California girl

I couldn't decide which of the above photos of R I like better, so I'm including them both. I actually have a bunch more, so at least I was able to narrow it down this far. (If I were a truly discerning editor, I'd be able to pick one and live with the decision). We had a good photo shoot last night at Franceschi Park, overlooking the town. We walked around the neighborhood almost every night this week. Okay, one night was just to the ice cream parlor, where we easily consumed more calories than we burned, but we could have drove and we didn't.

Our cars were delivered on Tuesday, Delaware license plates in tact, making us stand out as east coasters, which is ironic because I don't know if we ever considered ourselves to be from the east coast. We were still working on becoming comfortable there. R's car had a dead battery on arrival. It wasn't a complete surprise, though, because she did have to get a jump in order to get it on the truck the week before. Lucky for us the battery was covered under a warranty and with only some minor hassle we got it replaced this week.

Tonight I walked by myself down State Street to grab a Chipotle burrito and ate it at a park on the way back. R is in the air right now heading for Minnesota. I'll meet her at her mom's house tomorrow night after a long day of travel. I'm flying into Milwaukee and driving up to northern Minnesota in an effort to save $700 on a plane ticket. I need to be in Madison for work on July 6th - 10th, so I booked a round trip ticket getting me out there a week early. Sure, there's an extra 8 hours in the car involved, but the plane ticket will be reimbursed, so I'll make out okay.

The week in Minnesota should be nice. We've been making this trip home for the 4th of July every year now. Our days spent with family are few but precious.

Just another observation related to my subject line: Santa Barbara appears to be run by young women who look like Paris Hilton and Lindsay Lohan. I never realized how popular those over-sized sunglasses are until we got here. The girls here buy them three at a time. I saw one do exactly that at Nordstrom's last weekend when R and I were looking, with no success, for a decent pair for under $100. Then she hopped in her Beamer with the HOTTY87 plates and drove home along the beach. (That might have been a different girl). I overheard another one breaking up with her boyfriend over cell phone while walking down a sidewalk. "I can't be everything in this relationship... I'll give you back the bracelets," she yelled, between obscenities.

These teenage divas have nothing on my R... my R who can switch to a northern, southern, or eastern accent on the spot... my R who misspells words like "massage"... my R who drives a Honda Civic LX and saves the receipt for her battery so she can get it covered under a warranty... my California girl.

Miss you, R. See you tomorrow.