Eloping

When we first started talking about getting married, I said that I loved the idea of being married to him, but I just I didn't have it in me to do a wedding: I have enough stress with work that I didn't want to plan anything, especially anything major. Plus, the families are all over the place, and that's a pain to deal with.

So we would elope.

The next question was where. Vegas is cliche. Going down the street to the local courthouse seemed so boring. On a beach somewhere warm and tropical? Yes, please.

Then it became a question of when -- and the answer was that we didn't want to rush into it. But then, the perfect scenario presented itself: I had an upcoming work trip to the Caribbean, and he could take off a few days to go with me. Hmmm . . . .

We read the requirements for getting married down there. It seemed easy enough. We rushed around to fill out and send out forms and certified checks, to find an officiant, to get a dress and a suit and rings. And then the preparing was over.

We flew down to the islands. We picked up our license the next morning, and then I went to work. The next morning, Saturday, the officiant came to the hotel, picked us up, drove us to a beach, married us in between rain showers, took some photos, and drove us back to the hotel. He sent our paperwork back to the courthouse for certification.

I spent the rest of the weekend divided between work and touristy pursuits. On Monday, a full day of work.

Tuesday, we picked up the certified copy of our marriage license, and caught a plane back home. And here we are. Married.

I wish everything could be this easy.

Los Angeles Thoughts

I always relate Los Angeles to my mother. She always told great stories about when she lived out here in the late 60s/early 70s. When I'm out here, I often wonder about her experiences -- what it was like for her to just pick up and leave the east coast at such a young age, with no one but distant family around. Then I realize that I did the same thing at right around the same age. The only difference was that I never went back.

When I checked into the hotel, they put me in room 1015. My mom's birthday. Weird.

Desert images

The desert is an interesting place. To grow there, the plants adapt. The plants get hard, spiky, spiny, almost like animals themselves. But still, there's a beauty -- a desolate beauty.







First thing in the morning, deep in the canyon, the first light makes the desert seem surreal, almost nightmarish. The Saguaro cacti look like spiny supernatural arms growing out of the ground.










I am enamored of cactus flowers. They bloom for only one day each year, opening their petals at dawn and closing them at dusk. How poetic and sad.





One day! Can you imagine living your entire life for just one day?

Customs

I am going to wind up on a no-fly list sooner rather than later. Not for terrorist activity, mind you, but because I am a jerk. Particularly before I've had my morning coffee.

This story took place a few weeks ago, in June, when I was flying home from St. Thomas. No wait -- let me go back further than that, to give you the background.

In case you didn't know, St. Thomas is one of the United States Virgin Islands. As in United States. As in where I am a citizen, where I live, and -- save for those few months in London when I was in college -- where I've always lived.

I've been flying back and forth to the USVI for work for about the last year -- maybe a little more, maybe less. To fly home, you have to go through customs -- fill out a form, show identification, declare what you're bringing into the country. Since I've been there on business, I haven't really been coming back with a lot of souvenirs -- maybe a t-shirt or two for my nephew, a cheap pair of earrings, a shot glass. Not much. And as for the identification, I've shown them my driver's license and, if they ask, my official government ID badge. Usually I pass right through -- occasionally the Homeland Security guys flirt with me.

The last trip home was a nightmare. I had been working nonstop, and was rushing to get home. I booked myself an 8am Saturday morning flight out. Of course, on Friday afternoon, a tropical wave started hitting the island, and the rain had been coming down in sheets for hours. I had to leave the resort before 5:30 to return the rental car and get to the airport, and of course, the shuttle wasn't running to take me from the main building down the hill to the parking lot. So I covered myself up as best as I could with my sweatshirt and ran down the hill in the pouring rain, with two suitcases and a carry on. At the foot of the hill, the water came up past my ankles. When I got in the car, I was drenched. When I got to the airport, before checking-in (but after returning the rental car), I ran into the bathroom to change into dry clothes. I then waited on a very long line to check-in, and an even longer, slower line, to get through customs. My flight is at 8 -- and, by the time I get to the front of the line, it is after 7. I haven't even made it to security yet.

