kellementology

life according to me

Tag: Paradise

  • Paradise is burning.

    Last night as we flew over San Diego county, the pilot said that if we looked out the windows we’d be able to see the fires burning out of control in several places below.  That if we smelled smoke in the cabin, we shouldn’t be worried.  Not too earlier, one of the MoH’s brothers called to say he and his family were leaving their home, and shortly after landing, we discovered their entire area was being evacuated.

    We arrived home after 9PM and began washing bedding and setting up the air mattress for their arrival at our house.  After being on the road stuck in the evacuation traffic for three hours, they arrived after 1AM, smokey-smelling and exhausted, but in surprisingly good spirits.  They’re pros.  This is the third time in about six years they’ve had to leave because of wild fires.

    We think their house if fine, but they’re still here with us while we watch the fires growing and spreading toward the coast, burning home after home.  Leveling one, skipping the next, then crossing the street.  The problem has been the Santa Ana winds, in some places, gusting at 60 mph.  The fire department hasn’t been able to use helicopters or winged support to douse flames.  The news stations have begun to run a tape across the bottom of the screen of the addresses of homes burned.

    Over 250,000 people have been asked to leave their homes around the county.    Thankfully, ours is not threatened.  But several of the MoH’s colleagues homes have been and they’ve been evacuated also.  

    No one is supposed to go out and breathe the air because of the toxicity.

    The Govvahnator just arrived.

    Dub-yah called.

    I’ll catch up later…

  • PETA: Are you hooked yet?

    I’m probably not going to do very well on the “nearly” aspect of my version of Wordless Wednesday. And I’ll blame it on this article published today in our local paper. It’s worth clicking on just to think about your own reaction before you keep reading. It’s a very short article…

    Ugly Fish

    Goodness knows there are many important issues that we can pay attention to, devote our time to, be concerned about, and get on soapboxes over. Worthy causes. Behaving as if today and now is ours for the taking with no regard for others’ future on this very unique planet is the epitome of stupidity.

    But where does one draw the line?  At what point is a sensational side show supporting a cause?  And do they actually think this educates anyone, which would be the whole point of bringing public attention to it?

    It was crude, public masochism.

    Oh, and certainly I’m convinced that a fish is more important than this.  Or this. Or that spending time to worry to the extent demonstrated by PETA about what it feels like being “hooked” should be focused upon more than this or this.  Or this.  Or this. Or what is happening in Darfur.  Or Burma.

    Perspective would be a great thing, don’t you think?

  • Go ahead. Lock me up.

    Go ahead. Lock me up.

    IMG_4185.JPG

    I spent half of yesterday thinking it was today.

    Pathetic.  Does that mean I’m wishing my life away, that I’m becoming forgetful, or that time flies when I’m having so much fun I can hardly see straight?

    I vote for the last one.

    So much loveliness.

    I could be under house arrest and be thoroughly entertained.

    You know.

    Like Martha.

    She probably loved it.

    But I’ll bet her house was shiny.

    Organized.

    And had labels on shelves.

    A crudless keyboard.

    But I have an azalea that blooms all year long.

    Amazing, isn’t it?

  • Okay, I kind of like it here. Sometimes.

    A couple of weekends ago, we went downtown to see the Red Bull Air Races. It seemed too interesting to let pass by. Besides, it was free.

    We walked out past the Midway to the embarcadero to stand on the pier with everyone else and gape at eight tiny planes fly at amazing speeds pulling heavy g’s through huge inflatable pylons arranged in an obstacle course. Red Bull Air Race IV

    It was incredible. Go figure.

    The nicest thing about it was that it was a gorgeous day and it was relaxing to yet again remind myself that I am developing a sort of fondness for the place where I’ve lived for nearly four decades. A tiny one. Begrudgingly. But only once in a while.

    Sure, the city coffers are empty, the city attorney is a complete lunatic, the Padres lost again, the Chargers can’t remember how to play football, and local paper thinks publishing too-lengthy-for-what-it-is pieces on cracked sidewalks, potholes in the road, and exposed tree roots are news, but hell.

