Plate o' Shrimp

Next in the series of my favorite movies, which I happened to catch on TV the other night: Repo Man. Very 80s, and looking a bit dated these days, but still pretty funny in its odd way. I always got a kick out of Miller's rants, e.g.

A lot o' people don't realize what's really going on. They view life as a bunch o' unconnected incidents 'n things. They don't realize that there's this, like, lattice o' coincidence that lays on top o' everything. Give you an example, show you what I mean: suppose you're thinkin' about a plate o' shrimp. Suddenly someone'll say, like, "plate," or "shrimp," or "plate o' shrimp" out of the blue, no explanation. No point in lookin' for one, either. It's all part of a cosmic unconsciousness.

I'm not quite sure how that applies to my life currently, as it seems like the giant cosmic plate o' shrimp has been dumped all over our heads. But maybe we're just working our way through the lattice of coincidence and will soon come out into the daylight...

(Un)Luck and Equanimty

I thought I would be industrious and cut up the oak tree that fell on our property in the recent winter storms; instead I ended up having a two thousand-dollar accident. As Brian Eno might say: "...just another day on Earth."

With the back of the Audi station wagon mommy-mobile filled with recently-cut oak rounds, and the tailgate up, backing up, it just caught the eaves of our garage. WTF? Totaled the tailgate, bent like a fork. Don't know how much it will cost, but probably a lot.

Chagrined, abashed, sorry? Yes. Upset, stressed? No.... that is among the small stuff not to be stressed about, as Candice so rightly reminds me. We have a lot of other fish frying in the fire at this point in our lives, and they are all bigger than the tailgate of the car, as inconvenient as it may be.

Santa Barbara

Candice, Juliet, Lucy, and I went down to Santa Barbara weekend before last for a brief visit. I hadn't been down there since Juliet was born (over five years!) and I still have quite a few friends down there, so it was high time for a visit.

We rented a little vacation house (duplex, actually) near east beach. It was a cozy two bedroom place with a nice little kitchen, a small back yard, just a few steps from the beach. It was really perfect for our stay. Kudos to Candice for finding it on http://vrbo.com.

The trip down was a bit disconcerting, because we saw two serious accidents. The first, we actually witnessed, near Pismo Beach, when an SUV about 4 cars ahead of us careened off the road and ran directly into the guardrail. The second we drove by minutes after it happened, near Buellton. It was even more serious, and we saw the victims on the roadside, obviously injured. To make it even stranger, Jennifer told us that it was actually a friend of hers, and she visited her in the hospital the next day!

Anyway, we arrived safe and sound in SB. We ordered dinner in from a nice Italian place called Ca' Dario. Then, Jim and Linda came over and we visited with them for a bit. On Saturday, we went to the home of my old friend Jon Southard, whom I hadn't seen in a number of years. I had not even met his wife and two sons, and Candice had not met any of them. Jon made us a nice lunch and the kids had fun playing in their large back yard with all kinds of animals (chickens, rabbit, dog, etc.) Even Lucy came along!

That night we had dinner with Jennifer and John at a swooshy new place called Cafe Luck. Michael Keaton and his wife were sitting near us, and on the way out we saw Dennis Miller. A true Santa Barbara moment.

Sunday we went to the charming Santa Barbara zoo. In the evening, Rod came over and we grilled steaks and watched the Oscars.

All in all, an enjoyable, if somewhat rushed visit. I still have fond place in my heart for Santa Barbara.