Blog

One of the biggest adjustments for me has been getting used to the all people. San Diego is very crowded. As you drive along almost any street, you’ll see cars lined up, parked against the curb. There are so many cars. It’s especially crowded in areas filled with apartments and condos where there’s a large population in a small space. Strangely, it’s not just densely populated neighborhoods that are crowded. Even in single family home areas, parked cars line the streets. It can be a challenge simply backing out of a driveway.

It’s crowded everywhere. The roads are crowded, the beaches, good restaurants, parks, grocery stores, breweries, venues when there are events. The city is full of people constantly moving. I learned pretty quickly that if a festival or an event is mentioned in the news, it will be crowded. It makes sense. There are over a million residents just in the city of San Diego, and they will all flock to enjoy whatever is going on. Rob and I attempted to attend Balboa Park December Nights the first year we were here. After sitting in traffic on the 163 and then on Park Blvd for at least thirty minutes, we changed our minds. The idea of finding a parking spot, with everyone else looking for a spot, became the deciding factor in that decision.

As I said, it’s been an adjustment, but you do adjust. Knowing that you can always expect a crowd means making plans and being prepared. There are good times and bad times to go places. When I go to the beach, I know I need to go early to find parking and get a good spot. The zoo is very crowded during the summer in general, but the later in the day, the less crowded. If you plan to do any shopping at Trader Joe’s, it’s best to go as early as possible. And if you feel like sampling some beers at one of the local breweries, the earlier, the better. There is nothing wrong with getting your beer drinking started at 11:00am!

Even with the crowds you can still find empty spaces. In the midst of all the noise and movement, you can find quiet sanctuaries for reflection or a brief pause. You can find what you need here. Although crowded, all of these people give the city its life.

In April 2016, Rob and I returned to Wichita for my sister’s wedding. It was good trip and I enjoyed seeing everyone. During the short time we were there, what struck me the most was the lack of noise, the slow pace and open space between things. I was reminded then, how in those slow and quiet spaces, I so often longed for movement and noise.

It’s Taco Tuesday in San Diego. I had no idea this was a thing, but it’s a thing here. San Diegans love their tacos. Drive down any street and you’re bound to find at least one taco shop. What I’m finding is that not all taco shops or tacos are created equal.

I first tried fish tacos while in Seattle in the late 90’s. I had seen them offered on a few different menus but they sounded weird to me. The tacos I knew were hard shelled, filled with greasy orange meat and topped with cheese, lettuce, tomato and sometimes sour cream. I couldn’t wrap my head around substituting fish for the meat and I always passed over the option. Finally one day I read the description on a menu and ordered the fish tacos. As odd as they sounded with deep fried fish, cabbage and sauce on a soft corn tortilla, I absolutely loved them.

After that, I would eat fish tacos when given the chance. They were harder to find on menus in Wichita, KS, but they did exist. My husband, Rob, perfected a recipe he knew from a San Diego restaurant and made them at home from time to time. We tried different fish and began grilling as a healthier option. My favorite became grilled cod, with cabbage, pico and a yogurt-mayo sauce.

Since moving here, we’ve had the opportunity to try all sorts of tacos. That’s what you eat in San Diego. You can find just about any kind of taco you can imagine. There are fish tacos, shrimp or seafood tacos, al pasto, carne asada and pollo asada to name just a few. All of these have slight variations from place to place, but overall, they are all quite good.

One of the best fish tacos I’ve tried was from a food truck in a grocery store parking lot. Soft corn tortillas hold their perfectly seasoned deep fried fish, topped with shredded cabbage, pico and drizzled with white sauce. A squeeze of lime over the top makes them perfect without even needing additional sauce. These tacos are heaven in a tortilla.

Of course there are other tacos, and we’ve been sampling our way through area taco shops. Another one of my favorites is the al pastor. This is usually pork, marinated in a chili, pineapple sauce, cooked and served on served on a soft corn tortilla with onions and cilantro. I’ve tried these at several restaurants and found one place that cooks their meat layered on a spit, gyro style. They serve theirs with cilantro, onions, and then add a cilantro cream sauce on top. Again, heaven in a tortilla.

I could go on and on here. There are so many options and so many new places to try. I think I know the answer to the timeless question, “what’s for dinner tonight?” With all the choices, the more difficult part is deciding on where.