    The weather’s great.

    San Diego Bay Bridge The vistas are gorgeous.

    The public art is interesting Public Art even if it isn’t exactly perfect.

    Public Art: Carlsbad, CA And at least one person has a sense of humor, caught here by Tom Mallory, a reporter for the San Diego Union-Tribune. It seems the locals don’t exactly think this particular piece of public art accurately depicts the stance of a surfer.

    Dudes. Get over it.

  • Wow.

    So what would you take if someone told you you had to leave your home immediately? I can’t imagine.

    Here’s what’s been happening a few blocks from our house this morning. Within an hour, this landslide went from a few large cracks in the asphalt to what is now a 15 foot depression. How frightening…

    And through it all, the ridiculous posturing exhibited by our City Attorney, Michael Aguirre, and our Mayor, Jerry Sanders continues. The Mayor is on his way to D.C., leaving Aguirre to seize yet another opportunity with television cameras taping, to insert his nose into business that has absolutely nothing to do with the job he was voted into office to do. Someone needs to ask him when and where he obtained his degree in geology. The man is completely out of control.

    They’re cutting off the water, the electricity, the waste drainage, have set up an evacuation area in a park very near by, and the helicopters haven’t stopped swirling since before 9 this morning. The police helicopter is using their loudspeaker to announce evacuations…

    It’s so bizarre. Many of the residents in this area are quite elderly and have lived in these homes most of their lives. Many others went to work this morning knowing that there was a problem, but never expecting that this would happen.

    This is why I take nothing for granted.

    Landslide

    ,,,Landslide II
    ,,,Landslide III

  • Ahhh…moisture.

    Yes, another Nearly Wordless Wednesday has arrived. Where does time go? I can tell you it seriously left while I was “working” yesterday because I achieved very little and have now successfully blamed it on Bach and Brahms who were more for meditating and gardening, not grind-stoning. They contributed to my delinquency.

    Not today. It’s 8:42 am and I’m raring to go by celebrating something I’ve been waiting for. IMG_3870.JPG See it? You aren’t sure what it is? IMG_3871.JPG  Oh come on. How many clues do you need? Or is it just glasses? It’s condensation! IMG_3875.JPG

    Yes, that bit of atmospheric wonder that lets me know officially that the weather has changed. The plumeria that took so long to bloom will soon drop its last flowers, its leaves, and return to what the MoH refers to as “The Stick.”
    IMG_3876.JPG  Our windows will soon need to be closed during the night. The precious moisture in the air will help us breathe more easily, and keep me from feeling like a prune.

    Okay, so I’ll be a juicy prune. Plump and juicy.

    9:09

    Gotta go. But with no Bach or Brahms.

  • Thoughts, Clouds, & Billy Collins

    I’m not very good at “Wordless Wednesday” because I’ve never been wordless at any point in my life. As an infant, I most likely had the noisiest brain, making observations and collecting ideas and opinions for a lifetime of blathering. Therefore, I propose Thoughtful Thursday instead, and offer a bit of Billy Collins on the English artist, John Constable and being a “Student of Clouds” from his book of poems Questions About Angels which I truly enjoy.
    IMG_3762.JPG

    The emotion is to be found in the clouds,

    not in the green solids of the sloping hills

    or even in the gray signatures of rivers,

    according to Constable, who was a student of clouds

    and filled shelves of sketchbooks with their motion,

    their lofty gesturing and sudden implication of weather.

    Morning Clouds

    Outdoors, he must have looked up thousands of times,

    his pencil trying to keep pace with their high voyaging

    and the silent commotion of their eddying and flow.

    Clouds would move beyond the outlines he would draw

    as they moved within themselves, tumbling into their centers

    and swirling off at the burning edges in vapors

    to dissipate into the universal blue of the sky.

    IMG_3763.JPG

    In photographs we can stop all this movement now

    long enough to tag them with their Latin names.

