staged attack

staged attack, originally uploaded by threeleggeduck.

Pete Yorn Plays SD

We were so excited to find out that Pete Yorn was playing at the House of Blues in San Diego. Why you ask? Not only is he a hard-core rock star, weak-in-the-knees heartthrob, and a fabulous musician with an awesome entourage, but he also has a way of convincing Mary to travel across the country!

Mary found out Pete was going to be in San Diego and as a bonus, so were we! Well, maybe it was the other way around. It's hard to tell. Anyway, we didn't care what brought her here, we were just happy to spend time together. I have a way of forgetting that I own a camera when I am with Mary, so I didn't take many photos, but I am sure once she sends some our way we can add to this post, so keep checking.

Can't wait to see those photos, Mary! I bet they are more impressive than Annie Leibovitz!

Mary had two items on her San Diego Wishlist: the zoo and a Pacific sunset. After checking the weather we decided that the best day for a sunset would be Friday. We met Dirt Doc at work and then hiked over to Torrey Pines State Park. Dirt Doc promised the long trek would be worth it and he was right!

Hey, look! There it is!

See you tomorrow!

On Saturday, we went to the world famous San Diego Zoo. So did about one million other people. Although we were frustrated at times with the amount of mouth breathers tapping on the glass right under signs that said "Please do not tap on glass", the zoo was awesome. We both bought annual passes so we can go as often as we want (we also figured many of our visitors would be wanting to go, too!). We totally loved watching the hippos! They were enourmous yet graceful (and cause more deaths in Africa than all the other animals combined! Yikes!).
The gorillas were fascinating and had some adorable babies. Mini-milano theory holds true! I know Mary will have some awesome baby gorilla photos, so stay tuned.

This red panda was way cuter than the giant pandas and you didn't have to stand in a ridiculously long line to see him.

While Mary was here we also took her to see the other stops along our personalized San Diego Tour. This includes stops at the OB pier, Cabrillo National Monument, and Balboa Park.

We made it to OB just in time to see a surfing competition. So California!

View of the Pacific from Cabrillo. There were whales migrating, but we didn't see any this time.

The Cactus Garden in Balboa Park is one of my favourite places. A perfect example of no-money fun!

The First Visitors

Okay, so our house was all set up and open for business. Time for our first round of house guests! Our friends, Matt and Kyleen, decided they needed a break from the blustery Flagstaff winter. San Diego was only a one day drive and promised warmer weather and the ocean. Pie Girl and Dirt Doc were excited to give them the tour!

Ocean Beach Pier:

Kyleen is skeptical of these fish tacos she has heard so much about.

Fish tacos?

"I like fish tacos..."

Meanwhile, back on Mt. Soledad:

Which one is the real poopster?

Misty view of La Jolla

Birdrock Beach:

Kyleen dips her feet in the Pacific.

Birdrock Beach had two things: rocks...

...and birds.
Birdman prepares the pile of bread for the trained seagulls of Birdrock.






While observing the spectacle that Birdman was creating, our view was obstructed by a spectacle of an entirely different and more unsettling nature: These 14-year-olds, partaking in today's ritual of passage into womanhood - getting your first thong

La Jolla Beach:

Seal colony in La Jolla

There was also a lot of "Apples to Apples" fun, after Kyleen bought us a copy at Target.

Home Sweet Home

Hooray! We have a place to live! The next thing to do was to get it into shape so we could be happy living there. And make it suitable for the many guests that have already made their reservations! The landlords had originally scheduled the property to be available for February 1, but here it was January 15th and we had moved in the day after the previous tenants moved out... So the landlords did not have a chance to get in and do regular maintenance, and the previous tenants didn't do a great job (or apparently, any job) with cleaning up the place. Well, no big deal - this was the "cost" of being allowed to move in early.

Besides simple cleaning, the bedroom in particuar was in serious need of some paint and upkeep. Check out the wall paper and "window treatments".

Also, the wood paneling on the lower half of the wall was white at one time (maybe in 1915, when the house was built!), but had browned with age - or dirt. Who knows. In the photo above, you can see where we had cut in with a new coat of white paint. Having new paint on the paneling really made a difference, but we weren't nearly done - that wallpaper had to go!

