Labor Day

Happy Labor Day! Because of the holiday, we're having a long weekend. So far it's been pretty nice: we've done almost nothing but watch TV. A couple weeks ago we were hanging out at a local Irish pub with friends. The topic of everyone's vacation plans came up. The Labor Day weekend is even longer than usual because tomorrow is Vietnam's National Day. With four weekend days to fill, most everyone we know in this town had been planning to head somewhere else: Bangkok or Hong Kong or Singapore. The way pub conversations go: I was asked six times where we'd be going this weekend. Sunshine and I had been asking each other the same question for a couple months. We tossed around ideas when we were in Nha Trang six weeks ago, then in Dalat last month. There was even talk of my accompanying Sunshine on her business trip to Ha Noi last week. In the long run, I made the decision that I'd been traveling too much lately. I decided I really wanted to stay at home for once. This was sort of disappointing for Sunshine, who I believe would have preferred to go to Kuala Lampur or Angkor Wat or Shanghai during these four days off. It made for six pretty disappointing pub answers, too. But I feel like I've already been flying so much lately--and I know we'll end up going somewhere distant for my birthday at the end of October--that it just seemed like a good idea to take the long weekend off. We'll have visitors in early October and early December. We'll go back to the states for the Christmas and New Year's Holidays. We always just go go go. Eventually I managed to convince Sunshine we needed a vacation. [Cavin]