santa barbara

Monday morning, my last day in California, Amy let me use her car to drive up to Santa Barbara. I did favorite thing to do there, walk around aimlessly for hours.  This is the courthouse.

View of the Arlington theater from my favorite parking lot by the library.
I walked from the harbor down to the East Beach Grill.






Thousand steps on the Mesa. This was from our Saturday trip to Santa Barbara. We met our good friend Tara for lunch. It was so good to see her again.

santa barbara august 2012

    Friday afternoon we met Amy at her office in Oxnard.  We have been friends since junior high and it always feels like no time has passed when I see her.  My dad went on his way to spend the weekend swimming at his favorite pool on UCSB campus and meeting with writers.  Amy and I went our way. I was so ready to enjoy the ocean again.  

I haven't spent any time really by the beach in Ventura, so it was fun to walk at the harbor there. Amy took me to one of her favorite parks where there is a beautiful view of the ocean and then we ate at a delicious Thai restaurant called White Sands in downtown Ventura. I don't think I have had Pad Thai since Beijing.

I think I am a boring guest. When I visit Amy I always want to do the same things, visit my old favorite places in Santa Barbara. As we drove in to town Amy suggested the Farmer's Market, which I had never been to in Santa Barbara. 

We walked down State Street to Cabrillo Boulevard.  I wanted to pay respects to Sonny's Pizza, which I have mentioned before, was the best pizza in the world, but is no longer there because another restaurant, which was also sadly not in operation, took it's place.  But there is the little spot where it used to be.

Sonny's was right under the ivy. I worked there for two summers in high school. When work was slow  I would stand in the door way and watch the ocean.  That job was like a dream.

View form Stern's Wharf.The candy shop on Stern's Wharf where Sister Haws, our beloved early morning seminary teacher, would go to buy us candy on our birthdays. I bought the candied grapefruit slices that I used to request. They tasted just like my sixteenth birthday. That was just one of the many ways that Sister Haws made us feel loved.  Amy bought some chocolate, which was nice enough to share.

We decided not to eat on the Wharf and instead we walked back up State Street to the India House eight dollar lunch buffet.

The food is not the absolute best in the world but the atmosphere makes up for it.  I love any restaurant that makes me feel like I have taken a little vacation to another time or place. 

I want to buy one of those elephant pieces next time.

After lunch I couldn't resist investigating The Little Rainbow Foot Spa that I noticed as we passed State and Haley.  I am always drawn to any reflexology spa where the practitioners only speak Chinese. I treated Amy and myself to a forty-five minute session of traditional Chinese foot massage. It was incredibly relaxing and  almost as wonderful as my most favorite place, Le Spa at the clubhouse in River Gardens in Beijing. Brought back happy memories...made new ones, my favorite combination.

Next we decided to drive up around the mission and up to Alameda Padre Sierra the narrow and scenic road that winds along "the Riviera" on the East side of Santa Barbara. Amy showed me a park that I had never been to before. 

Franceschi park is about 15 acres of plant and animal life, appropriately named after an Italian horticulturalist Francesco Franceschi.  There are gorgeous views, intriguing old statues and this fascinating old home that was given to the city of Santa Barbara in 1931.

 In the evening we drove to Hendry's Beach...though never the same without my dog Cody,  it is always beautiful in any season and at anytime of day.

 The place I imagine when I am trying to think of nothing at all.

We drove passed our Junior High on our way back to Ventura.

 All the park exploring and beach walking,  were not just for meditation. We also needed to work up an appetite for dinner at another favorite place,  Padaro Beach Grill in Carpenteria. That salad was so amazing it needed a close up.

 Sunday morning I met up with Granddad again. We said good bye to Amy and the beautiful California ocean air, and palm trees, and jasmine, and we drove home to Utah. 

 Sunday evening about nine o'clock we pulled back in to Granddad's driveway, and I walked around the corner to where Rob was staying with the kids.  It was a wonderful weekend, and I think the best part was running through the sprinklers to my home, past the kids' favorite apple tree,  passing familiar toys and shoes in the yard, anticipating William's "Mamma!", wondering how Sophie had changed in 72 hours, and returning to everyone's hugs and hellos. 

sausage, mushroom, monterrey

It's the weekend. Time for me to blog about pizza. Pizza so round...symbolic of wholeness, unity, celebration, inclusion, life.  Pizza- a relaxing, reuniting, togetherness ritual

Thanks to Pizza Pie Cafe Express for the text special.  I got two, two or three topping pizzas for five dollars each. Also picked up a cheese for Bethany and a pepperoni for Grant.

Here's the Canadian bacon and pineapple....that's for Mary.

 Friday evening I dropped Ben off at a friend's house down by the university, then drove over to PPC express.

I ordered, then sat down on the bench to wait...self-toasting by the big silver ovens, relaxing to the vibrations of the slow moving conveyor belts, breathing in the cheesy warmth.. the wonder of the so savorable pepperoni and the sugary-tang surprise of PPC's speciality, raspberry desert pizza..  The guy handed me my four hot boxes. I could smell the layers...the salty and sweet of one, the  milkiness of another...and on top, I was sure, was my favorite: the sausage, mushroom, and red onion.

Smells, so closely linked to memories, and sausage pizza, in particular, remind me of my high school summers at Sonny's Pizza.  I thought about pizza all the time then.  I thought about people in terms of pizza...tried to size them up by way of veggies or no, thick or thin, medium or large, whole or by the slice.