    Cirrus, nimbus, stratocumulus —

    dizzying, romantic, authoritarian —

    they bear their titles over the schoolhouses below

    where their shapes and meanings are memorized.

    IMG_3764.JPG

    High on the soft blue canvases of Constable

    they are stuck in pigment but his clouds appear

    to be moving still in the wind of his brush,

    inching out of England and the nineteenth century

    and sailing over these meadows where I am walking,

    bareheaded beneath this cupola of motion,

    my thoughts arranged like paint on a high blue ceiling.

    IMG_3768.JPG

    The photographs here were taken today at different points between 6am and noon.
    John Constable: Cloud Study — 1822

    Add a soundtrack of “Blue and White” by Beth Waters, “Storm” by Lifehouse, and “Ocean Size Love” by Leigh Nash, and I can’t think of a better way to spend a Thursday morning after working on my patio trimming and repotting. Nice.

  • August Dog Days of Sweat

    See the face up there in the header? The one with the gaping mouth. That would be me. Me dealing with — or half-assed trying to deal with and summarily failing to deal with the heat. And the humidity. OH MY GAWD.

    I knew I never liked this kind of weather. But now I know I really detest it. Completely. And one might think that one might lose some poundage since she’s sweating rivers all day. But no. Instead, I make like a dirigible, or something. Oh, that I could float away on a summer breeze to a place far, far away.

    So if you’ve been taking notes, don’t ever plan a vacation here in August. Ever. Or September. Or October. It’s too freaking hot. And I don’t want to hear it from you guys from the Right Coast. Okay? You’re so done with the sucky weather about now, aren’t you? Plus, you get rain. We never get rain. Well, at least we haven’t had any this year. Okay, I know Texas is floating away and I wouldn’t wish that on anyone, truly, but do you have any idea when the last time it rained here? Huh? My glasses are sliding off my nose. The inside of my elbows (is that an anatomically correct description?) are sticky, and the back of my knees (see parenthetical insertion earlier in this sentence) are beginning to drip. Hell, my fingers are sweating. Is that even possible? I’m beginning to feel like a braised dumpling.

    It’s Sunday evening. I’ve just finished making yet another knock down drag out pasta dish. (Check out the lips in the side bar….swagger, wink) And a salad I’ll have to try again all by itself just to savor the interesting flavors. And where do you suppose everyone else is? Downstairs. They’re watching 300. A couple of them for the umteenth time. They’ve eaten, and now they’re going to wallow, yet again, in surround sound, chest thumping, guts and glory. No thanks.

    I’ll just bitch and moan all by myself. (Insert fingers in ears at this point.)

    I haven’t been cranky all day. I did get to slide into the Pacific a bit after 8:00 this morning, the sea grass no longer grossing me out to the degree it used to. The water a soothing 75 degrees. The water smooth as glass with barely a swell to disturb the surface. If only I could get my fins on gracefully. But no. No matter how regally I stride into the water, and then lower my body in to slip on my fins, even the most gentle swell pushes me back into the sea grass, knocking me on my ass, scooping copious amounts of heavily grained sand into the crotch of my conservative black Ralph Lauren one piece suit. The one that’s three years old. The one that if I suck in my gut, I don’t look quite so bad. Well, to me, anyway. Like that matters, since what I’m there for is to swim. I’ve developed a bit of the buff attitude since I’ve figured out that quite a number of people are less than comfortable with the idea of swimming in the ocean. Interesting. (This is another swagger opportunity.)

    Today, I decided again to try the snorkel and mask so can swim differently, pick up more speed, and if I gird my loins, take a peek at any fish that may be swimming near by. Do I need to tell you what a pain in the ass the whole mask and snorkel are? Yes, the fish are great — well, the small ones — but the little black gizmo that keeps my snorkel pipe attached to my mask broke while I was already out some distance, so I had to find a different way to keep the stoopid pipe in the air. That would be the whole purpose of wearing it — so I could breathe while I was swimming, right? But then all was fine, and I was able to look at what little I could see under the surface of the water.

