Amazing California

I am sure that like me, every person who has ever moved to a new country to live, or even a new state or city, at certain points in time has asked themselves the question, "why did I do this?" Even if you have great reasons for doing it, there are some days when everything is just difficult, and you start to doubt your own logic. This thought has crossed my mind a few times since I came to the US.

However, a January like this one definitely banishes any doubts that may come to mind. January 2005 was cold and rainy, but this year has been sunny and clear with blue skies and orange sunsets almost every day. So as crazy as the place is - I mean where else has an action hero as the state governor? - California is still one of the most beautiful places you could ever hope to live.






Outside in the yard, the orange tree has the first buds on it with the promise of spring and summer, and the tulips and daffodils are already in full bloom.






So when anyone asks me why I came to California, it's days like this when I can just look around me, and say, "Who wouldn't? California is amazing!"

Hear No Evil

I just finished reading Hear No Evil by James Grippando. I hadn't read any of his other books, and this one was pretty good. It was about the murder of an American Officer at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, whose wife is accused of murdering her husband. The Miami attorney defending her is Jack Swyteck, who is half Cuban himself, so not only is there the murder plot going on, but also some mystery and intrigue about his own background, his mother, and his son. James Grippando keeps giving us clues as to who the murderer is - at one point I thought it was the wife, then I thought it was a fellow officer, and then maybe some political group. It has some interesting turns and twists, and although the plot is complex, it is not laborious to get through, and kept me guessing until fairly close to the end. It also has some parts of the story in Miami, and some in Cuba. This got me thinking about other Cuban stuff I have encountered since coming to the USA, and all of it has been pretty cool.

The first thing I found was Andre's restaurant in San Diego, where you could get great Arroz con Pollo, and with a coupon from the Reader on Two for One night, it was really a bargain. The next thing was the music. A friend lent me a copy of the Buena Vista Social Club which is one of the most fun CD's I've ever heard. The CD sounds as though the people singing and playing music are just having a great time, regardless of whatever circumstances they find themselves in. The music sounds as though it has laughter in it, and you feel really uplifted at the end of the CD.

Our friends who lent us this CD decided we should all go and see Omara Portuondo, one of the singers on the Buena Vista Social Club CD, and booked tickets for us at the El Cajon Center for Performing Arts, where she was performing. Now we didn't really have any idea what this was going to be like, but I think the main problem for us was that the whole show was conducted in Spanish and, unfortunately, I don't speak Spanish. The other thing I hadn't realized was that Omara was sixty-something years old, and although she did a great job, and sounded wonderful, there were a few hairy moments, where I think she kind of fell over on stage and one of the backing group had to catch her. All that to one side it was still a great evening, and the conclusion I came to was that Cuban people loved to sing and dance and laugh. Someone told me there is a Buena Vista Social Club DVD, and they said that this is even more fun than the CD.

A more recent thing I did while I was staying in Las Vegas was go to the Havana Night Show at the Stardust Hotel. Now there is definitely no-one falling over on stage here! This is an fantastic show which tells the story of the history of Cuban music. The dancers are extremely talented and beautiful, and the performance is full of bright colors, incredible dancing, and vibrant, sexy music. Check it out at www.las-vegas.travelnice.com.

At the beginning they show a film of the Cuban dancers' struggle to bring their show to the United States, and it is very sad that due to the political situation they have had to leave their families and friends behind in order to pursue their dreams. At this point there is no possibility of them being able to return to Cuba, but hopefully that situation will eventually change for them. I would recommend it as a show not to be missed.

Wild Animal Park

We went to the San Diego Wild Animal Park yesterday. I always like going there, even though I've been many times before. When we first came to San Diego (we had only been here a few days), we decided to go to the Park for a quick visit before going shopping. Well, it's not really the kind of place you can get through in half an hour. Not only is it huge, acres and acres of parkland made into habitat for animals from all round the world, there are many gardens to walk through, not to mention different kinds of shows and talks going on throughout the park. We always like going to look at the giraffes, they are so calm and graceful, and you can even feed them if you arrive at feeding time.

The really cool thing about the wild animal park is that the animals have tons of room to wander around, they are not just sitting in a cage all day, and the zoo has made great efforts to breed endangered species and reintroduce them, with considerable success, back into the wild. There is a young lion cub at the park at the moment that can be viewed in a closed off area where it is being taken care of. It is amazing to see these animals so close. An interesting thing was that a young puppy (I think it was a bulldog) that was homeless after hurricane Katrina is being taken care of by the Wild Animal Park, and has become the playful companion of the young lion cub.

