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We recently had a change in seasons with the first day of fall. The weather even felt very fall-like with temperatures cool overnight and in the mid-seventies during the day. It reminded me of fall. I used to love fall. There was always a definite shift in the weather. The days grew shorter and the nights cooler. I loved the first cool front that came through, lowering the temperatures by twenty degrees, as the wind picked up. There was a crispness to the air, different than other seasons. It signaled the things to come, the turning of the leaves, the need for jeans and long sleeves.

I loved the fall until I moved to Seattle. The seasons are different than in Kansas. There are not four clearly defined seasons at all. There is light rain, rain and dark days, light rain with sun breaks, and then a four to six week span of summer. It’s similar in San Diego in that there are not four distinct seasons. There’s summer, and in December and January it rains and then there’s summer. Don’t get me wrong, I love the always-summer weather. I love being able to wear shorts and flip-flops year round. I no longer love fall the way I used to love fall.

My love for fall died slowly. When I moved from Seattle back to Kansas, the fall weather took me by surprise. I had forgotten that it was often rainy, like Seattle, and gray. It was bittersweet because I missed Seattle. Over the next several years, fall became associated with the dying off of all my plants, when everything became bare and desolate. It was no longer a time of excitement, with the upcoming holidays, Halloween, Thanksgiving, Christmas, and New Year’s. It began the period of staying indoors, in enclosed spaces, of being closed off.

I began to become more excited about spring, when everything would come to life. It was exciting to see the crocus flowers pop up in the front yard, and then the daffodils and tulips in the backyard would follow. The yellowed grass would begin to turn green and the trees would burst into leaves seemingly overnight. Spring storms would tear through, wreaking havoc, cleansing. And summer was on it’s way.

We recently passed quietly into fall. The weather has been fall-like, but that will change this week. We’ll be hot again, as we should be, but it’s definitely fall. The days are shorter, the sun is not as hot, there are pumpkins in the grocery stores, and pumpkin-spiced everything, from lattes to cookies, to air fresheners. Neighbors are already adding Halloween decorations to their yards. The holidays are coming. And I just don’t love fall any more.

 

It’s been six days of relentless heat and I am exhausted.  We’re finally getting a break today. We reached our high of 91° around 10:00 this morning. I’m really not obsessed with the weather, but we don’t have functioning air conditioning, I work from home, and I have a sixteen-and-a-half year old dog. A six day heat wave, where temperatures hover in the upper 90’s to lower 100’s, becomes miserable as the heat builds.

It would be ok if we hit our high temperature in the late afternoon, and then began to drop, cooling overnight. It would be ok if this house didn’t absorb the heat and feel like a sweat box by 3:00 each day. It would be ok if my pets didn’t look at me in their  stretched out “I’m so hot, I might die” poses like I enjoy torturing them. Don’t they see that I put a bowl of water in each room so they wouldn’t have to exert themselves too much? Do they know how much more time it takes to fill four extra water bowls?

The first few nights weren’t terrible. I was able to get the house cooled to the low 70’s each night and was still able to sleep. The problem came when the temperatures increased the last few days, making it harder to cool overnight. On Friday morning, the indoor temp was 80°, on Saturday morning it was 84°, and today it was 88° at 6:30. Last night was miserable with sleep nearly impossible. When I went to bed, it was still 95° inside the house. I woke at least once an hour and finally noticed it was starting to cool down somewhere around 4 a.m. I’m exhausted. My body aches, my shoulders are tight, my eyes tired and my mind fuzzy. It will pass. It’s early evening and we’ve had a few showers to lower the temperature even more. Tonight will cool into the low 70’s and I will sleep.

I try to get to the beach once a week, usually on Sunday. It’s a great opportunity to relax before being pulled back into the grind of the work week. I usually go alone, which is perfect for lying on the beach with a book, or staring into the distance as my mind wanders. It’s good for the soul.

During the extended summer months, the beach is filled with tourists. They’re easy to spot, doing tourist things. They stand on rocks with the ocean in the background taking selfies. They walk along the water’s edge, often in their shoes and get caught off-guard when a wave rushes in, soaking them from the waist down. The kids stand at the edge of the water and squeal in delight as the waves rush in and they jump just as the water reaches their feet. They run after the seagulls that strut along the beach. In their excitement of being at the ocean, they leave bags or coolers open, unwittingly inviting the seagulls to take their pick of the contents.