    Long golden strands of kelp still attached to the sea bed swayed in the current, the water a slightly cloudy and pale aqua hue. A shadow here and there — perhaps my own or that of my friends — caught my eye occasionally. And there were columns of bubbles rising heavily to the surface, released by scuba divers far below. Occasionally a fish would leap from the water and then quickly back flop back in. And if I wasn’t paying attention, I found myself swimming in circles with my friends far ahead, calling, “Where are you going?” like it was some kind of a plan on my part. Yes, a plan to put one arm and then the other into the water and stroke, stroke, stroke to shore where by 9:00, the small sandy beach was already packed with people, their towels and blankets spread on the damp sand, ready to bake themselves in the already sweltering heat.

    I’d like to be there right now, floating in the briny water. Letting the gentle swells lift me up, then leave me behind to wait for the next. It was lovely.

    But now it’s hot. And it’s nearly 10 PM.

    Wrecked Web

    I’d go out on the patio to cool down since every window that can be opened is opened, and the air is thick, damp, and still. But I can’t. It’s that time of the year, and the orb weavers are back. They have a tendency to build their webs very near the patio door, and across the patio, so when one of us tries to venture out to get the cats in for the night, or to look up at the stars or the moon, we snap the web across our faces and run screaming back into the house. Well, not quite, but we’d like to. It’s pretty disgusting imagining whether the spider is in my hair or not.

    Wjat

    The white blob in the center is the spider. If it’s this large already, I can’t wait to see how big it grows this season. Perhaps I’ll give them names this year. Gus. Or Barney. Maybe Eddie. Why not?

    And it’s a bit sad to see the damage we cause after they’ve worked so hard all evening to create their webs. I’m sure they’re disgusted by us and our nighttime fumblings. But they get right back to business after we’ve gone, and by morning, they’ve taken the whole web down and are no where to be seen.

    Just. Like. That.

  • Birthdays Boys and Paradoxical Sunsets

    I could mull over the paradox that is “America’s Finest City,” or what I lovingly refer to as Paradise:

    palm trees and NIMBY pettiness;

    temperate climes and a questionable, tenacious city attorney;

    luxury housing and chronic homelessness; or

    cutting edge schools and an on-going disparity in achievement between African American and Latino students, and Caucasian and Asian students.

    But I’d rather not. Well, not today, anyway.

    It was the MS’s (Middle Son) birthday yesterday, and at his request, we moseyed on over to Joe’s Crab Shack to sit upstairs, squint and sweat in the setting sunlight, eat, drink, and listen to The MS’s good friend talk about techniques for meeting women. It seems he’s purchased quite a number of products on eBay on the subject and is very close to being a poster child of sorts, soon to hit the road and profess his new found wisdom. The MoH was enthralled, but only long enough to ask about the young man’s success rate.  Mmmm….numbers.

    The RT remained mortified throughout the meal, especially since the MS’s friend directed a good bit of his commentary toward the RT, and encouraged him to “take notes,” because if he’d known at 15 what he knows today…well. The RT? A kid who couldn’t bring himself to walk down the “pink aisle” in Toys R Us when he was little? Uh, no. No note taking on the “how to snare women” lecture.  But graciously, the MS’s friend shifted his tutelage to that of something more closely related to the RT’s interests:  war games.

    Before long, the two were discussing a way to profit from purchasing models, painting them, and then selling them.  Of course, with some financial padding from D-A-D to really get things going.  Great.  Headlines on Yahoo read:  “Teen makes fortune in garage.  You, too, can have a home-based business…”

    But the MS was quiet — a rarity. He’s already familiar with his friend’s good-natured schtick, but still. It was his birthday and he’s been making his presence known verbally since he was born, earning him the nickname, “Cryin’ Ryan.” No, he’s never been a whiner.  Quite the opposite. He is much more quiet in his utterances now, but he always has something to say, always. Information, information, information.  So I found myself wondering whether he regretted inviting his friend, whom we all have known since the two were in junior high, and have enjoyed. Who knows.

