Tales from the Hotel Del

Oh, I love hotels, especially hotels with character and personality. Hotels where you know you are at that one unique place in the world, and there is no carbon copy in another town.

We started off with a beautiful garden view.


After I enjoyed the view, I turned on the computer. Where had I been all day? My jaw dropped...
"Handy Husband," I cried, interrupting his fun. "You need to flip to the news RIGHT NOW!" Me telling him to flip channels is quite unusual. "Yes, dear." No, he really wasn't going to watch one of these. He said he was just looking.


Then I turned to look at him lying on the bed, and the bed looked awfully small.


I exaggerated a little, but I'm not a computer artist. I had booked a king. I had proof on my Orbitz receipt. However, the Orbitz room was quite a bit cheaper than the hotel website, so who knows?? Anyway, Julian at the front desk changed our room with no problems. I didn't mind giving up the patio for the king size bed. This bay-view room was on the third floor, so we rode the brass elevator. Scroll down on that link - it's the 2nd picture. While the uniforms have since been updated, I swear it is the same man!


Corporate Secretaries were having a big beach party. We enjoyed their band from a distance.

We didn't find any ghosts. But we did find "dessert" at the ENO wine bar. Here's a Smalltown Mom Useful Tidbit. Yes, I know what that acronym spells --- Wine by the bottle is 25% off if you get it to go. The man behind the counter was so knowledgeable, but not in the snooty snobby way I have grown to hate. He was more like a wine detective or a wine doctor...asked a few questions.... poured a few samples... and arrived at a perfect prescription. The first night: an Argentine white. The second, a Baxter 2003 syrah.

Ahhh, the evenings.... Lovely...

The Following is a Special Report...Followed by Something Completely Different

We hereby interrupt the travelog to say that, the last we heard, there will be no funeral procession to Neverland Ranch. Cancel those hotel reservations, folks. Unless you just want to come up to visit, shop, and drink some fine wine. It's highly unlikely that Neverland will become another Graceland. People around here are rather NIMBY. And it's such a nice backyard, I can't blame them. But Larry King thinks there's still a story here...stay tuned tonight.

The HH turned on Anderson Cooper's CNN coverage last night and then promptly ignored it to look up car stuff on the computer. Excuse me, but I got my fill of AC yesterday subbing for Regis -- and I paraphrase here: "like this one time, at band camp when I was a kid, my mom took me to studio 54, and there was this guy, and it turned out to be Michael Jackson." Anderson, your mom was Gloria Vanderbilt. Admit what you are.

So I flipped to my Michael Buble DVD. (I saw him last summer.) (And then I lost the rest of this post so I had to rewrite it.) So leave it to me to turn this post into something completely different.

Michael Buble -- Sway



Which led me to Dean Martin Sway. I'm really liking Dean lately.



Which further led me to Julie London , my beloved Rosemary, and Bobby Rydell.

And a "historical version?"



Sway with me while we ignore the Michael Jackson business for one more day.

Nikigator

Here's a short aside to my San Diego travelog. Jenn commented on the Niki de Saint Phalle mosaic sculptures in Balboa Park, which reminded me of these pictures from our 2002 trip. Little Frank and Even Littler Ernest loved the Nikigator.




In researching this blog post, I found there is a Niki de Saint Phalle sculpture garden in Escondido. I'd love to see that the next time I'm there. Which will be soon, once Ernest learns there are Segway tours at the Wild Animal Park.

The Second Day

We went to San Diego on Thursday. Our first stop was Mission San Diego de Acala, yet another mission I'd never seen. That's something to add to my bucket list: visit every California mission. This was the mission I had to build in 4th grade! We made our own adobe bricks, using a mold built of popsicle sticks.

And yes, I found the right place. Hi, Cheri!
Now, I really owed my husband some man-friendly sightseeing. I like old things, so missions and museums are just my cup of tea. But the HH needs to see something mechanical every so often. So our first stop in Balboa Park was the Automotive Museum of course! I learned there is a difference between a hot rod and a street rod. Hot rods are old things--1949 or earlier. This car is neither, but he likes it! Sweet dreams, honey! (Truly, he's going to build his own car. Posts on that later!)
We also went to: Air and Space Museum (car guys seem to like airplanes too), Natural History Museum (the Body Worlds exhibit was incredible -- the HH really wanted to see it, but admitted to being a little freaked out afterwards), Timken Museum (Beautiful and FREE!), and the Art Museum (the Richard Avedon photographs are a must-see). And then we were tired. Darn it, we missed quite a few other museums.

This multiple-didgeridoo-combo is the most unique instrument I've seen in a long time.


After all those museums, our feet hurt, so we rode the park trolley back to the parking lot. Still smiling.


We checked into the Hotel Del Coronado. We had stayed there for one night, oh -- about 20 years ago! (And paid cash, which even 20 years ago freaked them out and they had to find some special form to deal with it.) This time, the credit card was well used.
We drove by many appealing restaurants, but since our feet hurt we had dinner at the hotel. Yes we had food, too, but the drink was just so pretty!

My Long Weekend

With Ernest gone for 3 weeks, the Handy Husband and I decided to take a really long weekend for ourselves. After we said goodbye at the airport, we headed down the coast. We had a wonderful time, with great food, beautiful sights, and perfect weather.

The Point Vicente Lighthouse in Palos Verdes.
Wayfarers Chapel. The HH wondered why I wanted to go see a church. "But it's Lloyd Wright (son of Frank)," I exclaimed. Absolutely beautiful.

Mission San Juan Capistrano.

The view from our room at the Ritz Carlton Laguna Niguel. Gorgeous place, lovely room, impeccable customer service.