Of course the agent asked for my passport. I don't have my passport. He then asked for my birth certificate. I don't have my birth certificate. I have my driver's license. I have at least two official government IDs. I have my Voter's Registration Card. He tells me that I need to have either a passport or my birth certificate.

In the last year, I have never been asked for my passport or birth certificate. And, as far as I knew, I didn't need either.

The Border Patrol website says:

Q: Do travelers from U.S. territories need to present a passport to enter the United States?

A: No. These territories are a part of the United States. U.S. citizens returning directly from a U.S. territory are not considered to have left the U.S. and do not need to present a passport. U.S. territories include the following: Guam, Puerto Rico, the U.S. Virgin Islands, American Samoa, Swains Island and the Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands. If the traveler also visited non-U.S. territories, he/she is required to present a passport.

Although U.S. citizens are not required to present a passport upon departure from the U.S. territories, travelers are encouraged to travel with a passport or other proof of citizenship, as they will be asked questions about citizenship and any goods they will be bringing to the U.S. mainland upon their departure from U.S. territories.

But the rules might not be that clear, at least according to a giant poster on the wall, which says:

US Citizens

No passports are required for US Virgin Islands travel.

The Western Hemisphere Travel Initiative requiring passports will not affect travel between the United States and its territories. U.S. citizens traveling between the United States, Puerto Rico, and the U.S. Virgin islands will continue to be able to use established forms of identification, such as birth certificates and government-issued photo ID, to board flights and for entry. Vaccinations are not required.

The following are usually accepted as Proofs of U.S. Citizenship:

* a valid U.S. passport -or-
* Certified copy of birth certificate plus government issued photo ID -or-
* Official U.S. government document verifying citizenship
* Certificate of citizenship
* Certificate of naturalization
* Consular report of birth abroad of a U.S. Citizen
* Valid photo I.D. (Photo I.D.'s are not applicable for minors up to 16 years of age.)

NOTE: A Voter's registration card is NOT valid proof of U.S. Citizenship.

I tell the agent that I have nothing except what I've shown him. I comment about how going to a U.S. territory is not leaving the U.S. I add "Since when do you need a photo ID and your birth certificate to board a plane in the U.S.?"

He tells me I should have my birth certificate, but it would be better if I just traveled with my passport. I say I do not ordinarily travel with my birth certificate, and do not have my passport with me. This goes around and around in circles. He is getting annoyed with me, and I asked for a supervisor.

Finally he starts typing into his computer. He asks about my business on the island, my employer. When he learns that I am a lawyer, he says, "Of course." Then he asks where I was born. I say "New York City." He says, "Where is that?" I, of course, say "Are you serious?"

He glared at me. He was serious. Dead serious. He types something else into the computer. At this point, I've moved beyond mere petulance to full-force obnoxious smug superiority. So I explain that New York City is, indeed, in the State of New York, which is in the United States of America. He angrily types into the computer, and finally, lets me go. As I'm gathering my stuff to leave, he says, "Next time just bring your passport or your birth certificate."

Lucky for me, I had to race to get to the plane, and kept my mouth shut. Otherwise I'm not sure if I'd have made it home.

What Holds Us Down

I don't think that we, as human beings, are equipped to recognize happiness:  instead, we're hard-wired to strive for more, for better.  Generally, it's not a bad trait, but sometimes, there are unintended consequences.  Take antibiotics for example:  100 or so years ago, scientists were determined to figure out a way to fight infection, and now, because of their work, the world is a much safer place as a whole, and people live longer, healthier lives.  Well, except for the whole antibiotic resistant bacteria thing.

I've spent the last two-plus years since my mom died trying and failing at figuring out how to be happy.  Some days I feel as if I'm just not built for happiness.  Other times I feel as if I'm a victim of circumstance.  As with most things, the truth likely lies somewhere in-between.