    Maybe he was mulling over being yet another year older. Uh, what about me, here?  Or rethinking Joe’s. They have been known to circle the table to howl a birthday ditty while urging the guest of honor to gallop around the restaurant, straddling a child’s pony on a stick. Really. Or, he could have been lamenting the lack of a Birthday Check at that point in the evening, which did surface later.

    Perhaps it was the homemade card. Homely Mugs (No, it’s not snowing — that’s art.)

    The MS’s Bday “Cake”

    The birthday “cake?” (I had the peaches, okay? And those are blueberries, not raisins, so unscrew your nose. Besides, it’s not your “cake.”)

    Note And the greeting for his arrival on our front door? (What’d you expect? Balloons? That’s so junior high.)

    Aren’t you glad you’re not one of my offspring? It takes work to keep them humble, but they keep coming back for more.

    We finished our dinner and beverage-ez right at the 7PM tourismo hour, walked across the street to the beach and headed toward Crystal Pier to enjoy the sunset. Various and assorted “night folk” were already gathering, others settling in for the night with blankets, bags full of worldly possessions, and a ragged novel in hand to squint at in the waning light. Welcome to my bedroom…Only one less than cogent fellow verbally accosted us, yelling something none of us could quite understand. But we weren’t special, because he seemed not to discriminate in his quest to let people know he was there. Yelling. And trying to get into the restroom, which was locked. So add that to my list above:

    Blazing sunsets and incoherent drifters.

    Yes, you might be able to see just why Paradise is a veritable paradox — a place where you never actually have to stick your head in the sand to be a card-carrying member of the “not my problem” club.

    You can just allow yourself to be hypnotized by the pretty colors.
    Sun Orange Glow in Paradise
    Oh, and very handsome men. Whattahunkster. Nice guy, too. But he h-a-t-e-s having his photo taken, so this was a serious gift to me.

    Birthday Boy

    I’m surrounded by them.

    Cheers, Dude.

    But you won’t ever find me whining in the men’s room.

  • House Sitters and Sexy Party Gifts

    I think the first trip my husband and I took together was to Las Vegas. Neither of us had ever been, and I’m not sure what prompted it, but off we went to end up at a fairly seedy hotel and casino somewhere off The Strip and that no longer exists. We drove across the hot desert with not much on our minds but the glimmer of a possibility of hitting a jackpot — on a roll of nickels per day.

    Although I’ve been fortunate enough in my life to have visited and lived in a variety of places (due to a somewhat nomadic early childhood and the military) my husband had not. So, we’ve made an effort to take time off and get away as much as we could over the years. Rarely has our travel been exotic, as the cost alone was something challenging for us to afford. Sometimes we took my two older boys, leaving the youngest, a toddler, at home, and others we’d take all three boys and throw in my mom for good measure. Often, we’d leave everyone behind, escaping by ourselves. We like each other. And although it’s lovely being together as a family when we’re traveling, the kids don’t always need to go, nor is it always fun for them. No, I’m not rationalizing. Yes, I’m picturing that faded blue VW bug my family had chugging through Spain with either a perpetual ruckus in the back or a stony silence in the front. *memmm-reeezzz… like the corrr-nerzzz of my mind… misty water colored mehhhh… mreeezzz… of the way…we were…*

    We’ve been lucky when we’ve traveled because there has always been someone willing to keep an eye on things around the house. At first, it was my mom. We all shared a home for a time, and so it was easy to take advantage of depend on her. Then as my two older boys grew, we were terrified felt comfortable leaving them to the responsibility of the old homestead. Unfortunately, that came to a screeching halt when the oldest had one of those notorious parties where people never seen or heard of before show up looking for free booze and someone else’s bed to copulate on. And barf all over. Have you ever smelled clove cigarettes? And tried to scrape damp leaves off the floor? I’ll save you the rest of the gory details. Suffice it to say we weren’t so anxious to leave home again.