You learn fairly quickly that you cannot feed them. If you find one or two and attempt to toss them some bread or crackers, you’ll soon be surrounded by one or two dozen, all of them yelling and screaming that they want some too. A couple weeks ago I saw a woman walking along with what appeared to be a loaf of bread. She would walk along until she came across a group of small children, where she would stop. She then reached into the bag and tossed a piece of bread onto the ground. Within seconds, she and the children were surrounded by gulls, begging for more. The kids, shrieking and laughing, ran around, chasing the gulls as the woman tossed more bread on the ground. She laughed and I laughed, too. I could tell this woman was a local, and it wasn’t the first time she’d done this.

The seagulls are a peculiar bird. They’re opportunistic. They roam about, scavenging for crumbs left behind by beach visitors. The tourists don’t always understand how relentless these birds can be in their hunt for food. I’ve seen a teenage girl lose a bag of just-opened Cheetos when one of the gulls swooped down to snatch the one in her hand. This scared her and she dropped the bag. Cheetos flew everywhere. Within seconds, twenty other seagulls had swooped in to join in the Cheetos feast. The girl shrugged and laughed it off. Lesson learned.

Normally, you don’t feed the seagulls. The woman with the bread was an exception. I don’t think anyone feeds them on purpose. It’s more likely they are bullied by these birds into giving up pieces of food. And then, they realize they’ve made a mistake when it’s too late.

Let’s talk about driving. California drivers are crazy and scary all at once. They are aggressive and rude and unsympathetic. Everyone is always in a hurry and their destination is the most important. There are no leisurely Sunday drives here. If you’re on the road, any road, you need to know where you’re going or get the hell out of the way. Period. Otherwise you have a very good chance of being offered the one-fingered driving salute, or being on the receiving end or a shrieking horn.

When you move to California, you are required to update your license within twenty days. I think  they do this to force non-California drivers to read the driver’s handbook. There are plenty of helpful tips that I don’t recall seeing in Kansas, or even Washington. They actually tell drivers not to drive next to someone when approaching an exit on the freeway because drivers will often realize they’re in the wrong lane at the last minute and need to get over. This is something that has always made perfect sense to me, but not others it seems.

As I was saying, driving here is not for the weak of heart. Drivers are impatient. At an intersection, if  you’re in the right lane and not turning, then you better be as far to the left as possible to allow hurried drivers to make right turns from the extra space. When  you’re driving, you must focus. I’ve heard so many people get honked at the second a light turns green. Seriously. Somehow I’ve manage to avoid the blast of another’s horn because I do my best to pay attention. There are so many road rage incidents these days and the last thing I want is to end up on the receiving end of someone’s rage.

The freeways are the worst. I am amazed at the number of people who don’t know how to drive on a freeway. I did learn to drive in Kansas where traffic was light, but then honed my freeway skills while living in Seattle. There are a few things that I constantly see drivers doing wrong. If people re-learned just a few skills, it would cut down on accidents and general driving frustration.

First, freeways have entrance and exit ramps for a reason. For the most part, you are able to accelerate up to speed in the length of the entrance ramp. This allows you to easily and safely merge into freeway traffic at freeway speed. Exit ramps serve the opposite purpose. For the most part, you should remain at speed until you’ve entered the exit lane. At that point you are safe to slow and stop if needed. There are exceptions. We can all name at least one interchange where extra caution is required. In general, these lanes serve a basic purpose, and people are always getting it wrong.

That brings me to my second point. Some drivers are terrible at letting other cars over. I see this all the time. A car is trying to merge onto the freeway, and there is a car  in the right lane that either won’t get over or won’t adjust their speed to let the car merge. This is plain rude. There’s no reason, when traffic is light, that the driver can’t be courteous and let the other driver over. I’ve had this happen to me, more than once, and it’s frustrating beyond belief.

There’s something even worse though. Close your eyes and picture yourself cruising along on the freeway, music blaring, wind in your hair. You’re in the left lane, because you generally drive faster than others. You come up on a car that’s driving quite a bit slower, and you have to brake. That’s right, it’s the slow driver in the fast lane. These drivers have no idea of the anger and frustration they cause each day. They are oblivious to everything around them. They get cussed out and flipped off more than anyone else. Why? It’s simple. They’re driving in the wrong lane. There are even signs on the freeway that tell slower traffic to keep right. They don’t pay attention. They’re doing it wrong.

Even though driving here can be an absolute headache, it’s what we do to get from place to place. There will always be terrible drivers anywhere you go. Why does it seem that California has an unfair share of them?