The view of our dessert!


Day 2 tomorrow.
(Oooh, I just realized this is my 500th post! Whoo-hoo!)

Signs of Summer

The summer Chinese print in my bathroom:


The artwork in the hall. I didn't have anything summer-themed, but I loved Ernest's Picassoesque self-portrait.


There's something wrong with this thermometer. While we often do get 90 degree days, I swear it wasn't really that hot. 78-79 according to the weather reports.

When Ernest packed, he worried about running out of socks. He wanted to borrow some of mine, but his feet are bigger than mine now. I told him to borrow his dad's.


Summer means we need to stock up on these staples:

Something is growing in my garden.

Stress Relief

If there are animals lying around, Ernest will pet them. He's attracted to them like a magnet. Sometimes it causes delay in the morning. "Ernest, time to go to school." "But mom, I'm petting the cat!" He must have really low blood pressure.

Our cat, his aunt's cat, his grandpa's dog.

Bye, Mom

Wednesday, 10:30 a.m. There he goes!

Mambo Italiano

Here's another wine I bought just for the label, because who can resist a "sultry" wine?

It was pretty good. But we need some music with it...

Do you prefer Rosemary?



Or Dean?

Animal Handling

Once Ernest accumulated 200 volunteer hours at the zoo, he was eligible for animal handling training. The TGW kids who do this will be able to handle animals at the Junior Keeper shows. On Monday he got to handle some of the "Eew" exhibit creatures (all photos from Wikipedia):

fox snake



tomato frog




blue tongued skink


Skink? SKINK??? As a small child he was obsessed with skinks at the various zoos we visited, so life has come full circle for him.

And here's the Broadway version.

Belated Father's Day Wishes

Yes, I'm slow. I'm always slow. But it took a while to find the pictures, and to get a turn at the computer.

Happy Father's Day to all my guys.

My dad tried early on to instill a love of backpacking in Frank: It appears he was unsuccessful. However, Frank inherited the genes for my dad's great beard.

My Handy Husband's dad. Watch out for your hand! I love this picture, taken on the day Ernest was born: Coming from a long line of Handy men, I hope my sons will also be great dads someday.

Spring Cleaning

If you're here from Mrs. G's, welcome!

I had intended to clean out my sewing/crafts room but I made no next to none nada zilch zippo very little insignificant progress on that.

However, the bathroom is done! Twenty-one years ago, our upstairs bath looked like this. (The other baths were worse.)

We stripped off the floral paper and, like an archaeological dig, found another layer underneath. We painted most of the room white and put up some 1989 wallpaper on the main wall. Would you believe, 20 years later I still have no picture of it? Or a picture of the hideous floor? A big chunk of it had been cut out and sloppily put back in again. It used to drive me crazy when I gave the boys baths.

Anyway, I have a thing for new toilets. Water-saving, easy-to-clean toilets. The other toilets in the house had been replaced, so I begged for one last new toilet for Mother's Day. And a new floor.

Here it is, in all it's PEZ decorated glory.




While a bathroom may not be the heart of the home, it is certainly a vital organ!

Beads

I haven't done much with the sewing room mess, but I've gotten two other rooms under control.

More on the bathroom tomorrow.

I've also been tidying up the guest room, since we are going to have company in August. This mostly involved:

• shoving lots of things into the closet.


• hanging paintings on the wall.


• taking other paintings in to be framed.


• unsuccessfully trying to scrub the stains off the wall. Frank used to toss cans and bottles at his trash can and apparently missed a lot.


• rediscovering some beaded garlands I got from Pottery Barn years ago. I always intended to drape them around the windows, so finally I've done that.
  

Update: Louise asked for a picture of the window... (Yes, that is a mini Leg Lamp.)

Recap of Another Day

We had a wonderful breakfast at Esau's Cafe. Excellent food and service. The Handy Husband could not finish his Bacado Omelette! (I was wise and substituted fruit for the hash browns. I'm not that diet concious -- I had corned beef hash which had its own potatoes.)

We decided to skip the parade. Yes, we did go to the beach. And sat on a bench and watched a flock of pelicans fly overhead.

For a gorgeous photo of pelicans in flight, look here.

We looked at iPhones. We were tempted. When we picked up Ernest and found he had cracked the outer screen of his phone, we decided to buy the new phones so we could give him one of our old phones. But unfortunately, we found out we're not done with our committment to the old phones and the price would be $299 each instead of $99. Ouch. So we're still waiting, and Ernest doesn't get a hand-me-down, either.

Another Day

Today's yet another day when I will make no progress on the mess.

But spending a day in the big town with my husband, while Ernest is at the zoo, is much more appealing. We plan to drop off the boy at 9, then have a lovely breakfast. A dilemma...should we brave the crowds to watch the parade, or go somewhere a little more serene?

What the Heck was I thinking, Part 2

I've found some interesting objects during my cleaning.

Here's one of my beloved vacuums...
Ernest left some Lego hanging around (this used to be his bedroom)...
A bearded SpongeBob with a disco ball?

Travel Plans

Ernest leaves on this year's People to People trip in a week!

London, Paris, Bruges, The Hague, Amsterdam, Cologne, Heidelberg, a 3 day home stay, Freiburg, a Swiss village called Scuol, and Zurich. He received a charming e-mail from the 12-year-old of the home stay family. That boy plays piano and likes swimming, and his mother is an architect. How did they match them up so perfectly?

Here's a bit of what he'll see.

Paris (photo from Paris Daily Photo)

Bruges (photo from Bruges Daily Photo)

Scuol (photo from About.ch)