Of all the cool moments in my life, my favorites involve the combination of friends and foreign territory. Pleasure, multiplied. Maui with the Greenwoods and all our young children. The English Lake District with Binzi and Kyle and the kids, making blackberry cobbler with Richard Nelson on Bainbridge Island, hiking by firefly light down from Montecatini with Erin and Tom, Judy Murray and I in an elevator in Italy, Ireland with Suz, thumbing through photo albums with Melanie in Seattle. Add to that today's lunch with Ken Peterson at the Monterey Aquarium. Decades may pass between visits but our common history include friends, schools and love or hate of certain neighborhoods we may have inhabited. We liked Rome. We hated the San Fernando Valley. We love Big Sur. Strangely, Ken lived for many years on the other side of the Glen Deven property line. And...the lobster sandwich at the Portola Cafe inside the aquarium was totally memorable.

After lunch, stopped at Searles Art Supplies to inquire about framing a couple paintings on paper for the reception next week at Judy's. Too late. They're swamped with holiday orders. Art stores for me are like candy stores to kids. I can't enter and not purchase. Today I bought two tubes of green, a yellow I've never heard of (diarylide yellow) and some water soluble Derwent pencils. The salesgirl and I got into a conversation about the Big Sur artist residency. She's an abstract painter who studied sculpure at Otis College, where I taught for ten years. The next thing I know, the sun is beginning to set.

Stopped by Judy's to pick up the glasses I forgot last week. We played three games of backgammon and I returned to Big Sur.

I'm feeling the tug of the end of the line. This residency experiment is too rapidly coming to a close. I never made it to the Weston's house. I wanted to get to know the artists I met the first week. I want to know where the hot springs are. I wanted to thank Bill Leahy in person, to walk at Pt. Lobos and see Sand Dollar beach. I want to buy granola from Ventana, see Holly's house, eat beet salad at Nepenthe.

Everyone's expecting the first winter storm this weekend.