Life in San Diego is not always sunshine and unicorns, and sometimes it’s too much sunshine. It’s been hot the last several days, and very hot here in the valley. We’ve had high temperatures in the upper 90’s in El Cajon, with no functioning air conditioner. This means the house becomes very uncomfortable in the afternoons. I’ve been on vacation and was able to escape to cooler places, but felt guilty because I had to leave me pets to sweat it out.

In the battle to beat the heat, I’ve tried a couple things. Technically, we do have a/c, but it mostly doesn’t work. When it does, it works briefly and then blows a fuse inside the unit, which requires a call to maintenance, followed by a week or so wait until it can be serviced. When the tech arrives, they are amazed at the monstrosity I point out as the a/c. It’s a heat pump, it’s terribly inefficient, and terribly expensive to use. Even when it does work, it doubles our electric bill with even two days of use. I prefer to use it as a last resort, if it happens to be working. I have tried a DIY air conditioner constructed from a styrofoam cooler, a fan, and plenty of ice. The theory is that as the fan blows over the ice, air is cooled, and will exit the cooler to help cool the room. This did not work as well as I had hoped, and the amount of ice needed was becoming hassle.

Without the a/c, I do my best to keep the house cool for as long as possible. In the morning, I open all windows and place fans in front of the open doors to draw in the cool air. I can usually leave most windows open until 11:00 or so. The east-facing windows I try to close by 8:00, when the sun is no longer blocked by the trees. On hot days, the sun is just hot, even at that hour. After I close up the house, I keep one window open and aim a fan so that it blows the heat out, as a sort of exhaust. I’m not sure if this is helpful, but it works great in my head!

A couple weeks ago, we had a string of days where the temperature hit the upper 90’s with one day at 100. It feels like the heat accumulates and the house gets harder to cool in the evening as the hot days drag on. It was miserable by the third day so I bought a kiddie pool. It took me about fifteen minutes to blow it up the old fashioned way and then another ten or fifteen minutes to fill it with water. Sitting in just that one foot of water, i began to feel 20 degrees cooler. It was amazing and I sat there for almost an hour, occasionally lying back to get the full cooling effect. The next night I sat in my beach with only my feet in the pool. This also helped to cool me and I felt better about reading on my table.

It’s been hot, but it’s not usually humid and heat waves are usually short-lived. We take the bad with the good. I try to remember the blazing hot days when it’s chilly, and I begin to complain. I also try to remember how hot summers could be in Kansas, and how in 2011 there were 50 days where it was at least 100 degrees. Now that miserable.

We have rats. I know, this is not  good thing and we don’t have them inside the house, but we have rats. They live in the dead palm fronds that hang from the untrimmed palm trees. Our rats live in the neighbor’s tree and each night at dusk we watch the rat run. These nasty little guys leave the safety of the trees and scurry along the power lines in their quest for food. It’s like their own highway, where they exit onto overhanging branches or perpendicular lines that lead them to neighborhood rooftops. And from there, it’s anyone’s guess where they travel.

While I don’t like the idea of living so close to rats, I’ve gotten to the point that I laugh when I see one scurrying along, in the hours after sunset. Rob and I often sit on the patio in the evening, and they’re hard to miss. They’re quick. Just as I raise my hand to point out the next runner, he’s disappeared. They’re gross. They can carry disease. Even so, on some base level, they provide a certain amount of entertainment. They’re great conversation starters. Well, not the rats themselves, but mention to someone that you have rats, and the stories unfold.

I like to tell Kansas people how the rats live in trees. This is always met with surprise. I also like to talk about how mesmerizing it is to watch them run along the wires. I can’t tell you why. Maybe I’m waiting for one to fall. They range in size. The first year we were here, there was one that was huge! That was the year I noticed the one wearing a top hat, and other carrying a suitcase. They traveled together, a couple smaller ones trailing behind. Maybe they were taking a vacation, or moving. It’s hard to say.

In all seriousness, I don’t enjoy the idea of living so close to them. I would prefer a rodent-free zone, but it’s one of the perks of living in southern California. Things are different than in Kansas. In Kansas, I freaked out when I saw a mouse run across the sidewalk ahead of me while out on a run. I stepped off the sidewalk and ran in the street for a couple blocks to stay clear. Now, on the nightly rat run, if I see one stop at any point along the wire over my yard, I yell at it so it knows it better not think about setting foot in my space!

