From the Gates of Hell: Vacation

The dog days have arrived. All around me the love affair with heat seems to be growing stale. The air is thick with sticky, oppressive heat. I'll be glad when it starts to snow again. In the meantime, I'm initiating an escape.

I'm off to California for a couple of weeks. Dry heat will clear my head, it always does. While I'm there, I will watch my 9 year old step-sister dance flamenco at Santa Barbara's Annual Old Spanish Days Fiesta. This five day festival is all about the world I grew up in.

This is the sista getting her flamenco on a couple of years ago.

I'll visit with much family, eat disgusting amounts of Mexican food, go to the rodeo, finally get some decent clam chowder, and with any luck, meet my new niece who is due to arrive on August 10th. Yesterday my aunt who lives in Indiana called to tell me she's planning to hijack part of my vacation. She and my cousin are coming out and demanding a slice of my vacation time. I was planning on spending as much time as possible with family who actually live there, and any surplus time was dedicated to being on vacation... doing things that bring me peace... things that don't involve family obligation. Usually when I go "home" or on vacation I want to be alone and not have any more obligations than I do in day to day life. That ship is steaming up and heading out of the harbor. New rule for next year: no vacations with or to anywhere that involves family. Look out, Dive. You may have another wayward sojourner on your door-step.

Thanks to everyone who read the previous post and gave such warm and supportive feedback. At rare moments I have something relevant and inspired to say and it's wonderful to have people appreciate it.

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I'm back from vacation and relocating my bearings. I had a fantastic time visiting with old friends and some new ones and breathing in desert air as well as coastal air. Now, I live pretty darned close to the coast as it is... east coast, that is. Which is by no means and stretch of the imagination a coastal desert. Which much of the California coast is. However, the California coast is inundated with Californians and the lowest forms of scum from every other part of the country, but that's a story for another day.

Yosemite.

Somehow the picture from the brochure is so much better than my photo-styling. Ansel Adams I am not.

Yosemite is one of California's gems and worst nightmares all rolled up in one glorious slice of the Sierra Nevada. Just being in the Sierras is enough to make me giddy with glee. However, being there with the ridiculous abundance of tourists that clog the valley is enough to make me want to pull my hair out by the roots. Yay for wine! We camped in a tent-cabin in a tent city where the neighbors were two swaths of canvas and three feet away. I was awakened by our next door neighbor kids who were bickering and yammering endlessly so I projected a particularly voluminous fart in their general direction producing a barrage of kiddie giggles. In spite of the little darlings waking me up, having kiddie laughter first thing in the morning was a lovely mood stabilizer. Have I ever mentioned that I'm not entirely Rainbow Bright in the morning? More like Satan Incarnate... usually. At least until a liter of coffee liberates me from the cruel reality that is the waking world. Then I'm A-OK.

Anyhow, after seeing an orthopedic surgeon and the MRI and whatnot from the previous week, hiking half-dome wasn't really an option for me. Actually, doing anything on my feet wasn't really advisable. (I could, however, hold my own from the flat of my back, yet alas, no takers...) So I did then next best thing and found a quiet slice of the valley with some conveniently located trees in which to string up my handy-dandy travel hammock and read and read and swayed with the breeze as the Merced River babbled along beside me.

Note the grubby in the toes... Pedicure was the first order of business upon return.

I think I may have dozed off a bit from time to time. For the record: It did not suck one bit.

Whilst in California, one of my dearest friends from Santa Barbara came up for a night to drink liquor and tell lies about the glory days. A supreme treat since it's been well over a year since I've seen him. In the meantime, the friend I was staying with was in the process of buying an absurdly overpriced condominium. The real estate market in California is absolutely ridiculous. I'm happy for her because it's what she wants, but really thankful that I live on the east coast. She's buying in Santa Cruz. We went out for drinks in Capitola one night (which is a little beach town) and she pointed out a bunch of beach villas that have at most about 600 square feet in the floor plans and go for about 1 million bucks. Guess what, people buy them. Stupid.

I was supposed to go back to work on Friday but I blew it off. Tomorrow, I'm back in the saddle... No excuses. I'm not entirely looking forward to it. Somehow I'll endure it though.