Hippy Dippy

You decide.
The magic of a new place always makes me fall in love in a kinda-now-kinda -wow way. Shiny new faces and places all mixed into a dee-licious way of looking at the world.

That rose colored glasses thing-it's a real phenomenon. Just wish they woulda' worked longer in Toronto, but pink layered atop of mono chromatic gray scale is just a different shade of grey.

Fast forward to hippy dippy Santa Cruz.
Beach cruiser-eye candy central minus the 'tude and tats of Venice beach.

Luscious ocean breeze and the Seabright Brewery is my answer to "yes Virginia there IS a Santa Claus..and he surfs a Softops board" (santa needs serious stability.)
The real gift this past week? While my Subaru was rock-star parked at an unfed meter in front of a local bike repair, I was tapped on the shoulder by a lovely woman who reminded me to feed the meter. Of course I thanked her and walked to the meter quarter in hand. The dropping of the quarter drown out by the meter maid mobile wheeling away with her pony tail blowing in the ocean breeze, recognizing the pony tail as the same one belonging to the shoulder tapper.. My heart felt like the Grinch heart when it expanded to three sizes too big. Thump thump.

True love is hard to find. Even tougher to sustain but I have a good sense of well being at the moment totally attributable to this sandy little beach town. Let's hope the love will last. Or I can find groovy pink glasses to match my surfboard.

Land of Sun and Surf

As someone who prides them self as a lite traveler and can typically put a plan of action into motion with little more than a text message prompt from a friend, I have found the last few weeks particularly stressful trying to juggle biz calls, emails, kids surfing in the ocean and deciding upon what flavor of fruit works in the tequila concoction for the evening sunset cocktail del dia. Yes, it's not the typical boo-hoo but it is worth parsing out the following pearls of wisdom.

Stream lining a trip by tying in another trip/move/relocation may seem like a great idea but when it nets out that you become a sherpa of shit-you- don't-want to- deal - with
(but now defines your choices of where to go.) I'd rethink that game plan had I really had a non-frozen brain cell. Always the ambitious traveller preferring to wing details and see where the wind takes me.. only really works well when one is nimble, nimble of mind, yes but lite is tantamount to happy travels. Crankiness and logistical nightmares will be your unwelcome shadow should you have too much crap to cart.

My biggest Epiphany this recent trip? No connectivity is good. The inability to check email with relative ease takes an entire layer of complexity off the table. Living wi-fi free is as liberating as swimming naked in the ocean- with a full moon and a fire on the beach. Yes, really that good. Why is it so compelling to check when we are supposed to unplug from the world.

A holiday in theory is a giant yank upon that great extension cord called life.. While it's been enjoyable and a fresh perspective for the minions it's a welcome thought to return stateside.

Sayulita IS the new Saucy

So why travel south of the boarder you ask?

Mexico is to California as Cuba is to Canada. A vitamin D boost helps everyone cope with the cranky nature of mid-winter blahhs and when you can no longer stave off placing your head in the oven, ala Sylvia Plath (for warmth of course) book a flight and thank me later.

I can't get enough of the sand-in-places you never knew could chafe. Why use a glass for a drink when you can buy a fresh coconut and reuse it later with a few shots of ron, purely for medicinal reasons. Plus it's fun to drink from a cup made from a coconut..nothing looks as legit with sand in the crack of your toes and a drink of re-cycla'ble material in your mono.

The real reason to travel to far flung places, and drink dangerous amounts of peptobismol, is to remember that in the end, you're simply money on legs. Nothing more, nothing less.

Enjoy! ( imagine a picture of cute gurls with surfboards and drinks in hand, sporting saucy 'kinis, but google mexico would not let me upload the pic..so sad;(

It's Not What You Think

It's a wacky world out there.



Travel is the one true indicator of this.

My recent stateside romp was a sweet sojourn from the tundra of Toronto.
Venice beach a mer blur in my rearview mirror.
Lingering is the weirdness of what it is to travel in twenty ten.

TSA has become an unweilding force of ineptitude. If I had to describe what the stateside airport security look and feels like, it might be a psycholtic blend of visuals, think or envision a hybrid of midwestern high school homecoming queen blandness mixed with the blunt force percision of a butter knife, add a blog for know-it-all-ness and voila-it's the Transportation Security Administration.

Throw stones if you will but someone has got to pretend to be in charge, now with Al Haig gone.

The rules change. Just when you think in a smug swagga' that you've got the drill-poof it's changed from the country club feel of the Tucson airport to the uber scrum of L>A. In it's regal-real ness stands the SFO experience where as the later shoes must be in a separate bin. My mind of course played this as a real estate metaphor- where separateness is a fabric in San Francisco life that shoes deserve a separate and quiet place before the laptop but after the camera gear.
Think Namaste but for footwear.

Crocs still seem to be in bankruptcy but available in too many shades to think about, all over the airport, all over-stocked.