I began collecting shells almost immediately. I’m from Kansas and shells from the ocean are just cool. At first I would grab anything whole that I could find, the larger the better. I wanted to display collections of different shells in jars around the house. As the days grew cooler with the approach of winter 2014, I settled on a small collection of jars with shells that I displayed in the bathroom. This had more to do with my cats and their inability to leave things alone. I had amassed quite the collection of ugly, battered shells. I liked them for their thickness, their roughness. I liked them because they were imperfect. I filled my largest jar with them. I filled my smallest jar with small, perfectly smooth, white clam shells.

During that first winter I became more selective in my search for shells. I learned that some beaches were better than others for specific types of shells. I also learned it was easier to find the better shells, whole shells, as the tide went out. I experimented with different methods for finding shells. Walking along the beach, right where the waves swept over the sand, I scanned until something caught my eye. I had more luck, though, scooping up handfuls for shells and sand as the water was pulled from beneath my feet. I sifted through the broken shells and sand for any treasures. In La Jolla, I have found plenty of snails and clams, and on occasion, a prized abalone.

The first time I found an abalone shell was on January 2, 2015. I only remember the date because it was a floating holiday and I was off work. Even though it was cool and cloudy, I went to the beach to walk around and breathe the salt air. The tide was lower than I had seen, leaving the rocky base exposed. As I walked along the rocks, searching the tide pools, I saw something thin between two rocks. I bent down for a better view and saw the inside was an iridescent purplish color. I reached down and pulled out my first abalone shell. It wasn’t as large as the ones I’ve seen in the tourist shops, but this was one I found, and I was excited. I’ve found two others since that were much smaller, but just as cool.

My collection continues to grow, even though I am more selective. I tell myself I’m saving the shells for others to find and treasure. Each time I go to the beach, I spend time searching the sand, or the tide pools. I look for anything unusual, anything that stands out. I never know what I’ll find and I like that. I like the thrill of the hunt. When I search for shells, I never have the expectation of finding the ultimate treasure. I search, wondering what gifts the ocean with offer on that day.

Three years ago today, I arrived in San Diego. After stopping to stay the night in Albuquerque, Rob and I rose early, loaded the Mustang with our two dogs and two cats and continued west. I remember our route and how how we stopped to eat breakfast in Gallup at Denney’s around 9:00am. We continued west on I-40 into Arizona and then at Holbrook turned south toward Heber. I was nervous. I had a shih-tzu riding on my lap as we sped through the winding, twisting roads to make better time and avoid Flagstaff. Somewhere in the forested Arizona mountains, we stopped for gas. We wound our way down into Phoenix where we stopped at a QT for a break and were surprised by the sudden heat. We stopped again in Yuma. From there we continued west on I-8 and I marveled at the sand dunes, and then the agricultural fields as we approached El Centro.

As we continued west, I could feel my excitement beginning to build. I knew we’d drive through more desert, and then start to see wind farms with the giant wind turbines as we headed up into the mountains. We had taken this route before when we visited a few years earlier. I knew the mountains would amaze me with their giant orange-brown boulders. They reminded me of the cartoons I watched when I was young. I had seen mountains covered in trees in Colorado and Washington. I had never seen mountains like these. Rob laughed at me. As we cut through the mountains and began our descent, I began to understand what we had done. I had spent weeks packing and preparing for this very moment. We had packed everything into a trailer that would be delivered in three days. We had moved halfway across the country. We had left so many people behind.

That was three years ago. We came here with hope and dreams and ideas. We were not naive. We knew we’d face challenges because there are always challenges. And this has been true. It’s not easy walking away from your family. It takes time to adjust and move forward.

I am grateful, every day, for the opportunity to live in such a beautiful place. I love having orange trees outside my office window and how the scent of orange blossom fills my room when the trees are in bloom. I love being able to pick oranges for fresh orange juice, if that’s what sounds good. I love listening to all the birds in the morning as the day begins. I love being distracted while I’m working by the hummingbirds that frequent the trees outside my window. I love the parrots and all their commotion, when they fly by in the morning and then later in the evening. I love that I can sit outside on the patio, almost any day of the year, and enjoy a glass of wine. These are things I did not know in Kansas.

There are so many things. There are the obvious things, but it’s more than that. I love the ocean, I love the city, I love how there is so much life here. But it’s more than that. I can gaze into the distance and see the landscape rise up into the hills. As I drive on the 52 heading east, just over the summit at Mission Trails, the view of the valley with the mountains in the background is simply stunning. When I drive home from the gym as the sun begins to climb over the mountains, I breathe in all the colors in the sky. And when I finally signed up for my first half-marathon since moving here, I ran along with the Pacific Ocean just to my right.

These are all things I did not know three years ago. These are all things I would not trade for anything.