 

 

I think one of the best things about living in San Diego is the weather. I’ve heard people say San Diego has the world’s most perfect weather, and believe me, the weather is mostly perfect. What you learn fairly quickly when you live hear is that there are different weather zones, or microclimates. The weather varies in these zones, depending on your proximity to the coast. The city of San Diego, along the coast, generally has cool evenings and nights and warm days year round. We live about twenty miles inland, in the Cajon valley, where we experience a wider range of temperatures. Winter nights can be chilly, dipping into the low 40’s while the summer days can be quite hot. Even so, the days are generally pleasant year round.

Having such weather allows for spending plenty of time outside. The malls are open, where you walk outside from store to store. In the schools, the lockers are outside and kids eat lunch in a open courtyard. Most restaurants have outdoor seating, even fast food chains. Taco shops with walk up windows are fairly common. It’s not unusual at all to order your fish tacos and sit at the outdoor tables to enjoy. And if a restaurant doesn’t have outdoor seating, they most likely have a giant door that opens to allow diners to eat while enjoying the fresh air.

During my first summer in San Diego, I met someone who told me I’d never need a coat and could easily get away with wearing a hoodie or jacket year round. I admit, this has been true. My heavy coats I brought from Kansas haven’t seen the light of day here. I do wear my Ugg boots occasionally because I work at home and the house is cold in winter, but that’s a story for another time.

Also during that first summer, I was told there are four seasons in San Diego. There’s summer, hot summer, rainy summer, and fire summer. Everyone at the table laughed at but this has also been true. When I lived in Seattle, I missed having the change in seasons. Then, I returned to Kansas where in eight years I experienced all the seasonal changes I needed to last a lifetime. I developed a strong dislike of cold weather, especially when combined with snow or ice. Now, I’m ok with four summers.

Having lived in these other places allows me to appreciate even more the days of perfect weather here. Today will be a beautiful day in southern California. Temperatures will be in the 80’s under sunny skies, with a slight breeze picking up in the afternoon. If I wrap up work early today, I may go to the beach. I’ve come to enjoy lying on the beach, soaking up the sun, breathing the fresh air.

The San Diego Zoo is known throughout the world for being an amazing zoo. It’s a destination for tourists and it was always on my list of places I wanted to visit. It has animals you can’t find at other zoos. It has koalas.

My love for koalas goes all the way back to my childhood. All girls had their favorites: colors, teachers, foods, animals. These were defining things about us when we were kids. These were points for bonding. Of course you liked the girl who loved pepperoni pizza and the color blue if you did, too! My favorite animal in the whole world was the koala. The soft, fluffy, gray teddy-bear looking animal that ate eucalyptus leaves and slept twenty hours a day in tress. I loved koalas.

The first stuffed koala I received was given to me by my dad, on my sister’s birthday. His job had taken him to Norton, KS that day. There, in a gas station, he found a six-inch red koala with a heart shaped face. I named him Norton. After that, all my koalas had to have names starting with a K or Qu. I had Keely, and Queets and Kewela and Kiwi and Sidney, for the Australian city, of course.

Before moving to San Diego I had seen koalas three times in my life. When I was eleven, the Topeka, KS zoo was lucky enough to have one on loan from the San Diego zoo. I remember going to visit on a Sunday. I brought home a poster of K’Bluey and I’m sure I immediately hung it on my wall. Later, while living in Seattle in my late twenties, the Pt. Defiance Zoo and Aquarium had two on loan. They were enclosed behind glass and I remember it being difficult to see them. And during a vacation to San Diego in 2009, the first attraction on the list during our busy week was the zoo. That day, I kept making excuses to go back to the exhibit to see the koalas again.

At the San Diego Zoo, the koala exhibit is not enclosed in glass. The koalas are easy to see, except that they spend much of their time asleep in the branches of the eucalyptus trees. They share their space with the wallabies that have free range of the ground. In the exhibit, the zoo has constructed a tree-like habitat. Attached to the trees are tubes that hold the eucalyptus branches the koalas eat throughout the day.

For me, a zoo membership is a requirement and I visit when I have the chance. I love to sit and watch the koalas, even thought they’re not very active. They look so fluffy and soft, but to touch one is more like touching a sheep. I have not had the opportunity to pet a koala. The zoo has staff onsite and sometimes has the education center open. They have an albino, stuffed, in a display and also a hide that visitors can touch.