Behold! Our new bedroom, complete with "window treatments" that will hurt a lot less if they happen to fall on my foot. Maybe. They look like they'd hurt less.

Anyway, to all those people on HGTV's "Designed to Sell" I say: In Your Face!






Here are shots of the dining area and living room.

And some shots of the outside. Our house came with a front yard and gated entrance:

The vines (which provide an excellent privacy curtain) are all passion fruit - we have eaten a couple since we've been here. They are kind of like pomegranates, with lots of seeds and a messy pulp inside of a thick rind. Pie Girl has invented a passion fruit-based drink she calls "Light in the Loafers."

One thing we can thank the previous tenants for is the fact that this front garden is all strung up with twinkle lights, which makes a neat effect at night. They also left their cat, Pee Wee. Poor Pee Wee! The landlords are her new caretakers and asked us not to let her in the house since they were trying to teach her that their house (right behind ours) was her new home. She used to try and get in everytime we opened the door and even jumped in an open window one day! We had to endure about an hour each night of her cries at the kitty door, but she is starting to get the hint. She still hangs out on our porch and guards the house for us.

Who could leave this kitty behind?


The front yard at night.

Setting up shop

Here's a photo we took from the road and forgot to post earlier.
In case you can't make out the words, it says, "ANIMALS NOT POTTY TRAINED. BACK OFF!"

OK, so shortly after arriving in SD, all our stuff arrived courtesy of Larry. Since we didn't have a place to live, let alone to put all the stuff, we rented a public storage space and shoved it all in there. It worked out fairly well. With Larry's help, we had everything in the locker in about 2 1/2 hours. Then we continued looking for a place to live!

Rent is much different here. You could get a pretty sweet place in Delaware for $1000/month. Here, that very same rent will get you a luxurious studio apartment (read: one room does it all!) in Crackton. So we had to adjust to what you can get for the money. After two solid days of searching, we found an apartment in Pacific Beach that was right on the bay. It was an ordinary apartment, but we felt that the view would make it worth it. We were "okay" with it, but not gung-ho. We made it back to Shannon's feeling a little downtrodden, but happy that we at least had a prospect. Pie Girl had scheduled an appointment with a landlord that she spoke with before we even left Delaware and it was for that night. We figured we might as well go, even though we figured we would most likely end up renting the place in Pacific Beach. This other property was in the Golden Hill neighborhood.

This Golden Hill property was the first place we felt really good about - the previous tenants were getting ready to move out, and the landlords were really nice and friendly. They felt more like people we would be friends with than landlords. We filled out an application and crossed our fingers. We even did a little dance outside the house after we left. Afterwards we headed out to Ocean Beach with Shannon to meet up with her friend, Sean, to get a lobster taco - they are huge out here. And by huge I mean everybody loves them, not that they are necessarily large in size.

Well, lobster tacos are so popular that we had to wait in line for a really long time at the restaurant we had gone to. Word on the street was that this place was the best, but we just couldn't get a table. At eight months pregnant, Shannon was having a wicked lobster taco jones, so we decided to go to this little restaurant out on the Ocean Beach Pier (just a short walk from where we were) since they were also supposed to have a pretty "bitchin" lobster taco. But they were just closing when we got there! We noticed they had "mango pancakes" and made plans to come back for breakfast some day. Some day soon.

We gave up on lobstah and went to a Greek place instead. While we were there, the landlords called Beth to say that they really liked us - they had a good feeling and they wanted us to have the place! I guess it all magically worked out in the end. God be Praised!

Stop groveling! I hate it when people grovel...

Meanwhile, our friends Chris and Shellie were planning on coming down from San Jose to help us move in, and they had timed it just right. The old tenants moved out, we rented a truck and moved our stuff out of public storage and into our new place. And we had help doing it! To celebrate, we had breakfast at, you guessed it: the Ocean Beach Pier! Mmmm...mango pancakes...













Shellie and Chris chillax on the pier.

Shannon and Shellie - California buds

(*Please note that Shellie's hair is being blown by the wind
and she in fact does not have 80's hair.)

Humprey is turning into a beach bum.

More soon!