I have never been a bird person. They freak me out with their ability for flight and those sharp beaks that could easily steal my sight. I am not a bird person, but I find myself fascinated with the number of different birds I have seen since moving. With my desk facing a window, I often catch myself watching one sort of bird or another. At least once a day, I look up to find myself eye to eye with a hummingbird as it hovers directly in front of me. Again, I am not a fan of birds by any means but these little ones, these small wonders simply amaze me. Each encounter, whether through a window pane or up close tickles me, leaves me giddy and wanting more. I have been outside on the patio and heard the whirring of one’s wings and turned my head to see one within inches of my nose. It was exciting and the slightest bit scary all at once. I have heard their “click-chirps” as they flit about the yard. I have witnessed them pause for rest on a tree branch or telephone wire. I been close enough to see the rapid breathing that leaves me almost breathless.

Three days ago I saw the most amazing thing. I saw a baby hummingbird. At first, I thought it was a female, resting, but it stayed longer than a minute, sitting on the top of the fence. It sat there, outside the window of my office, probably six feet away. I could tell it wasn’t full grown; it’s feathers were fuzzy. I watched it sit and look around. Its body appeared fat and round and from the back, it could’ve been any other small bird. When it turned its head, the beak gave it away. As I watched, I noticed a green blur approach and hover near the baby. One of the parents, the male, judging by the bright green color, was feeding the baby. How lucky was I to be seeing this right in front of me? I watched and snapped several pictures. It was the sweetest sight, the parent sitting on the fence, next the the baby, beak to beak.

Oh, Hummingbird!

I marvel at your smallness, your swiftness,

your delicate existence.

I catch glimpses, you appear and select

orange blossom nectar, outside my window

and disappear in an instant.

A gift to me, I think, to see.

A sunny summer eve, a cooling breeze

you appear, again within my view

I watch you sip sweet nectar from a feeder

wings beating, heart beating, you still.

For a moment you could perch, I think

at impressive speed wings beat

and I stare and I stare

at such tiny feet.

One Friday morning, as I drove home from the gym, I saw a body on the freeway. By the time I passed the scene, it was covered, but it was right there, in the left lane. Someone had lost their life right there.

I couldn’t even fathom what had happened. I left for the gym at 4:30am and everything was fine. Traffic was light, as is normal for that time. On the treadmill, I watched the monitors, reading headlines as they popped up. I didn’t see anything about an accident. When I left the gym at 5:25am, I was feeling pretty good and drove with my stereo blaring, singing loudly with the song playing. I was cruising along the freeway, making the transition from the 52 east to the 67 south. Suddenly I saw the flashing  blues and reds and I braked. Traffic was light in that direction, but there were cars in front of me slowing to a crawl.

The three lanes of traffic were being directed into one lane on the far right, my lane. I don’t like to look when I come upon an accident scene because I don’t want to see too much. I drove slowly past the patrol cars, and the ambulance and saw the yellow cover draped over a figure. It was probably 10 feet from me and I stared. Over the divide, on the northbound side of the freeway, there were a few cars pulled to the side, but none appeared to be damaged.

At home, I couldn’t shake the image. I told my husband. I messaged my coworker and told her. I told just about anyone I spoke with that day. What I couldn’t understand was how he ended up on the other side of the freeway. I kept checking the news websites for updates on the investigation. I wanted to learn what happened. I wanted to know more about the person who was lying under the yellow cover. I kept looking for information.

The news report said the man was on his way to work. His vehicle had collided with another vehicle and they had pulled over to the shoulder. He got out of his car and was hit by another vehicle, the impact had thrown him over the highway divider. It seemed so senseless, the way his life ended. I didn’t know this man but I struggled with his death.

I usually have something on in the background for noise while I’m working. I was listening to NPR on most days. Every hour they gave a brief news update and a traffic report. When reporting traffic, the word accident is not used. Each time I heard of a collision, or crash, I began to feel anxious or irritable. I couldn’t pinpoint the reason. I had been listening to the same station with the same personalities for months. Nothing had changed.

It took at least a month for me to understand how this man’s death had affected my life. I had gotten to the point where a sense of dread would overcome me when I had to drive somewhere. It was something that I could talk myself through, but it was still there, seemingly out of nowhere. One day I noticed my shoulders tighten as I listened to the traffic report. That’s when I understood the cause of all my anxiety was the scene I drove past that Friday morning.

I still think about that scene from time to time. I still wonder about the man killed. He was young. There were so many possibilities. I hope he lived well.