If you want an ariel view of the park, there a helium balloon that you can go up in. It doesn't actually go anywhere as it is tethered to the ground, but it looks like fun. I didn't go up in it, as I'd just eaten a plate of pasta, and wasn't sure the swaying and the height was a good idea at that point in time.

Of course, there are also the many gardens you can walk through. I really love the animals, but I also like the plants and flowers.

I know, however, that this is not everyone's idea of fun, as I once took my mother-in-law to the Park when she visited from England, and on her next visit she specifically requested NOT to visit the Wild Animal Park. She didn't really like walking, and there is quite a bit of walking involved.




If you are feeling energetic you can take a walk up to the Baja Gardens, then work your way back down to Nairobi Village and finish off with a drink or a visit to the souvenir shop.

sunset

sunset
Originally uploaded by flowergirl2005.

sunset at la jolla

Napa Valley

I was browsing through a book on the Napa Valley called Napa Valley, The Ultimate Winery Guide, and started thinking what a great Valentine's getaway the Napa Valley would be.

We stayed in the Napa Valley a couple of years ago at a wonderful place called the Carneros Inn. This is the only resort that I am aware of in the Napa Valley that has this level of luxury and sophistication. Nestled amongst acres of grapevines, it has been designed to blend in with the local area with barns and ranchers' cottages in subdued greens and browns, but once inside the accommodations there is absolutely nothing subdued about the Carneros Inn. The cottage-type room we stayed in featured a big, puffy, king-size bed, a wood-burning fireplace, and ultra modern entertainment area with high-speed internet connection. The bathroom was also top of the range with massaging shower heads and a spacious soaking tub. Outside there was also a shower and cute little patio area for sampling the day's wine purchases. They also provided big, fluffy robes to wander over to the spa, pool or hot tub.

The Carneros Inn has a great restaurant called the Hilltop Dining Room, which has an extensive wine list, featuring many Carneros wines and numerous others. It was here that we were first introduced to the Franciscan Winery. This winery was recommended to us by the manager as having great tasting wines, so we ordered a bottle of Cabernet Sauvignon with dinner, and next day off we went to check out the winery. We bought a case of wine and continued to buy the wine when we got back to San Diego. It is really fruity and, as the bottle says, with ripe black cherry, plum and currant flavors...mmmmmm.



This Napa Valley book was a great find. It has amazing pictures in it and takes you on a guided tour through Napa, giving a description of the winery, its location and its history, so you can plan your day's wine tasting in advance.

Pity I didn't own it before I went!

Hyacinth

I always fall for the same trap, and buy hyacinth plants for the house. I walk past the counter where they are selling them and the scent draws me closer and closer and I before I know it, I have a couple in my basket ready for the checkout. I have two small bathrooms and thought they would create a wondereful perfume when I am soaking in the tub, so I put one in each.


Now the thing I hate about these plants, tulips, and paperwhites, is that they tend to follow the light source, so you have to keep turning them round to keep them upright. However, I thought that as the bathrooms were mainly dark with lights overhead when you switched them on, the hyacinths would manage to stand upright most of the time. I guess I was wrong - after only a few hours they started to keel over. I put tiny wooden stakes in the pots and tied them to it - that should do it.

Wrong! The next day both plants had completely fallen over. Where was the light they were chasing? It's as if they knew that beyond the bathroom door, and through the bedrooms into the living room, there was light at the end of the tunnel. Obviously, this needed drastic action. The tiny little wooden stakes I'd used were absolutely no use and instead of holding the plant upright, had fallen over with the plant itself.





So, I've finally got them upright and watered and back into a reasonable standing position. The only problem is that they look as if they've both survived a bad car accident, and have to be held together with bandages and splints. The amazing, intoxicating fragrance was worth all the effort, but if anyone has any tips on how to keep these plants upright in a more elegant manner, please let me know.

