I took Tau to the park to ride the train yesterday and took a few snaps along the way.

Thought I’d post them for the family who haven’t had the chance to visit. They are in our La Casa set on Flickr.

Enjoy!

I don’t believe it! I’m standing by the Greek philosopher Heraclitus who said, “The road uphill and the road downhill are one and the same!”

We had a wonderful time in Palm Springs for my 40th birthday this past weekend. Dave rented a gorgeous place with a pool and a hot tub, and we spent the weekend relaxing, sleeping in, going for coffee and yes, the three of us ate a whole birthday cake! It was mostly fruit and sponge cake, or so I keep telling myself.

Also, I have been wanting to buy a digital SLR camera for a long time now and with birthday contributions from various family members (thanks again all!), I was able to order my Canon Rebel XTi and a 50mm lens last week. It arrived in time to take away with us.

Thanks for your lovely cards, calls and flowers all!

So as I mentioned, most of my blogging energy is going into my new site (those of you who haven’t seen it, let me know and I’ll send you the URL). That means not much nobaddays-ing these days.

But I did want to touch base on a couple points.

1. It snowed in San Diego County yesterday. Yes. Snowed. And it was cold and windy. I had to wear a sweater. And run to my car. And turn on the heat. Yuk!
2. This week I started a three-month tech-writing contract with a small software company here in San Diego. For the techies: They develop a media-hosting/social-networking platform that fits seamlessly into their customers’ websites. Think YouTube but higher-quality and for the corporate media market. Online newspaper and TV sites. That sort of thing. I’ll be documenting their admin tool. Love being at a small start up again … fun product, fun people. And I really love that I’m only working four days a week and 20 minutes from home!
3. Dave and I celebrated our seventeenth anniversary last week. See pics of the yummy dinner I made on Flickr to the right.
4. And yes, my fortieth is coming up this leap year’s day. We plan to be away that weekend, so family if we could talk the weekend before or after, that would be grand.
5. I hoped to post about New Zealand the whole month of January but didn’t get around to doing that, did I? Dave stepped in admirably with posts on wine and coffee but I had planned to tell you all about our travels there. So many posts still sitting on the shelves of my mind. Time to clear them out but with the new job and a bunch of other things I want to get done around the house in Feb and March, I don’t think that’s going to happen. So please make do with taking another look at our pics. I think they capture just how lovely and relaxing our visit was!
6. Finally, belated happy Valentine’s Day everyone! We kinda skip over it here at Casa Nobaddays but Tau apparently did quite well — he came home with a goodie bag stuffed with candy and cards from his classmates. All along the lines of this one last year.

That’s all she wrote for now!

We are at James and Vix’s place and had a great day — unplugged from media.

Just checked the web and learned that they are reopening areas in our neighborhood, and we called our answering machine this morning and it answered, which we took to be a good sign.

Will probably spend the night here and head home tomorrow.

This post is mostly for our families. We are still safe. They have evacuated an area a bit North of where we are staying because they expect one of the fires to burn along one of the canyons and through almost to the coast.

We are watching updates on the news and if it comes to us needing to leave again to go South, we will do so well in advance. We have offers to stay with two sets of friends that are well out of the way of the fire.

We have wireless access in our hotel room and brought a laptop with us, hence the update Again, please don’t call; we are fine. If you don’t hear from us, please assume we are OK. We will contact you if we need to move.

Access to the following two web sites is a bit slow, as many locals are checking them constantly, but they do provide up-to-date info. Please wait a while before trying to access them.

http://www.signonsandiego.com/
http://www.kpbs.org/news/fires

If you hear of homes having burned in Poway, please don’t assume ours is gone. We live in the very urban area of the city and only evacuated to avoid any possible traffic jams. Most of the houses that have burned in Poway are on the NE more rural outskirts, where there are a lot of smallholdings and fancy estates.

Love,

Sue, Dave and Tau

PS: We are grateful for Playdoh, the Dinosaur book and the Chili’s restaurant just next to our hotel

As you will see from the TV reports, our neighborhood was affected by the Witch Creek fire. We think our exact area is still OK so far but no news.

We are fine and got out just before our neighborhood was evacuated. We are at a Holiday Inn in Sorrento Valley near Dave’s work. There is a business center here in the hotel, so we will try to post daily updates on the blog.

Please DO NOT worry … we are fine with plenty of food, TV, a king bed and internet access.

Larger image here on Flickr.

Yesterday we had our first rain in months. Many months. So many months that Tau didn’t know what it was.

We ran outside together and stood in the rain, then ran undercover and watched the big drops fall, then rain out into the rain for a few more seconds, Tau gasping as each drop hit his head.