  I loved browsing in the paper goods closet. I guess I'm easily fascinated, because I'd find myself daydreaming about the large boxes of straws, napkins, Styrofoam cups. Loving the abundance, the preparedness, the suppliedness of it, I had a vision of myself running my own pizza place with my future family, in some other small coastal town, driving an old green pick-up...maybe like an '82.

Some place like Monterrey.  My senior year Mr. Biggle, one of my best teachers, took the physics and chemistry upperclassmen up to the physics museum in San Fransisco and the Monterrey Bay aquarium.  I'm grateful for that memory...though sometimes I forget to think about it.  So in Monterrey, there was a little pizza place, never knew the name, maybe that's the prototype of that particular fantasy.

Here's the sausage...spicey, mushrooms...earthy, generous in presence, and red onions...colorful and caramelized... pizza.

Last week was one of the quickest I can remember. Update on the exercise goal: followed up well with Sam, but had to give myself an okay to do some homemade yoga moves right before bed clause, because I just couldn't take the time to go out. I really wanted to make some progress in a few other areas of my life.

Like getting the house in order for one.  The kid consensus was: Monday was maybe the worst holiday on record.  All we did was clean.  I'm not really sure we had much to show for it at the end of the day, nothing picture worthy.

We ended MLK day with a small celebration, at least.  Ben talked me in to letting them use up our two gingerbread house kits .It wasn't like I'd been saving them for Valentine's...so I agreed... also hoping to gain back some bit of popularity.

This house wouldn't stand on it's own so we had to do a little engineering.  We're not perfectionists, as you can see.  It's all about snitching for most of us.

Ben is our artist.

Here's a midweek sunset that Sam photographed.

So Friday night, with Ben and Kyle off with friends, and Sam at a student leadership activity all night, and Bethany at a Irish Dance performance with Granddad and Judith, there was a new dynamic. Olivia grinned from ear to ear to learn that she was the oldest kid at scripture time.  Grandma Martha was over to share in our pizza night and catch up on some laundry. She introduced me to her favorite soap opera from Mexico, as no one had clout enough to stop the adults from choosing the programming, for a change. I happened upon the very episode where the priest learns he has an eighteen year old daughter.  Good thing it was in Spanish.

Saturday morning I was back to another unapologetic day of only cleaning.  First day of feeling like I'd made a difference.  Remember the pantry?  Looks better now.

I love the zen of empty shelves.

The laundry room is stabilizing. It almost makes me feel functional.

Made the kids help me till the little flower bed in front of the house, since the temperature was above freezing. Maybe I'll get the bulbs in the ground this week.  The basement is still a disaster.

Sarra per un altra volta.

what I never knew about sea slugs

Wednesday morning we woke up to Santa Barbara's only flaw, what Amy referred to as "June gloom." The air was chilly and wet, with clouds and a bit of drizzle. I went outside early, before the kids woke up, to clean out the van.  I love to admire the vegetation in Santa Barbara.  It springs up so spontaneously and with such variety. My mom always knows all the names of the flowers and plants. I wish I did.

The Mills have the perfect yard for a camp out.  Sam set up our new tents for the kids who wanted to sleep outside.  When everyone was awake we got in the van.  I decided to drive around for a bit, just to use time, as we let the June gloom burn off.  The beach was our real destination, but it was still too cold.

Amy's house is near the Mission.  Courtney loved it and Sam was intrigued because it reminded him of Vertigo,  but we agreed that we weren't ambitious enough to take the kids in for a tour.  Next I drove towards Cabrillo Boulevard via State Street.  I had to explain the concept of "cruising State" to the kids...to be young...wouldn't it be great to have so much free time again?

After Cabrillo Boulevard we turned up Milpas so I could be nostalgic about all the places where we ate lunch off campus.  Then I tried to pretend like I hadn't gone out of my way to drive by my high school, as to not annoy my children, who were unimpressed.  It was the closest I'll get to my twenty year reunion.  Then we drove up to Kid's world park.

We drove to Goleta next. Stopped to buy towels and beach stuff at Rite Aid, saw that the Thrifty ice cream cones are no longer anything to feel thrifty about. I was bemoaning that fact to Sam, when a cute elderly woman in front of me turned to agree.  That was gratifying. What did they used to be? Fifty cents? We bought stuff for lunch and finally it was time to head to the beach, Goleta beach this time. I like the playground and the pier. Usually it is fun to walk down the pier and watch the fishermen, but I wasn't that energetic, feeling too pregnant and unwilling to lug William the whole way.

There's UCSB in the distance.

Caitlin wanted me to hold her because she was afraid that "the birds would peacock her."

Olivia was attacked by seaweed in the waves.

So here's the star of today's post. The kids tried to convince me we should bring this guy home as our new pet. A passerby told us he was a sea slug, I wouldn't have known. The kids were fascinated.

And speaking of he or she, Courtney did some googling about sea slugs and learned that they change gender when they're left out of the water too long. I hope we didn't do any permanent damage.

After swimming, the kids enjoyed the playground at the beach, we did some more shopping for food for the trip home, then met Amy to buy dinner.

I was interested in this little shop on Milpas called Taco El Refugio. The pictures in the window looked delicious, but the price was too high per plate to feed so many. I had to find my taco refuge at "the bell" up the street. The kids were just as happy. We had dinner at the rose garden in front of the mission.