A Saturday Night with Mr. Mellow

Rowdy and I saw Jack Johnson in concert tonight. His opening acts were Culver City Dub Collective and Rogue Wave. It was good. Jack didn't sing "our" wedding song, which was sad.


Funnel cakes--a Rowdy favorite.

Date Night

Rowdy and I decided that we needed a date night after what has seemed like a long month of me feeling swamped by life. We went to Taste of Thai in Hillcrest for a nice dinner, then headed south for a double feature at the drive-in.

San Diego is fortunate to have not one, but two drive-in theaters. (I'm counting Santee as San Diego). South Bay Drive-In is way south, south of Chula Vista even, which is close to the border. It's been called "San Diego's biggest entertainment value", and it is. For $7 per person, we watched a double feature from the comfort of our own car, with our own snacks.

When I was a little girl, we went to the drive-in all the time. We would pop a big pot full of popcorn and put it in a grocery sack and bring our own Cokes. Dayna and I would put on our jammies, then Mom, Dad, and us girls would jump into the Red Dragon and head off to the movies. We used to live in the same town as my grandparents, and it was always surprising to me how they just happened to show up at the drive-in about the same time as us. Of course we would beg our parents to let us sit in Grandpa and Grandma's car. Grudgingly, it seemed, Mom and Dad would let us go. It wasn't until I was much older that I caught onto my parents' subtle plan. Very wily, Mom and Dad!

Dear reader, at this point you may be wondering exactly how much of the movie Rowdy and I actually saw. Well, from the very first movie Rowdy and I saw together, he has made it clear that he goes to the movies to watch the movie. No making out at the movies allowed! After three years, he has gotten to the point where it's okay if I snuggle up to him a little, but no funny business! This dictum even extends to the drive-in, and even if the movie isn't so hot.

So, yeah, I actually had to watch the very lame Stepbrothers in its entirety. I did like Pineapple Express, though.

Allergic!

Yesterday, I went to the allergist for the first time. I am the worst about putting off going to the doctor. It's because I'm busy being the doctor for other people.

Anyway, I have become very tired of my nose running all of the time, so I went to the allergist, Dr. Schatz (no lie, that's his name--Dr. Shots). The nurse started me out with the scratch test. She poked my forearms with solutions of various allergens--dust mites, cat dander, dog dander, roach, feathers, molds, pollens. Within seconds, I had a big wheal at the "cat" spot, followed closely by dog, dust mites and pollens. The cat allergy is no suprise to me, but I was surprised at how quickly and strongly I reacted to dog and dust mites. It was very, very uncomfortable, and my upper lip started to tingle and swell. She gave me 60 mg of Allegra, which made me feel a little better.

Then I went into the exam room with Dr. Schatz, and as we chitchatted, my lips began to feel tingly again, my throat was a little bit tight, and my chest was a little tight. That resulted in a very painful shot of epinephrine in my left deltoid. Can I just say that getting epi is very unpleasant? It's very unpleasant. I spent the next 10 minutes or so of the appointment lying on the exam table. To compound this discomfort, I was starving, having gone to my appointment straight from work with no lunch.

I am feeling much better now. I will definitely take Flonase and Claritin as directed from now on.

Seems Reasonable

Not that I'm a Tony Robbins fan by any stretch of the imagination, but the Quote of the Day on gmail was from him:

"If you do what you've always done, you'll get what you've always gotten."

Mmmmm

Another Weekend, Another Adventure

This weekend, we're in Salt Lake. I discovered that Lezlie and I cannot go to the mall together if we want happy husbands and money in our bank accounts. But I did find the perfect dress and shoes at Dillard's to wear at Marlo and Ty's wedding.

We took the kids up to Donut Falls for a short hike. In all the years I lived in Salt Lake, I really didn't take advantage of the beautiful hiking trails. It was wonderful to smell the pines and feel the coolness of the stream as we hiked. Sadly, I did not climb all the way up to the falls. That was a mistake I will not make again!


After the hike, it was good to get into the pool and play around. I won the cannonball contest.




Dinner was at a little Mediterranean restaurant on 33rd South, Cafe Med. It was delicious. As part of our ongoing efforts to teach our kids that there are foods out there much more delicious than taquitos from Costco and Lipton noodle soup, we had everyone try hummus, kabobs and baklava. These are foods that I first tried when I was in grade school, but for a moment, you'd think that we were asking them to eat pickled eyeballs or monkey brains. Once they got up the courage to try it, they were pleasantly surprised. Thank you so much, Mom and Dad for having us try a wide range of foods throughout our lives, and especially Mom for being such a great cook and encouraging us to eat healthily.

It's been hard to really figure out my role as "mom" in J, K and M's lives. I'm coming into it when they're at the developmental stage when kids are starting to pull away from parents. I had a different upbringing and different opportunities than their other parents, so there are things that I would like to give them the opportunity to do, or encourage them to have the desire to do.

I look back on my life and see how I limited myself (and sometimes still limit myself) by my fears, lack of understanding of the world and others, and a lack of faith and testimony. My parents did all they could, but there were things about me that they couldn't change. I had to grow and want to change them myself. It bugs me when I see the kids being timid, and I worry that they are limiting themselves and missing out on really feeling joy in their lives.

We are hoping that we can make some changes within the next year that will bring us closer to the kids, physically and in my case, emotionally. I need to be around them more and get to understand and love them for who they are, not for who I think they should be.

Anacapa Adventure

No pictures yet, but I had to update for those who were wondering if we survived our camping/kayaking trip last weekend.

Overall, it was a good time. I loved being with Rowdy, the Bachs and the Wiggers. Eighteen-month-old Katelyn Bach was a really good camper. I was quite impressed. Of course, it's always good to stretch oneself and try new things. Kayaking had its not-so-fun moments, but exploring the caves and tunnels was cool. We also saw some seals and sea lions in the water with us when we were paddling. And thank goodness for the scopolamine patch! I was only seasick on one kayaking excursion, and not enough to make me boot.

Anacapa itself, well...when the boys took their mancation there a couple of years ago, it was mid-to-late September. Right now, it's the end of the breeding season for seagulls. The boys didn't remember having any bird issues on their trip, but this last weekend, there were literally thousands of seagulls on this little island with us. You better believe it was stinky, poopy and noisy. We were the only campers who stuck it out for the whole weekend.

A good thing about being the only campers was making friends with the ranger. He took us on a tour of the lighthouse, which is usually off-limits. The guys remember the lighthouse's signal going off every 20 seconds as being the big drawback to their trip last time. This time, the gulls drowned it out, and we barely ever were aware of the signal.

So, yeah, we're home now--sunburned, tired, sore from kayaking and carring our gear all over and happy to be sleeping in our own bed.