By way of contrast, two years ago, my father made a point of saying that he was going to try to not be unhappy -- and, by all objective indications, it seems as if he's been quite successful. I think the end result of my quest for happiness is that I find myself even less happy than I was to begin with.  And the end result of my father's quest to not be unhappy has yielded some sort of happiness.

It's not until RIGHT NOW that I've realized that the two things are distinct.  Not unhappy is not precisely the same as happy:  the Venn diagrams overlap somewhat, but the circles are not the same.

I have many things to be thankful for.  I have a home, a car, a job, an education.  I have more than enough in the way of material possessions.  I have friends and family.  But I still find myself looking at what I don't have and it tears me up.  I don't have enough leisure time, or the money to do what I want whenever I want to do it.  I don't have children.  I somehow manage to surround myself with people who have an expert way of making me feel second-rate or second-choice or just not good enough.  And, when push comes to shove, I'm not even sure that I have a person that I could really rely on to take care of me in case of emergency.

Am I wrong for wanting more than what I currently have?

Don't get me wrong:  I am extremely grateful for my current situation.  I like my clothes and shoes and CDs and DVDs and books; I like my condo and my car.  But this is not happiness: things are not happiness. If push came to shove, I don't think there's much that I would fight to hang on to. It would be very easy for me to let go of things, people, and places and move on:  there are so few things in my life that I am particularly tied to, and even less that is irreplaceable.

On a very basic level, I am a traveler.  And not just for work -- which I do, a lot.  Somewhere, in my personality, I have some kind of nomadic streak. At this point in my life, I've been a lot of places.  Still, there is so much more out there for me to see, and I desperately want to get there, before it's too late. If I could, I would start tomorrow -- just get on the plane and go.  The where doesn't even matter anymore.

It's the logistics that get in the way.  I have a job, responsibilities.  I have a mortgage.  I have family, more or less.  Still, other than my material possessions, what is anchoring me to any one place?

Maybe that's the solution to all of it:  I should let go of things, get rid of the clutter that weighs me down and holds me in one place.  Be ready to go on a moment's notice, whenever the whim strikes.

Thoughts on flying

My favorite part is the takeoff. Absolute anticipatory stillness followed by a sudden burst of speed. The racing racing racing towards the horizon and then, just before the runway ends, we're in the air, floating, as if that's where we had always been.

My second favorite part is the clouds. Sometimes they look like cotton balls in the great vastness of jar that is the sky. Other times, the sun peeks through, and it looks like Michelangelo's Sistine Chapel, and any minute now I'll look out the window just in time to see a white-bearded ivory-robed God reaching out to impart the spark of life to Adam. Today, though, the clouds look like cotton candy. I want to stick my hand out the window and gather up the sticky spun sugar on my finger. Delicious!

I hate the landing. The crashing back to earth. The suddenness of the bumps, the clanging and jolting parts, the squealing tires and brakes. The abrupt, mechanical nature of it all. I want to stay in the sky, in the dream, floating.

Hotel room

I am writing from a beach resort on a tropical island, in a room just feet from the sea. It's the kind of place that many people dream about on a winter day. You all should be jealous -- it is breathtakingly beautiful here. Close your eyes and imagine paradise. That's where I am.

Well, except for the teensy tiny fact that I'm only here for work. Details, details.

Naturally, all this led me to thoughts of travel and the hundreds of other hotel rooms I've been in in my life.

There's something vaguely reassuring about hotel rooms. Yes, there are differences in quality between a motel off of the interstate versus a beach resort versus a 5-star hotel in the center of a megalopolis. Still, it's nice to know that you can go anywhere in the world, and as long as you have a credit card, you can get a bed to call your own. Sometimes you can even get a bathroom and a television.

That's when you know you're lucky.

Bikinis, tattoos, and sarcasm

(Scene: A lovely tropical destination, where our brave and fearless heroine has been sent for work. She sits at a table on the patio of a resort hotel with her coworker, who is on his second or third rum drink. It is clear that she would rather be anywhere else, with just about anyone else.)

