See, this is what I don't like about...

I hate travel. I hate traveling. I don't mind being places that aren't home. I hate the process involved in getting there.

Today is Wednesday. On Saturday, the hubby, the daughter and I will be going from San Diego to San Francisco along the Pacific Coast Highway. It will be gorgeous, the hubs enthuses. The scenery is breathtaking. We'll make a two day road trip of it, see Big Sur and Santa Barbara and Carmel. You'll never forget it.

Since at no time has Disneyland figured into this scheme, it just sounds like two days in a car to me. I hate traveling by car. (Well, in all cases but one of recent memory, I hate traveling by car.
I had a GREAT time when Kel and I drove up to Michigan to care for my father.)

I hear that San Fran is a wonderful town. Tony Bennett left his heart there. I hope it's been refrigerated all this time. I am looking forward to being someplace less desert-like with a wider choice of activities. It should be a nice place to visit, and I will have Kel with me while the hubs works his standard 12 hour day. If it didn't involve traveling to get there, I would probably be excited.

But here's the drill. I have to pack. I have to keep track of my meds, my insulin, my cell phone. I will have to sleep in yet another strange bed in another place that is NOT home, as in there is no place like. I will have to do all that in reverse order to get back to San Diego and almost immediately again to return to Tennessee, where my cats, my friends, and my son's family live. I get to live there from time to time myself. Dave hardly ever does. He doesn't mind travel.

What a dope.

MY DAUGHTER IS TRYING TO KILL ME!!!

So here we are in San Diego. By "we", I do not mean Dave and I - Dave is either in San Francisco or Seattle, due back sooner or later. I mean my daughter Kelly and I. I haven't been out here since Thanksgiving of 2007, so things here have changed, like they do, and I have forgotten how to get places, like I do. Kelly has been my chaffeur and tour guide. With Dave gone, Kel and I have been Ladies Who Lunch.

This is where the murder plot comes in.

I didn't suspect anything when she took me to a wonderful Italian restaurant in Powway called Domenic's. It's a small place but cozy and charming. And the food... MAMA MIA! We shared a bruschetta. We each had a bowl of impossibly delicious minestrone. I had ravioli. Kelly had chicken parmesan. The portions were spot on; we were sated but not stuffed when we left the ristorante. Que bella!

Look here to peruse the menu fantastico. http://www.domenicsristorante.com/

Okay, I can forgive her Domenics. We were hungry, neither of us had breakfast that morning, and it was early afternoon. We needed to eat. Today, however, her cunning plot to kill me with kindness was so blatant that even I saw through it. She took me to Extraordinary Desserts in San Diego, on Union Street. There I had a glass of tea...

...and a devonshire Napolean. Look HERE to see the (attempted) murder weapon. http://www.extraordinarydesserts.com/

OMIGOD! The bottom layer was strawberries, blackberries, and raspberries and the Napolean was topped with an edible flower and a huge strawberry. It was served on a plate of strawberry and raspberry sauces swirled together.

We're doing Chinese tomorrow. It's been nice knowing you.

Home again, again

My dad's cat Snoopy, curled up in HIS recliner with his favorite toy on his favorite rug.

Yes, it is his recliner. Hey, the cat has his own room! But he's not spoiled.

Just back from spending a month with my old man. While there, I got new easier-to -negotiate stairs to his front door installed, replaced his lift chair, got home health care arranged, paid off his hospital bills, took him to the dentist for a replacement crown that my brother Bill financed, to the eye-doctor for new glasses, and hooked him up to Contact Life-Line. With tweaking, these arrangements should allow him to live relatively comfortably in his own home with his cat Snoopy for some time, I hope.

And the arrangements WILL BE TWEAKED if my sister has anything to do with them, and she will. But that's all right. I hoped the arrangements would make her life a little easier too. She and Dad need to thrash them out together. They do not need to include me in the tweaking- I am alternately 750 and 2,000 miles away from them.

The month went quickly and Dad and I got along quite well, as we always do. We cohabitate well, which is a blessing. His cat Snoopy and I, however, do not.

Snoopy hates me. He's not fond of women in general, an attitude I am sure he picked up from my dad, but he LOATHES me. My daughter Kelly was able to get him to tolerate her and even play with her. Before she left, Snoopy was even letting her pet him, albeit in that surly condescending sneering way many cats have toward contact with humans. Me, he bit.

Repeatedly.

He also hissed, spit, scratched and slapped.

What a guy. Here are some pictures of the little shit. Enjoy.

Snoopy, draped along the back of Dad's chair.

Snoopy, playing nicely with Kelly.

Snoopy, drinking my water.