Magical Thinking

What a funny book. I have just finished reading Magical Thinking by Augusten Burroughs, and could not stop laughing. This is not the usual book of funny stories, like Seinfeld or something like that. This is a cynical, witty, outrageous commentary on a strange childhood and how these childhood experiences continue to influence Augusten Borroughs throughout his adult life. He starts off describing his life at school and with his parents, particularly his odd relationship with his mother, and this somehow becomes the hilarious first chapter involving him in a Tang commercial. The chapter I found most amusing was the one involving telemarketing called Telemarketing Revenge. I think anyone who has ever received a telemarketing caller who simply won't go away, who then tries to make you feel bad if you want to hang up, will identify with this chapter and start planning thier own revenge. The interesting thing is that Augusten Burroughs actually carried out his plan with 100% success rate.


Most of the stories in this book come round to Augusten's concept of Magical Thinking, which is the belief that one exerts more influence over events than one actually has, but the thing is, he really does appear to have an extraordinary control over not only his own life, but other people's as well, simply by thinking about them. I think I'll go and work on that for myself now and see what happens.

A Cool Martini

The holidays are finally over, and I can't say I'm especially sorry. Christmas is not one of my favorite times of year - firstly, it seems to start so early and go on for ever that by the time it gets here, I'm kind of done with it. Also, being from England, it still seems odd to celebrate Christmas with sunny skies and palm trees, so I've never really got into it since coming to the USA. Still, there are some things I enjoyed over Christmas and one was reading a book I'd started some time ago and not had time to finish, and the other was celebrating with a cool martini.



Two Dollar Bill by Stuart Woods has a catchy plot featuring Stone Barrington, the suave Manhattan cop-turned-lawyer. This book starts in the usual way - eating at Elaine's restaurant with Dino, his ex-Partner and ex-brother-in-law. Stone meets this crazy Texan guy called Billy Bob Barnstormer, and the fun begins. It turns out that Billy Bob has many aliases and keeps on handing out two dollar bills. Naturally, this book features several beautiful women, one of whom happens to be the federal prosecutor, who has her own reasons for wanting to question the conman Billy Bob. Soon everyone is chasing around New York looking for this guy, and, of course, there is a plentiful helping of spicy dialogue, sex, and crime. If you have ever read a Stuart Woods novel you will know that dining, entertaining and being seen in the right place at the right time are of paramount importance to Stone Barrington. Whenever I read these books I start thinking about eating and drinking and that's how I ended up with the martini.

This martini is not quite traditional as you keep the ice in the martini glass, neither shaken nor stirred.

Here is how to make it. First of all gather together the ingredients:



Martini Extra Dry Vermouth
Absolut Citron Vodka (chilled in the freezer)
Pimento Stuffed Olives
Ice
Lemon Tie





1. Chill the martini glass in the freezer.
2. Fill the martini glass half full with ice.
3. Spray the martini glass with vermouth
(a spritzer like the one shown makes this really easy).



4. Pour Absolut Citron Vodka over the ice.
5. Decorate with olives and lemon twist.













Serve immediately with Williams-Sonoma Parmesan Lemon Cocktail Biscuits.

African Tulip Tree

When we first started buying plants for our container garden we saw this tree in full flower in a nursery in Pacific Beach. We had never heard of it, but the nursery owner assured us it was a hardy, if somewhat unusual, tree for this area and we would have no trouble rearing it in a large container. We were looking for a "showy" tree to fill an empty corner, so for $125 it was ours. The nursery delivered it to our condo, and even planted it in the plant pot for us when they got there. It looked great.

After about a week, I noticed the leaves turning yellow, then brown, then falling off in great numbers. This was followed by the large orange tulip-like flowers, until two weeks later it looked almost bare. I decided to ask the nursery what was wrong, so I gathered a bunch of leaves together and zipped them securely in a ziploc bag, and off I went. "Well, it's obvious", they told me, "too much water". Wow, could this be the result of too much water? It was late August and everything else was drinking water at an amazing pace. Eventually, it was completely bare and looked like it had died. I decided to throw it in the dumpster when I had time to move it, but then we had some fairly heavy rains and the whole area became waterlogged, so it ended up sitting in a pool of water for the next two months.


Except, it didn't die. In about March, I noticed buds on the bare branches, which turned into leaves, and flowers followed in the summer. It has never completely lost all its leaves since then, and I now think it was in shock from the move. I remembered all this today because when I was out in the yard I saw some new buds forming (in January???) and it looks like more flowers are coming.




These trees grow in abundance in Hawaii, especially on the way to Hana, which I guess is pretty wet, so it's not always sensible to follow the advice of "the experts", and in future I'll just be more patient and see what happens.