Eventually I coaxed him inside. OK, picked him up bodily and carried him in kicking and screaming. He pulled a chair over to the window so that he could sit and watch the rain dripping off the outdoor umbrella, falling to the ground.

How do you explain rain to a two-year-old? Water, in the clouds, up high. Falling down, down, down on the ground. The best I could do.

A couple weeks back now we saw UB40 at Humphrey’s, a wonderful outdoor arena that is more poster for the good life in San Diego than hardcore concert venue. Surrounded by the waters around Shelter Island, Humphrey’s is open to the marina on one side and fringed with up-lit palms around the 1,400 seat arena. As the sun sets over the ocean, the lights come up on the opening band.

Dave and I arrived early enough to stand in line for an $8 beer and an $11 mojito. But hey, we go out so seldom, for all I know that could be the going rate at every night spot in town. Before heading to our seats, we hung around the perimeter, nursing our drinks and listening to the opening act, a very energetic reggae artist called Elan who reminded me a bit of Ché Guevara (here’s his MySpace link).

We’re big people watchers at events like this — fascinated by the cross-section of locals who consider themselves fans, digging each other in the ribs every time someone talk-about-later-worthy passes by: The surgically enhanced, forty-something Barbies wearing way too much jewelry, cleavage, and not quite enough clothing. The fifty-something surfer dudes with natural highlights and leather flip-flops, casually dressed in expensive Tommy Bahama shirts.

I digress only to set the stage. The mojito was mostly ice and since Dave was driving, I wound my way through the crowd, back to the bar to get another drink — Ché was still well into his Marley-esque treatise on World Peace. The line up was by this stage ten or twelve deep and I happened to join it at the same time as a guy who looked to be about my age. We smiled and did the classic “Go ahead … no you … no, please, you go ahead.” So we ended up standing together, chatting, and I found out that he was from the Dominican Republic, had lived in New York for many years, had seen UB40 before and was now at the concert with his aunt.

(more…)

By 8:30 this morning it was already 85 degrees F (29 C). Dave had planned to be out cycling all morning and there was no way I was going to stay in the house, with our so-so AC unit, ’til he got home. So Tau and I headed out to do some clothes shopping with the benefit of commercial-grade air conditioning.

Once Tau’s tolerance for fitting rooms and being in shopping carts wore thin, we left the stores — “Mama, HOT!” as we walked out of Mervyn’s into the oven of the outdoors — and wandered into a nearby coffee shop for lunch. This coffee shop used to have a great train table for kids — but alas, no longer. They did however have a chess set, which kept him occupied for ages.

By the time we braved the outdoors again, the temp had risen to 105 F (40 C). Needless to say we rushed straight home and cranked the AC!

Yesterday afternoon we met our friend Joslin and her dog Doug at Kate Sessions Park for a picnic dinner. We hadn’t met Doug and she hadn’t seen Tau in a while.

Kate Sessions Park is probably one of San Diego’s best kept secrets. Take a look at this view (random shot found on Flickr) of downtown and the bay.

More of our pics of the play date are in our Flickr stream.

So the one night I don’t go whooping it up at the House of Blues, Britney Spears shows up. Sheesh!

“It lasted only 14 minutes but Tuesday night saw Britney Spears’ first live performance in nearly three years.

The 25-year-old mother of two, whose life has been dominated by wild partying and a stint in rehab since divorcing husband Kevin Federline last year, returned to her day job as she took to the stage at the House of Blues in San Diego.

(more…)

This past Saturday, Democratic presidential candidates visited our fair city.

Hillary Clinton speaking on the current administration:

“Let me be very clear about what happened: The president took us to a pre-emptive war of his choosing based on his assessment of faulty evidence and trumped-up facts. He ignored the warnings of senior military advisers and he retaliated against those who tried to stop it. And once he got the authority to put inspectors back into Iraq, he ignored their findings. And it is something that will stand in American history as one of the darkest blots of leadership we’ve ever had.”

Ah! Spring has sprung in our fair neigborhood,
and the aloes are blooming!

I ran this through some pretty strong graphic filters.
The original picture was unremarkable.

And yes, Dad, about the Jacarandas,
Oktober is die mooiste, mooiste maand!

OK. Now I’m allowed to windge. Unlike a a few weeks ago, when you were all just indulging me.

Our garden looks like, well, like our indoor plants would if Dave didn’t take care of them.

(more…)

Sometime back I promised we’d post the pictures our friend Vix Pierce took of us at La Jolla Shores beach. Well, most of you should have received your Christmas parcels by now, so I thought I’d post a few of the best on Flickr.

Click here to view the pictures as a slideshow.

Enjoy!