Coworker: There are a lot of women in bikinis here.
B&FH: Yes. We are at a beach resort.
Coworker: My wife says it's okay if I look, as long as I don't do anything else.
B&FH: Yeah, people say that.

(Several increasingly uncomfortable moments of Coworker commenting on the women of the resort as they pass by.)

Coworker: I don't understand why women get tattoos. It's trashy.
B&FH: Yeah, whatever.

(A few uncomfortable moments later.)

Coworker: Is that a tattoo on your wrist?
B&FH: Um, yeah. I generally keep it covered up.
Coworker: I don't know why you'd do something like that. I'd never let my daughters do anything like that.
B&FH: Well, I guess my dad wasn't paying enough attention.
Coworker: Looks like a star.
B&FH: Something like that.
Coworker: Why'd you do it?
B&FH: It was the only way I was ever going to be able to tell the difference between my right and my left.

Favorite Jeans

Originally, I was only supposed to be in Florida for a day and a half -- Friday night until Sunday morning. But, on Thursday morning, when I realized that the snow was coming, I changed my plans to leave that afternoon. I ran from work to my condo, threw some stuff in a suitcase, and raced to the airport. I forgot pajamas, but I did manage to remember to pack a few t-shirts, a pair of flip-flops, and my favorite jeans.

The jeans are my favorite jeans, but by no means do they fit me. They are at least three sizes too big; I can put them on and take them off without opening the button. Basically, they are denim sweatpants.

Saturday night, I found out that my flight home was canceled. Sunday morning, I ran to the grocery store with my dad, wearing the jeans and a very large Florida Law t-shirt that I had given him during my first year of law school. When I got back to the house, I walked past a full-length mirror and caught my reflection. I yelled, something to the effect of "Dad, why the hell did you let me go out of the house looking like this?"

He shrugged his shoulders and said that I looked okay in his opinion. But when pressed, he did say that I looked like I was twelve.

On Tuesday, I finally got to fly home. The security lines at Palm Beach International were very long, but I travel enough that I have it down to a science.

Or so I thought.

I remembered to take my liquids out of my bag. I remembered to take off my shoes. I remembered to take everything out of my pockets. My luggage did not set off any alarms. I did not set off any alarms. Still, I got selected for a pat-down. The TSA agent was very kind about it, and let me know that my baggy clothing was the reason. Apparently, people hide all sorts of things in baggy clothing.

My favorite jeans are now retired. I'm going to have to start wearing pants that fit me. For security reasons.

States Meme

Put an X next to the states (51 counting DC) you have visited. Airports don't count!
Just for fun, put an O beside the states where you have lived. The average is 8; how do you match up?


USA BY REGIONS:

NEW ENGLAND:
Maine - X
Vermont - X
Massachusetts - X
Rhode Island - X
Connecticut - X
New Hampshire - X

MID-ATLANTIC:
New York - X
New Jersey - O
Pennsylvania - X
Maryland - X
Delaware - X
Washington DC - X

SOUTH:
Arkansas - X
Louisiana - X
Mississippi - X
Alabama - X
Tennessee - X
Kentucky -
West Virginia - X
Virginia - O
North Carolina - X
South Carolina - X
Georgia - X
Florida - O

MIDWEST:
Michigan - X
Ohio - X
Indiana - X
Illinois - X
Wisconsin -
Minnesota -
Iowa -
Missouri - X

GREAT PLAINS:
North Dakota -
South Dakota -
Nebraska -
Kansas -

MOUNTAIN:
Montana -
Wyoming -
Colorado - X
Utah -
Idaho -

SOUTHWEST:
Nevada - X
Arizona - X
New Mexico -
Texas - X
Oklahoma -

PACIFIC:
California - X
Oregon -
Washington -
Alaska -
Hawaii -


33 of 50, but likely to add Hawaii and Utah soon.

