San Diego

We spent last week in sunny San Diego. I forget how bright the sun is when it really shines. Also, what my shadow looks like.

Anyway, first we went to the desert to see the wildflowers blooming. Driving up there, we drove past many of the areas that were burned in the fires last October. It was a little strange, since a gentle, downy, green spring grass was growing on all the hillsides. It made things not look so bad. And then you noticed that the trees were all charred and leaf-less. At one point we drove by the place where the fire had crossed the freeway and I just realized how big a fire had to be to burn down one hillside, cross eight lanes of freeway, and burn up the other hillside despite the best efforts of the fire department. Big.

But the wildflowers in the desert were so pretty. Also, so atypical, compared to how the desert looks the rest of the year. I am not really a desert fan, but this really was very scenic. We got up early one morning in time to see the sun rise and get in a hike before the heat of the day. Here are some pictures from that morning:Also, on the hike we saw a cloud shaped like a fish:We also hung out in San Diego, spending time with our favorite two vegan political theorists and my family from San Francisco. My allergies were bothering me a lot in San Diego, so I wasn't feeling the picture vibe quite so much [also, I noticed in my pictures from the desert that I haven't quite figured out how to adjust for bright sun. I'll be working on that, I guess. . . .].

I did manage to take a few pictures, though:

Mike getting a lesson from my grandmother on how to make margaritas.Cinnamon rollsSucculentsBaby Emma [isn't she adorable?]The scholar hard at work.And then we came back to Seattle. And it snowed.

Etc.

Well, I'm finally done with my last externship for my new career. I feel like I'm rejoining the world of the living again.

To celebrate, here are some pictures - first of a belated Valentine's Day rose and then of a tree in bloom at the lake near our house.Although the picture above was taken on a sunny day, we haven't had too many of those recently. Yesterday morning, it was 39 degrees in the city when we woke up. So we are really still in the eagerly-awaiting-spring's-arrival phase.

In other news, my dresser broke. Or, really, I should say: In other news, we gave up on my broken dresser. The dresser hadn't been in great shape before we moved to Japan, and the journey to and from the storage place didn't really help things. I sort of accepted the dresser; it was willful beast whose drawers stuck frequently, but, in the end, I could always yank the drawers and make things work. That is, until last week when the drawers became so hopelessly stuck that I couldn't get my clothes out. I was actually planning my days around which clothes were not in the dresser.

But, with the upcoming move, buying a new dresser seemed dumb. On a number of levels [levels, stairs, whatever, get it?]. And buying a cheap dresser from that Swedish place was what got us into this mess in the first place.

So we went plastic. And light. And, yes, sort of lame and pathetic.
We posted the old dresser on freecycle, and had several offers within a few hours [fools!]. I will say, though, that this dresser met a better end than Dr. M's dresser [her dresser was, in weird twist of cheap and functionality-induced decision-making, the exact same model] which her father hated so much that was always threatening to hack up with an ax every time he helped her move. Did I mention how heavy the darn thing was? Her father may have actually taken an ax to the dresser in the end. The dresser certainly deserved it.

Thus endeth the dresser saga. Talk about a boring post. . . .

Oh, and as for what we'll name the blog - you all are such a creative lot! I especially liked the suggestion of "burritos for breakfast". I also like "(deep in the heart of) fish for breakfast". So we'll see. I'm also thinking about a re-design of the blog to accompany the move and the new name.

You know, now that I have all this time on my hands.