day two. i think they sell kumquat trees at costco.
why don't we live in california, again?
years ago my grandparents lived in a beautiful house in rancho bernardo, nestled in the northern hills of san diego. the back of their house was covered in windows, looking out at the pool with a view of the valley below. when they finally moved out into a retirement community, i wanted their house.
like, really wanted it. like, you know. it was bitchin'. i wanted the pool with it's weird round covers and the lemon and kumquat trees that surrounded it. i wanted the house my grandmother had decorated like a spa with items from all their travels. where i ate smoked almonds from the bates nut farm and tons of hot, buttered hawaiian bread after swimming in the rain.
i liked listening to my grandpa talk as he held his scotch on the rocks, dressed eternally for golf. their Lhasa Apso creatively named Lhasa adorably fumbling around at our ankles. i liked driving in the golf cart with my brother tim, finding some excuse to take it out.
i remember lively parties around their pool. one of my grandpa's friends told me, "your grandpa says it's okay if i tell you that you look good in those pants." (i doubt he had said it was okay.) i was a teenager - just young enough to think he was just weird.
the last time we took our boys to california they were little guys. wearing blue and yellow crocs, with backpacks as big as their upper bodies, going out of their minds to be at disneyland.
now we will go to art galleries, jazz clubs, cocktail it up with family and laugh the kind of laughs that keep going well into the night. there may even be a two woman skit called "telephone." we will wear sweaters in june around a fireplace. who thought of this magical place called california?
i will still get up before everyone else and make coffee in our hotel rooms with the impossibly small coffeemaker, and watch everyone sleep in their fluffy hotel beds. and i will be so grateful that this is who we get to be.