My darling clementines

For a girl who spent a good chunk of her life in Florida, I am surprisingly anti-citrus. (And don't get me started on orange juice -- unless it's fresh squeezed, I can barely tolerate it.) There are pretty much only two kinds of citrus fruit that I bother with -- honeybell (or minneola) tangelos, and clementines. I'm not entirely sure why these are it for me, but it might have something to do with sentiment: My grandfather used to ship the former to me as a Hanukkah present, and the latter were the kind that my mother preferred when filling up Christmas stockings.

Anyway, when I went to Morocco two years ago, the food was generally average, except for one thing: the little tiny oranges that they put out at the hotel breakfast buffets. These oranges were consistently exceptional -- so consistently that I would grab two or three of them and snack on them throughout the day.

So today, while doing a bit of grocery shopping in Whole Foods, I noticed this:



To you, it might look like an ordinary run of the mill box of clementines. But to me, it's a yummy little reminder of North Africa.

In-Flight Entertainment

I rarely talk on airplanes. I usually sit down, pull out a book or my headphones, and try to relax until I get from point A to point B. Not today.

It all started with my bag. You see, I acquired stuff at my dad's house, and decided to take a bag of it back up with me to DC -- a little blue gym bag that may or may not have been the bag I used for summer camp one year, back in the mid-1980s. Despite the fact that the bag was tiny, it would not fit in the overhead bin, thanks to some oversized suitcases and a whole bunch of tennis rackets. (Note to self: Next time you're in Florida, remember to look for your old tennis racket in the garage.)

So the guy next to me volunteered to let me put it in front of his seat. He then commented that he could judge how stressful someone's job was by the size of their coffee cup -- I happened to be drinking a Starbucks Venti Green Tea at the time. This, of course, started a conversation.

We proceeded to spend the whole two-and-a-half hour flight talking. I quickly realized that he was quite intoxicated, which made it all the more fun for me. And it got better when he found out that the onboard beverage service was cash only.

I think the highlight for him was when we started going through the Sky Mall catalog, only to find that almost every page of his copy had been defaced with hand drawn pictures of male genitalia. He thought it was hysterically funny, so I told him to rent Superbad.

The flight seemed to go by very quickly. Clearly I need to allow myself to be entertained by random strangers more often.

Sleeping through it all

My dad came to visit over the weekend. On Monday, he insisted that I drop him off a the airport what I consider to be very early -- 90 minutes before his flight. I then went to go run errands, and late that evening, realized that he hadn't called me to let me know he had made it back home. But it was too late to call, so I waited until yesterday.

As it turns out, he didn't make his flight -- not because he got to the airport too late, but because he got there so early. He fell asleep while waiting for his flight to board, and missed the announcement. Lucky for him, Southwest put him on another flight -- through Tampa -- and he got home really late.

Of course I made fun of him. It's what I do.

Cut to this morning. As usual, I was exhausted and running late. I got on the subway heading to my office and -- you guessed it -- fell asleep. I woke up after having missed my transfer station by several stops, and wound up being about an hour late to work.

Dara vs. GPS

Today's Washington Post had a long feature on navigation devices. This is now a subject on which I am quite familiar.

It all started when Inbal took her brand new GPS device on the California trip. Before then, despite all my traveling, I had pretty much managed to avoid GPS. In fact, I can only remember having GPS in a rental car once: It was back when it was first starting out, and as it turned out, I didn't really need it -- it was in South Florida, where I kind of know where I'm going.

At first, my inner Luddite was a little turned-off by the GPS. I like having written directions and maps -- which is probably why I was an early adopter of Mapquest and then Google Maps. And the GPS said all the words funny, which, on occasion, made the directions difficult to understand. (It also made me snicker and mimic.)

And to be frank, the voice got annoying after a while. A surprisingly short while.

More importantly, the GPS doesn't really help with the confusion of figuring out which street to turn on when there are a whole bunch -- I mean, it's hard to judge exactly how far is 350 feet, and sometimes, you can't see the street sign until you're already in the turn lane. But in those cases, a map wouldn't really help either.