The true object and marketing genius lost upon the wearer of said plastic shoes: a non pharmaceutical form of birth control.
The quaint kiosk quiet as the croc sales rep or as I called him the croc monsieur, surfed porn on the free airport wi-fi. I guess his lack of eye contact meant he knew I wasn't a true shoe shopper, either that or my footwear du-jour was too telling - I am more of a Christian Louboutin girl than plastic shoe girl.

The airport moment that stood above the rest - the q tip test experience.

The no-fly list of prohibited items is weirdness personified. Think twice before picking up the $13.00 snowglobe from Hudson News- it's been banned. Not because someone got bonked on the head but rather it contains an undetermined amount of liquid, and therefore banned. Verboten.

So back to the q-tip story. While awaiting a Denver connection, I notice a blue gloved harem of TSA "officers" wielding q-tips and hovering near a very pedestrian looking woman who was simply sipping from a plastic water bottle. Nothing exotic, a garden variety crystal geyser brand in the handy 500ml size. The q-tip in the hand of the specialist- or at least dressed to look like one hovered over the open water bottle while the perplexed sipper looked mortified.

Since when is anyone on the TSA team equipped to address this sort of testing? My first thought after thinking that the TSA is now employing biologists- wow the economy really is worse off than we thought, biologists at the TSA gotta make less than 30K a year, when actually they are compensated a bit better, at 35K. But alas, none of these agents possessed any science or biology background. Nary a one barely possessed a GED..but really, why throw stones?

Now who is calling on the white courtesy phone?? Ayn R. Key, paging Mr. Ayn R. Key.
It's a wild and wacky world, don'tcha feel safer in the confines of the airport as of late?.....Me neither.

The New Shiny Shiny

Back in the land of plenty, burning brightly under clouds of Santa Cruz mountain fog and palm trees. Ahh- you can take the gurl outta California but you can't dampen the optimistic edge with frozen tundra and salted sidewalks. The biggest ahh is the new San Jose Airport. My morning cafe here awaiting my L.A. flight was a Illy brand espresso in a proper cup no less. Pinch me.

The femine curves of the new Southwest Airlines terminal is reminiscent of a perfect thigh. A Frank Geary'esque design so damn sexy so un San Jose, that maybe this is just what the doctor ordered for the bruised ego of the valley. Did I mention it's sooo good to be back in the hood' that
it's hard to contain my irrational exuberance. Yes, that too will pass but I felt the need to scream it from the ceiling ( which is angular skylight and steel) this is my new fave hang..

did I mention the free wi-fi?? Luv. True blue love. Gotta jet!

Keys

The New York Times home section has an article today that really spoke to me.

The meat of the article: people who don't lock the doors where they live. It spoke to me I suppose because I too never lock my door. Can't say that I have ever had a break-in. But why lock up, arm the alarm? If someone wants to find a way into your home, they most likely will. I have to admit to another thing I wasn't in the habit of locking, and that was my car (when I still had one.)

The sweet little enclave I lived in was pretty low key and my view point? My neighbors all drive nicer, flasher vehicles than I, so let them lock their vehicles. Keys just seem like another thing to worry about.

My Mini Cooper was so laden full of Lego's and trail mix who the fuck would want it was my mantra.

Keys to the castle, the key to my heart.
Key-lime pie I say because if you can't enjoy life without looking over your shoulder wondering and worrying who might be out to get your stuff , then maybe you just have too much stuff. Or watch too much Fox News, maybe both.

Did I mention the four bicycles stolen over the course of ten years living in San Francisco. All securely locked all snatched. Like I mentioned, If somebody wants it... Oh yes, I forgot about the Mercedes of baby buggies, pinched from the front of my flat in Barcelona on a sunny summer day- really, if you need to steal a baby buggy than you need it more than I.

I found an odd comforting feeling, reading the Times article. I suppose that it's nice to think that I'm not the only key-less wing nut on the continent. It helps to live in a building with a doorman these days, as my key-less habits die hard in Toronto where I do need a fob to unlock and allow access.

Wishful thinking on that key free way of life.

Bad Latitude

I will chalk up my recent fowl mood to the latitude of Toronto. One of my fave ads of recent memory was a beer commercial that preached "change your latitude , change your attitude." If only it was that easy. SAD, or the lack of light causing Seasonal Affective Disorder is a type of depression that occurs at the same time every year. If you're like most people with seasonal affective disorder, your symptoms start in the fall and may continue into the winter months, sapping your energy and making you feel moody. This applies only if the latitude you find yourself in actually has a summer. For those of us susceptible to SAD, it seems a change of latitude may be the only quick fix. Good to know that Westjet flies to points south and to Cuba from Toronto. So my preferred latitude is not 43°.72″N,(Toronto) or even 41°23′N, (Barcelona) but 37° 45' 55" N ( San Fran/Oakland.)