Sunny So Cal 3/52

Sunny So Cal

While the rest of the country has been dealing with temperatures well below normal, we’ve been having a heat wave here in Southern California. My car’s thermometer hit 90˚F on two separate days this week. Now, granted this was because the car had been sitting in the sun with the windows up, the temp never dipped below 86˚F either afternoon after opening it up and driving to school. It’s just not natural to have summer in January. We’re not in the southern hemisphere!

So why are we so hot? The Santa Ana winds have been blowing in off the desert to the east. We haven’t been getting any cool ocean breezes where we live — it’s a bit inland. But instead of having warnings about extremely low temperatures and worrying if we’ve left faucets to drip so they don’t freeze, we’ve been experiencing a different kind of anxiousness. You see, we’re experiencing a drought here in the desert (Yup, we pipe in all our water and irrigate the hell out of everything! Oh, and to ski, they draw up lake water and manufacture their own snow.) and with the winds and temperatures that high, the humidity in the single digits or low teens… we get put under a red flag warning. The means there’s a danger of wildfires. Luckily the few that started last week in the county were put out quickly, but it seems that one area closer to LA wasn’t as lucky.

Even in the middle of winter and usually when we’d be expecting a deluge of rain in about a month or so, we’re parched beneath those gorgeous sunny skies. Everywhere has its own problems. Just some insight into how paradise isn’t always what it appears to be. It looks like the winds have stopped now, but I’d send gladly ship out some of our heat if I could.

Into The Woods

Last night, we took the kids to see “Into the Woods” at the Starlight Theatre here in Balboa Park. We’ve been there several times and I’d never realized there was an outdoor ampitheatre there. Apparently, the theatre has been a San Diego tradition for over 40 years. The seats are darned uncomfortable, but that’s expected. We’d also anticipated a sold out show from the ticket ordering choices, but a good number of seats and sections were empty around us.

I’ll admit I’ve been spoiled by the Broadway cast recording and DVD. We saw the show originally on PBS in Alabama in the early 90s and we finally broke down and bought it on DVD a couple of years ago. The kids had watched it with us then, but hadn’t been too excited about it. DD has discovered musicals: High School Musical, Camp Rock, you’d expect those of a tween, right? But would you think of Sweeney Todd, Rocky Horror, the Buffy the Vampire Slayer Musical episode, and now Dr. Horrible’s Sing-a-long Blog? She likes dark stuff and loves horror movies. We keep teasing her she’s going to “go Goth on us” in a couple years. I don’t really think so.

Anyway, she really enjoyed last night. She wanted THAT performance on DVD too. See there’s another tradition at the Starlight, besides the little red box that’s appeared in every production since 1946, that’s the “freeze action” when the planes come in for a landing at Lindbergh Field. Yep, the nice little outdoor theater is RIGHT under the flight path. The actors “are specially trained” to freeze when a plane comes over and then continue on once the noise levels allow. This is controlled by the conductor, who apparently makes a game out of it, trying to catch the actors in awkard poses. Imagine trying to watch a movie, and having your 3 year old in control of a pause button. Luckily it turned out to be more amusing than annoying, but DS counted at least 28 planes go over in the 3 hours we were there. DH said there were more. We can say we did it and check off another requirement in his Webelos book.

Me? I’m going to watch the DVD as soon as possible. I’ve had the songs stuck in my head all last night and really need to hear the witch’s song about the greens in her garden done properly. The wolf’s “Hey, Little Girl” needs some refreshing too.

Didn’t Get Very Far…

So, we didn’t escape far. We pretended to be tourists and drove down to El Cajon on Friday afternoon to do the Taylor Guitar factory tour with the kids. DH had been a couple years ago, but we thought it might be interesting for the kids since they’re becoming more musically aware and we’re like them to get back into playing the instruments that were bought for them.

Next time, I want to go in January. The weather shifted here this weekend from cool and sunny to sunny and very warm. It was in the low 90s here today. The factory is located much farther inland and the highway rises to 821 ft above sea level before slipping down into the valley there at Santee and El Cajon. Add to that the fact that much of the factory has fans blowing water vapor into the air as they acclimate the wood to a nice average humidity level. San Diego is normally arid.

The kids did well, but the boy got bored and a bit cranky when we refused to buy the $2500 acoustic guitar off the shelf for him in the gift shop. They ended up with hats and DH got a shirt, a pair of mugs and a set of wood cut Christmas tree ornaments. I got a cup of ice as we were heading out of town and melted most of it between my swollen hands by the time we got home. I don’t handle heat and humidity well at all.

Today, I sent them off to the Build-a-Bear Workshop and other points south. They came home with a cute little Rock-n-Roll Groundhog and a Rock-n-Roll Pterodactyl, a red iPod Shuffle to replace the one that went through the washer and now refuses to take a charge, several comics and books from the Comic shop on the way home and junk food from McDonald’s.

In exchange, I got some time to recharge and write. I almost reached the 1600 word mark, nearly doubling the other day’s progress. I’m still feeling unfocused and unsure, but every bit I write, the going becomes easier. I think the characters have some surprises still in store for me, but at least they’re not holding back on me where it counts.

This evening we’re headed back downtown (it’s only gas, right? :P) to hear David Wilcox play at one of the local acoustic music series. He’s out promoting his 14th album, Airstream. We haven’t seen him live since Austin and before that at the Kerrville Folk Festival.

Tonight’s show will be held in a church, so the acoustics are amazing and it often leads to jokes about the appropriateness of certain songs. The kids do well there. There was a bit of a worry one night when we took them and their game boys along and someone was complaining about a high pitched whine. They encourage minors to attend the shows and were quick to eliminate the gameboys as the source. Turns out it was an older gentleman’s hearing aid that was feeding back. Phew.

Thursday Thirteen: San Diego Tourism

13 Touristy Things To Do
In San Diego

Since I’ve got family visiting this week and I know of several people planning to visit the city, I thought I’d toss these up this week. We’re talking about going on the whale/dolphin tour thing tomorrow. DD asked why I didn’t include Disneyland (where we went on Sunday along with the rest of SoCal it seemed) and I told her that was LA/Anaheim, not SD. Ok. so La Jolla, Coronado aren’t in SD proper either and the Wild Animal Park is in Escondido. But they’re CLOSER! =P

1. The San Diego Zoo

2. The Wild Animal Park

3. Old Town

4. Mission San Diego

5. Sea World

6. The Midway

7. Hornblower Whale & Dolphin Cruises

8. The Seal Bus Tours

9. Seaport Village

10. The Seals @ Children’s Beach in La Jolla

11. Cabrillo National Monument

12. San Diego Maritime Museum: Star of India

13. The Hotel Del Coronado on Coronado Island

Links to other Thursday Thirteens!

1 Susan Helene Gottfried	2 Melanie	3 Nicholas
4 Alice Audrey	5 Gwen Mitchell	6 Shelley Munro
7 Cora Zane	8 Lyrical Press	9 Lady Rose
10 On a Limb with Claudia	11 Paige Tyler	12 Heather
13 Kat’s Krackerbox	14 Lynne	15 Diana
16 Mama Bear	17 Savannah Chase	18 Dayle A. Dermatis

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