So, despite my initial reluctance, I embraced the gadget, and ultimately found it to be useful for navigating around new, unfamiliar places. Plus, I loved how it could pinpoint what time we were going to arrive at our destination. That way, when someone calls, you can tell them "I will be there at 8:43." If you try, you can make it seem like you're predicting the future.

When we got back from California, Inbal let me buy her old GPS from her. It doesn't have all the bells and whistles of her new one -- for example, it has a smaller screen and it doesn't say the name of the streets (you have to look at the screen to figure that out). Still, I find it really useful whenever I'm not exactly sure where I'm going -- which is more often than I'd like to admit, as I like to think I have an excellent sense of direction.

On the flip side, I hate how I'm starting to let it think for me. I might have needed it to find Wegmans when I was at the closing down in Fairfax, but I certainly do not need it find my way from my apartment to the new condo. But I feel compelled to see what route it recommends.

Increasingly, I find myself talking to it. "Duh. It's a one-way street." "Alright, alright. I'll get over to the left as soon as I can." "How come you're telling me to stay on the highway when the sign for the airport says to take this ramp?"

I am, however, somewhat fearful that one of these days, she's going to say, "Just what do you think you're doing, Dave Dara?"

Yesterday, I was dropping my aunt off at her friend's house downtown, and I decided to ignore the directions, and go the way my aunt suggested. The GPS originally said that we would reach our destination at 2:23. Each time I ignored it, it would recalculate the route, adding another minute or two onto the ETA -- like she was punishing me. My aunt's directions -- the way that her friend recommended we go -- ultimately wound up costing me 15 minutes. At the law firm, that would have been around $100 of time.

You win this one TomTom. But I am confident that I will, one day, emerge victorious.

Cakes, cookies, bacon, and tattoos: 24 hours with my brother

Right now, my brother's neighbors are outside lighting off fireworks and talking really loudly in Spanish. The fireworks -- not the Spanish -- is driving most of the neighborhood dogs crazy, but my brother's roommate's dog is as cool as a cucumber.



So far, it's been a pretty busy 24 hours. Last night, after my flight landed, we went straight from the train station to grab food and then out to a bar where a bunch of my brother's friends seem to hang out. He knew about half the people in the bar, one of whom was painting glow-in-the-dark fake tattoos on people.

Here's mine:



I sort-of wanted to keep it, but eventually, my brother managed to convince me to shower.

This morning, we went for brunch at this awesome bakery that had the coolest cakes ever in the display window out front.





Then we went shopping, and on the way, saw this sign, which I thought was funny, and which my brother thought was perfectly normal:



I think I'm dedicating the picture to Jordan Baker, who seems to be obsessed with bacon.

Oh, and the shopping -- we went to Chinatown so my brother could pick up some kind of herbal medicine -- which loosely translates to the "Four Horsemen" and is meant to cure his spleen. No kidding. I got a bunch of fortune cookies -- normal and chocolate -- and fresh baked almond cookies -- all for under $3.00. And a picture of Confucius.



You know what would go perfectly with fresh-baked almond cookies? Green tea gelato. I'm gonna work on that as soon as I get an ice cream maker.

The elaborate and strange workings of my subconscious mind

For the first time in what seems like a thousand years, last night, my mother was in my dream. I was on a trip, somewhere exotic (possibly Southeast Asian or Middle Eastern), and I was in a hotel -- which was reminiscent of some that I had stayed in in Morocco: a little shabby and worn looking, but a perfectly sufficient place to sleep.

In any event, I checked into the hotel, and went up to the room to sit and wait for my mother. I was waiting, and waiting, and kept on washing my hands. As I waited, the rest of the family arrived there too -- my sister and brother, Nana and Pop. Finally, my mother and father arrived, and I was so happy to see her. She told me that I looked beautiful, she had missed me, and the room was a disaster and would never do.

And then I woke up -- late for work.

I remember the dream as vividly as I do most reality -- more so than, for example, her funeral. Which, if you think about it, is actually kind of weird.