Each time I visit, I prepare myself for what I know I will hear from the other visitors. Everyone points at the koalas and tells their children to “look at the koala bears”. Each time I hear this, I cringe and want to tell them that they are not bears. Koalas are marsupials, like kangaroos. I want to explain that they are wrong. I want them to understand but I don’t say a word. I don’t want to intrude on their visit. More than that, I don’t want to be the crazy koala lady at the zoo. So I stand and quietly listen and watch the koalas. Sometimes they move, but mostly they sleep. I often question just how they manage this feat. How do you sleep at the top of a tree? I think even if I were nestled in the branches, I would still run the risk of relaxing too much and falling to the ground.

In 2009 when I visited San Diego and the zoo for the first time, I was considering getting a tattoo. I would be my first tattoo, and it would carry a certain amount of weight for me. It was never something I wanted, but after a divorce and huge shift in everything I knew, I decided I wanted one. It took time to decide on the perfect thing. After the zoo visit, when my husband suggested going to Avalon Tattoo in PB, I agreed. I knew exactly what I wanted. I would get a koala. I had taken plenty of pictures while at the zoo and I would use one of them. It was perfect for me.

The finches are back. I noticed the female sitting on the nest a few days ago. I hope their babies fare better than last year.

It’s been about a year since we really noticed the Hawks. They’re amazing to watch, gliding through the air, that long screaming call announcing their presence. I watched them soar high and fast, sometimes trailed by a crew of pigeons or other smaller birds. At first there were only two and then I began to see a third one, slightly smaller. They would sit patiently on the power lines that run above the backyard fence, taking it all in.

My Boston Terrier was the first to discover the headless bird in the backyard. She loves to explore and eat random things when she’s outside. Fortunately, I caught her sniffing and pawing at something and walked over to see what she was so excited to find. That’s when I saw what I thought was a dead bird, which it was. It was a dead bird without a head. This was an odd find, but I immediately thought of the hawks and how they often sat on the wires directly above the spot. A couple days later my husband found the gopher skull, hair still attached. At that point I started liking the hawks less and less. The least they could do was pick up their food if they dropped it.

A couple weeks went by without us finding any meal remnants. The Hawks were still there and continued to frequent our power lines. One afternoon I pulled into the driveway and saw two hawks perched on the power lines. One appeared to be holding something in its talon. Curious, I dropped my stuff off inside and headed to the backyard patio. It was the perfect viewing point. There, I saw clearly what each hawk was holding. The hawk on the left held a lizard, the one on the right, a bird. My husband and I sat there watching as they picked apart and ate their meals. This was the first time I had ever witnessed a hawk feeding. I couldn’t help but watch this gruesome, yet awesome act. It was especially disturbing as the hawk struggled with the rubbery toughness of the lizard’s skin. It held it in its talon and would tug at it with its mouth. I could almost hear the lizard snap apart.

We knew the finch eggs would hatch soon. They had built a nest in the space between the support beam and the cross beam holding the roof of the patio. I could stand inside and see the female sitting on the nest. One day I heard the crying chirps of the babies and saw the male on the edge of the nest, helping with their feeding. At first I could see just their upturned open mouths waiting for food. Eventually I could see their full heads and counted three of them. They were getting closer to the time they would leave the nest.

It was a Tuesday morning when I opened the back door to let the dogs out and saw two tiny birds on the patio. I immediately closed the door to prevent an over curious dog from causing any harm. After taking the dogs out the front door, I returned to the patio to check on the birds. That’s when I saw all three of them, none of them moving. I leaned in closer and saw they were breathing and I went back inside. I checked on them throughout the day. Each time they were in a slightly different spot but still on the patio. It was a warm day and they did the best they could to stay out of the hot sun.

In the evening, with the heat of the day letting up, I returned to the patio to find only two birds. They were becoming more active and would walk-hop a few steps and stop and rest. Then they began to stretch their wings as they hopped and rested. It took close to an hour for both of them to make it to the edge of the patio and then take the eight inch leap to the sidewalk. After another brief rest, they ventured into the yard, small enough to pass unseen through the short grass. I watched them all evening as they explored their new world, under the watchful eye of their parents, sitting on the fence. As they moved around, they were awkward, learning to hold their wings, to hop and flap and hop. They were getting closer to flying and I watched, captivated by these two tiny birds, fuzzy, new, curious. With each hop, I cheered, willing them to catch air and take flight. They were so close. As it grew dark, I watched as one hopped into the aloe plant and the other took refuge under the cactus. I went inside feeling light and hopeful.

In the early light of the next morning, the Boston was the first to discover it. I walked to the spot where she pawed and scratched in the grass. My heart sank to see the fuzzy, small feathered tail lying on the ground, covered in ants.