of beer. Pours hers, then his. But didn't sit down. Instead, he walked a distance away, stood alongside the sidewalk, lit a cigarette, smoked it, then returned to the table. I think they won't be a couple very long.

Down in Texas, there's a columnist/blogger named Leon Hale. Guess he must be closing in on 80. Sits on his porch and writes his blog posts about anything and everything that comes to mind. And his commentors...he has a big batch of them...talk about similar things that have occured in their lives. Talk about a relaxing read. I get a bit stressed by the end of the day, I just get right over to Mr Hale's blog, read and relax. It reminds me of sitting behind the adults on my grandmother's porch and listening to them talk when I was a kid.

In 45 minutes, I'll be leaving for the Tues eve writers' gathering in Mission Valley. We gather on a nicely enclosed patio there. Fans and heaters both overhead and big TVs hung up there too. Lots of sports fans in the bar/restaurant. Can smoke on the patio. So always check on the soup du jour. Those cooks make the most delicious tomato soup and luscious cream of broccoli. But not often. Most times vegetable barley or beef vegetable or chicken rice and similar kinds. Problem is, those latter soups are spicy hot! Burn my tongue, my throat, even my lips. Ouch! I swear the cooks lace them with jalapeno pepper juice. Dread to think what they've fired up tonight. One of those and I'm for a big Idaho baked potato with butter, sour cream and chives. Only thing I dislike is driving straight into the setting sun on the way home, now that the time has changed.

Wrap...