    When we moved closer to the ocean, it became a bit easier because my husband’s parents willingly, graciously, thankfully came to stay while we went on our little excursions. Although they are fairly close, being residents of North County, they used to take the opportunity to treat their stay here as a mini vacation of sorts. We were at ease knowing all was well with our home and animals, and could count on our stellar neighbors to take an unfriendly swipe or two at them over inane things in anonymously written cards left on windshields. Ahhh…the perks of living in Paradise.

    That’s all more difficult now. This last vacation, I had to ask my middle son if he could keep an eye on things. He works fairly close to our house, so the possibility of saving some gas money, and an offer to pay him for his time sealed the deal. The money will come in handy for his school books this next semester. Well, since I usually give him some money anyway, that would be rationalization. There was just one glitch. He had plans to visit Magic Mountain with his friends for an entire day. Hmmm… the dog would be a huge problem, bless her barking, pooping, howling self. I thought about taking her with us on our road trip for about a second and a half. She loves riding in the car and sticking her head out the window, but the thought of all the 409 I’d have to spray on the back seat every time we went around a curve…well, you understand, right?

    How to Steady Your Dog in the Car

    So I began to wonder about my older son, a lovely mix of creative wonderment, and perpetual curiosity. I should have purchased a shirt for him long ago that read “Makes Sudden Turns” because he can be on the straight and narrow path, then vanish. For days. Like he was a figment of our collective imagination right when we thought he’d be there. Where he was supposed to be. Doing something he said he’d do.

    As I was mulling over these thoughts, my middle son asked whether he could put a towel down or something. You know, in case the dog peed. Uh…no. The condition of the carpet by the garage door already effectively leads one to believe a race horse enjoys a stall in our home. So, there would be no towel.

    All was worked out, because upon our return, the floors were vacuumed, the pet dishes clean, the floor swept, trash emptied, patio free of dog poop, and plants watered. Dishes were done, counters were wiped and windows strategically open so air could come in, but the barking dog wouldn’t inspire our not so lovely neighbors to send us their notes.

    And the refrigerator was clean. Totally. Shelves wiped — even the shelves in the door. Even the one that had a variety of jars and bottles stuck in the petrified fudge sauce I’d been meaning to clean for about three years or so. No moldy cheese. No pickle jars sporting a lonely slice and pickling spices. No out of code marinade, or radioactive peach barbeque sauce I forgot to throw out before we left. Spotless. Imagine!

    We were also left a note:

    I left at 2PMish Friday. Ms. B went pee & poo 2x this morning. She likes to bark at her/your neighbors on her walks!!! (She so doesn’t do this when we walk her…) Blackitty and Precious are fine and have lots of fleas. (Oh, really? And does a chicken have lips?) (My kitties don’t have fleas and they are poor [East County Hood] kitties not rich [Paradise] ones. (We’re middle class posers) Check out Petmeds dot com for some flippin’ sweet deals. (Uh…I did apply one of those little vials of poison to the back of each of their necks on the very morning we left. I think the fleas like the way it tastes.) Thanks for the food. (Frozen pizza, taquitos, burritos, and the like. Oh, and ice cream. And root beer.) I cleaned up every day and [older brother] cleaned out the fridge on Saturday. He said [the RT’s] bed smells funny (You couldn’t pay me to sleep in that bed either, but the bedding was freshly washed and what would someone who frequently sleeps amongst the dirty laundry in his car know, anyway?) so he slept on the floor with Ms. B and 2 fighting, hissing kitties on the living room floor. (So maybe we’re even for the wild party all those years ago?) See you all tomorrow afternoon, RC >=B–<

    And then he left this present for the RT who watched about 80 hours of Family Guy in the back seat of the car on our vacation.

    Present from Big Bro

    My middle son said some of the crew at work got wind of his house sitting gig and wanted to know where we lived so they could “hang out.” I’m sure they were referring to the windows. Or something. About 17 of them. Sheesh. What a close call. Maybe that’s why the house was so clean, now that I think of it.

    Ahhh… I just love my boys. I think they’re swell.

    My Boys