What to talk about

I would hate for you to think that I have been reduced to talking about the weather - as if nothing else is going on in my life.
Unfortunately that’s an accurate assessment. It's been too damn hot to do much of anything except sit indoors with the air-conditioning draining your bank account. But I’ve managed to keep busy. The laundry is done. And there is this:



Go there. And when you have finished viewing the last essay, the air will be crisp again and the leaves will be falling...

Sweet Relief

I left the house this morning expecting to walk out into a furnace on pre-heat but instead was hit by a cool delta breeze. Oh my god. I swear I almost wept with joy!

If you didn’t know already, Sacramento and the Central Valley have been in the midst of a hellish heat wave. I think there have been at least 10 heat-related deaths in the last week. And there is nothing funny about that. To make matters worse it's not just hot during the day; it’s been a 24/7 kind of hot. When we got home from Santa Cruz last Sunday it was 93 degrees at 9:30 at night! So wrong.

Ya’ know what else is wrong? Barring this heat wave with it’s round the clock misery; during a typical Sacramento summer, 5pm is the hottest part of the day. Not noon. Not even 2pm. 5pm. Right when you are leaving work and have to pick up the kids, or go grocery shopping, or breath…

But today’s high is only 96! Saturday 93 and Sunday 92!!!

No one should be this excited about 92 degrees.

But it’s older than I’ve ever been!

And it keeps happening to me!

That’s right – it’s going to be my birthday and I’m giving dirt a run for its money. I’m turning 40 on the 30th. That’s this Sunday if you don’t have a calendar handy. You should come by and help me celebrate. To accommodate everyone’s schedules, I have been forced to have a party on both Saturday and Sunday. How I suffer for the people I love. Pick an evening or show up for both celebrations – there will be food, wine, cake (or Bananas Foster if Cynthia really cares) and of course me! What more could you ask for?! Oh don’t worry, the extreme Leo vibes will settle back down to acceptable levels next week.

And to make sure I come back down to terra firma sufficiently, Kyle will be home next week! He’s been visiting relatives in Malibu since the 17th. Yeah, he suffers even more that I do. And please don’t make the erroneous assumption that I miss the little bugger. Cause I don’t. Twitch. I haven’t had to get up early and drive him across town to Summer Camp. Twitch. Haven’t had to stand over him with a stick to get him to brush his teeth. Ok, Chris hasn’t had to do that. But still. Twitch. No Kyle popping up 20 minutes after his bed-time to get another hug. Twitch twitch twitch.

Ahem. Well. Yes. Back to me. I’m having a birthday!
And then Kyle will come home.* And then we’ll go camping again in Fort Bragg. Sounds good.

*Shall we take bets on how many days before I’m annoyed as hell with him again? Hours??

Losing my happy place

Blogger is pissing me off. Again I have a post all ready to go and can't upload any pictures. Ugh.

Can…almost…reach…my…toes….

In most areas of my life I am quite flexible and adaptable. It even says so on my performance review. But every now and then I hit a speed bump in my ‘go with the flow’ attitude. This usually involves someone else rearranging things in a room. And sure, I might end up really liking it the new way – but the initial change causes me great distress. Weird.

I also seem to react out of character when plans are suddenly changed. For example when we decided mere hours ago to go to Santa Cruz this weekend. If you had heard me hesitating you would have thought I was being shipped off to Beirut. Yeah, my husband is so evil, making me spend the weekend at the beach where the high will be 83 degrees instead of staying home indoors all weekend trying to avoid another case of heat stroke because it going to hit 108!

“But you’ll go diving with Trent on Saturday and be gone the whole day! And then you’ll have to clean gear. And you’ll be tired and want to take a nap”

“I’m sure it wouldn’t be hard to convince my mom to go shopping. Or you could come with me, take the car, and then cruise around all the galleries in Carmel.”

“Alone?”

Do you want to smack me yet?! I don’t blame you. It’s some form of temporary insanity caused by the sudden switching of gears in my head. My brain tightens up and says 'but you had plans! Only dead fish go with the flow!'
Um, right.
Thankfully with a little time I loosen up and start to think clearly again. I can postpone my hair appointment. And would I really have gotten any painting done this weekend? Perhaps. But I wouldn’t have taken any pictures if we stayed at home. But in Santa Cruz… Oh come on. Now you’re the one whining!!

The Scenic Route Down Mexico Way

“Well, that was a superb meal. I’m so glad you could join us this evening. Would you care for an after-dinner drink? Wonderful. Shall we move to the den?

Oh look, someone left the projector and screen out… Hey! Would you like to see the slides from out vacation?

What?! You have an early meeting? You need to take the babysitter home? Your 12 hour antihistamine just wore off? Well, sure. I understand. Some other time maybe…”

But while you’re putting on your coats, let me show you the highlights. Really, it will only take a minute. ”


We flew to San Diego and then spent the day at the San Diego Zoo.
I didn’t take many photos because Chris and I went last year and I took a picture of every animal in the place! I could pull out that album if you want to take a look – no? Ok. Back to the trip.