One of the last times I saw my mom was in a hotel. I met up with her and my Nana and aunt last fall in Rhode Island, for my cousin's wedding. The four of us shared a room in the historic Biltmore. It was not the best trip for my mom, who, at least for the past few years, was not a good traveler. And my mom, for some reason, was disappointed with the room. (But not the bed, which was fabulous! After the wedding, the four of us watched the Red Sox wrap up the World Series in those comfy beds.)

Anyway, earlier tonight, my Nana called. I didn't tell her about the dream, though. Instead we had a nice normal conversation -- until she asked me if I was angry with my mom for dying. The tears started pouring out of my eyes before I even knew what happened.

Am I angry? Maybe -- maybe not. Disappointed and sad are more accurate. What I do know is that I'm trying not to dwell, because fundamentally, I understand that this is my reality -- it's just the way things are, and I can't change it. I also know that I just spent two weeks on vacation, thinking about how I would have loved to tell my mom about some of the things I saw and did. I would have loved to have asked her where she lived when she lived in Hollywood, so I could have gone to find it. And she would have understood about all the wine I bought (and shipped home), unlike, for example, my dad who said that it all tastes the same to him.

So, maybe that's why I'm dreaming about my mom going on vacation with me. Or maybe I just want her to come and visit.

Vacation perspective

The worst part about coming back from vacation is the sudden transition back to real life. And I'm not just talking about having to unpack, do laundry, pay bills, and go to work -- it's the shifting away from doing only those things you want to doing the things that have to get done.

My reintroduction to my real life was exceptionally distressing: I came back to a heat wave and a malfunctioning air conditioner. All day yesterday, my apartment hovered around 85 degrees. Of course, after the overnight flight, I was pretty much too tired to care, so I did my laundry, watched baseball, and tried to sleep in the sweltering heat -- which, on the most part, was insufferable. But lucky for me, I live in a place with maintenance. So they fixed it. But if I lived in a hotel, they would have moved me to another room last night.

And then there's the whole working thing. Most of the time, I like what I do for a living, but I'd rather be living off a trust fund, traveling across the world. So having to go back to actually doing stuff kind of sucks, in its own way.

I've decided though, that there are some vacation-type things that are going to stick. I'm going to try to drink wine on a semi-regular basis, instead of just at fancy dinners. I'm going to try to go to interesting places and do interesting things on the weekends, and not just run errands. But mostly, every day, I'm going to try to have a sense of wonder about the things that are around me.

Like when I was watching the Foccault Pendulum at the Griffith Observatory in Los Angeles:



Or taking in the desolate landscape at Pebble Beach:



Or watching the Sea Lions at Pier 39 in San Francisco:



Or noticing how the butterflies on display at the Conservatory of Flowers just wanted to get outside:



Or listening to the sound of the foghorn at the Golden Gate Bridge:



Or even riding the cable car:



These are the things we ignore or overlook or take for granted every day, but appreciate while on vacation.

Lombard Street

I keep meaning to post more videos, but the whole vacation thing keeps getting in the way.

This is what the tourists driving down Lombard Street in San Francisco look like:



And this is what it's like to be one of those tourists driving down Lombard Street:

Not beach weather

I spent roughly half of my life in Florida. In high school, if I wanted to, I could roll out of bed and, provided one of my parents would loan me a car, be at the beach in 25 minutes. And I'd know what the weather would be like: Sunny and warm in the winter, cloudy and hot in the summer, with an afternoon thunderstorm.

California's weird. I thought that at least the SoCal/beachy parts of this vacation would be sunny and warm. But it's been cold. Really cold. In fact, while walking down to the beach in Carmel today, I had to wear a sweatshirt AND a jacket.

Here's a video from the beach.

Santa Barbara Wine Country

We left L.A. today, heading north, first to Santa Barbara and then to the Santa Barbara wine country. We drank a lot of wine. I bought a case of wine. There was a lot of giggling. And then we settled down -- to drink more wine -- in a town with a windmill.



For the record, I did drink Merlot, against my better judgment.