From the Sea

Well, I made it! Back from the coast in one piece, and unfortunately carrying along with me on the train in my carry-on a few small strands of bullwhip kelp. Turns out the relatives didn't want to have stinky drying kelp balls at their place. So there they are, the lovely kelp balls oozing slimey kelpy sea water and kelp juices -- I will have to move them out to the sun later so they get real and truly dried. Otherwise I'll just have rotting kelp balls sitting about.

Also during my weekend getaway I took a long motorcycle ride down to Solvang, California. Very touristy, very amusement park-like even though it's an actual town -- sort of. I didn't get any pictures. Maybe next time. We went down with a former resident of Solvang who now lives in the central coast area, and who still has family living down in Solvang. Apparently our riding partner's family owns a restaurant on Copenhagen Drive, the Red Viking, whose specialty is aebleskivers, a traditional Danish round pancake ball thing that you dip in raspberry sauce. If you like pancakes, and I do, aebleskivers will hit the spot. Solvang looks like the main thoroughfare at Disneyland, sans Mickey and gang. Daub and wattle replica buildings line the streets, and the shops are filled with art and clothing and jewelery and a lot of other types of stuff that you really don't need -- a basic tourist town. So we rode on down the road to Chumash, the casino, lost a few bucks and ate at the world's third worst buffet. The buffet refunded us $5 of our meal to apply to gambling, but instead of cashing in, we turned our $5 over to a couple waiting in line to get their club card so they could have the extra dough to lose. When we went to gas up across the street from the casino at the casino gas station, a couple on a motorcycle approached us and asked if we'd like some free gas -- well, heck yeah! They had won $40 in free gas at the casino, but since they were riding a motorcycle, they wouldn't be able to redeem the entire amount of the gas card, valid only at the casino gas station, because they were tourists from Thousand Oaks and were heading home. So we filled up with gas and still had about $10 left on the card, so we passed it along to the next person in line. In the end, we came out a little bit ahead on this trip. Free brunch of aebleskivers, free gas. Not too bad.

In San Luis Obispo I visited my son's friend's grandmother's soap shop, Heart's Desire Soap Co., where I found -- well, soap, of course. Nice soap. The shop was big and airy and had lots and lots of room for TEACHING :) You know what I'm thinking, right? Yeah. Classes. Workshops. We'll see if I can convince the owner to loan me her space for an hour or two every few weeks.

Okay. That's the weekend rundown. Oh, and I got a sunburn on the end of my nose. And yes, when I returned home, it was turned upside down. In fact, I got to thinking that I'm really not liking this 'roommate' situation with my kid. There was a bra lying on the floor in the middle of the foyer when I walked in, and I said, 'Whose bra is this?' To which the 'kid' replied, 'Why you wanna know? You writin' a book?' To which I replied, 'Yes, as a matter of fact I am, but if I weren't, I'd still want to know where this bra, that I've never seen before, the bra lying on the middle of the floor in the foyer of MY house -- where this bra came from!' To which the 'kid' replied ~ nothing. I got an eye roll. When does that stop? The eye roll thing? Ever? Because I'm pretty much done with it.