Around 5pm we drove to the border and entered Mexico. Kyle, always the drama queen, bemoaned the fact that he was now a ‘foreigner’. My that boy can carry on. We headed west with the border fence on our right and Tijuana on the left. The first thing we learned in Mexico was this handy home security technique: to keep people off your property, cement shards of glass to the top of the wall like this:


I’m thinking of doing this to our back wall at home. They are building a Jr. High right behind our house! But I will keep it classy and only use Merlot and expensive micro-brew beer bottles. I don’t think the city would have a problem with that do you?

Our vacation destination was Chris’s partner’s condo 6 miles south of Rosarito. On the south end of town we were greeted by Jesus Muy Grande:


That Dude was huge! He was lit from below at night and had a blinking light on his head that we could see from our balcony. Very comforting.
And speaking of our balcony, here is the view from my side of the bed:


Not a bad way to start the day eh?!
Here is the view to the south:


And the north:


And here is Chris doing his impersonation of Michael Jackson and trying to dangle Kyle over the balcony:


Funny.
And what about this- There was a circus in town and as we drove through Rosarito one morning we saw the animals walking down the street.


Was it an actual parade? Were they just exercising the animals? Is so, the lions in the cage-on-wheels didn’t seem to be benefiting much. They were the carnivore caboose.
In contrast was this lazy herd of cows


We found this door in a building that had a café and half a dozen artist studios. Here is the top of the door:

Postus Interuptus

Sorry about the interuption. Here is the rest of the door.


And here is one of my favorite signs!


Sounds like my kind of place (wink wink nudge nudge)

And while I fawned over all the Frida Kahlo items I saw in the shops, I'm not clear about her affiliation with this dental office.


And since I am a fount of interesting information, I can tell you that the hand earring she is wearing in that painting was a gift from Pablo Picasso. Neat huh?!

So... when we weren’t going into all the funky little shops and art galleries


or riding ATV’s on the beach


or visiting Ensenada for a day


We slept in, ate great food, played many games of Life, and of course there was a lot of this:


Some things never change. And Cartoon Network would be one of them.

One Year Anniversary

Pointing to a yellow t-shirt at the bottom of the drawer, a t-shirt so bright it out-shines the sun.

Chris: “Should I wear this? I would be safe in intersections.”

Me: “Sure. Because I’ll be pushing you into intersections!”

¡Hola! ¿Qué tal?

I’m back! And after 6 days on non-stop Kyle, I can’t even begin to express how pleased I am to be back at work. Who would guess that this is my happy place?! And you would probably assume that after missing 4 days of work I would be spending several more days just playing catch-up. But you would be wrong. It’s 10:30 and I’m done. And that includes entering the expense report data, talking to the Saint, and catching up on all the snark at Go Fug Yourself. This means I’ll have the rest of the week to compose my epic Mexico post. ¡Con fotografias!

Hasta luego.

A picture is worth a thousand words

We had a lovely time in Santa Cruz this past weekend. Not only did we get to see Chris’s folks, but also his aunt and uncle, cousin and her family and then some. We spent both afternoons at the beach. Kyle got a new skim board and Chris’ dad was the last to get out of the water on Saturday. And of course we ate too much. The only thing that wasn’t perfect was the fact that both Chris and I had to work on Monday. Oh well, I can’t complain – we are leaving tomorrow for 5 days south of the border.

¿Dónde está el baño? Ok, I’m ready.

I’ve been spending most of my time on Flickr this past week. In addition to adding photos; I started to explore. Wow. You better have a jumbo bag of breadcrumbs and a hydration system because you could get lost out there. I’ve added favorites, made contacts and joined a few groups. I found this guy in Detroit and somehow has access to abandoned buildings! Oh the beauty of urban sprawl. I told Chris that these were the pictures I wanted to be taking. I think I mentioned that I was getting a bit burned out on taking ocean shots. My surrounding weren’t inspiring me and I was feeling frustrated. And then I found the Utata group. They have projects and I am so excited about them. In addition to weekend projects there are the Iron Photographer Projects. They give you 3 elements that you need to include in the shot. The latest elements for IP-06 are 1- round object, 2 – shot through a window, and 3- the color red. So, while walking around the block I found this.
I am quite pleased with the photos I took this weekend. Santa Cruz sprawl will just have to do. Before we left on Sunday afternoon, Kyle and I went for a walk and let him use my old camera. He took some great shots. I’ll try to post some when we get back.

And the 4th was a blast - HA! No pictures, but a wonderful dinner with Cynthia - thanks again chickie! Let's climb next weekend. And then have abalone. And more Bananas Foster!! Damn, that girl can cook.

Have a great week. I’ll be taking more pictures, nursing Coronas and trying not to get burned.