We walked into the store when holy crap there she was! That lady! What's her name. You know, the one from Something About Mary. The old, tanned lady. Cool - a semi-celebrity! Wow, let's go over and....oh sh*t. Wait. Oh God. The girl welcomed me into the store. I mumbled hi and walked away. Mike and I quickly regrouped. I'm still in shock as I write this. Perhaps the girl was going for the "Magda" look (yes, I looked up her name - the old lady from the movie that is). I won't ever know but people, please be aware that orange is not a skin color. Neither is Tangelo or creamsicle or clementine. Where were her friends? Why didn't they tell her what she was doing to herself? I felt badly for the girl. There are a lot of celebrities I wouldn't mind being mistaken for. Unfortunately, Magda is not on that list.
In order to recover from our faux celeb sighting we needed some fresh air. It was kind of a harrowing experience. I'm still reeling from it. Yes, even now. We thought we would take a little hike through the neighborhood. And by hike I'm talking over an hour of walking through rough terrain, mud and dirt. My poor sneakers. They are not meant for off-roading.
That's right, we didn't stop, not even at those signs that said "No trespassing, violators will be prosecuted". That was Mike's idea. I'm innocent. Yes, through mud, water, dirt and grass (can you tell this wasn't my idea?) we went up and down those trails. Charlie Brown could smell the danger. He knew there was Coyote on the path. With a sniff of the air he could sense that danger was lurking nearby. I warned Mike. He laughed and happily took pictures of our surroundings. Just like a scene from a horror movie. They never listen to the one warning them.....
We finally headed back to civilization. As we got back to the streets, we were heading home when out of nowhere came a wild beast. We had to protect Charlie and ward off the beast so we ran down a side street to get him off our tail. Ok, so maybe it was an unleashed dog but it looked like it might be part Dingo and you can never be too careful.
We walked down the street to further our escape and whoa! Look at that - free vegetables! FREE! That's right, the sign says free! Woohoo. Carrots and peas and onions and free! What a day this is turning out to be. It's a good thing we have our back pack. We grabbed some peas and carrots and loaded up. This was perfect. Now we had food just in case we got lost or attacked on the way home and needed to hide out or something. You can never be too prepared. Besides, we might still run into that wild dingo on the way home.
After our harrowing journey through the wilds of Jeffries Ranch, we thought we'd take a trip to San Clemente and go to the Lavender Lounge Tea Company. Since it's been freezing here in lovely Southern California, and I can't seem to ever get warm, hot tea was the perfect solution.
I chose my brew - white champagne. Because anything with the word champagne in it has to be good. I was right. It was amazing and I will definitely be coming back here for more. The wall is lined with a million choices. Ok, maybe I exaggerate but there were a lot of teas to choose from. Mojito, chocolate strawberry, yeah, I'll be back.
Mike and I stayed inside at first because we were cooooold. Well, I was but we wanted to use the cute rooftop deck. This area will be even nicer when it's warm out. Just like Charlie does at home, I stood in my sun spot. Much better. Ah. Hot tea, warm sun. It was a pretty good day.
Thanks Westways Magazine for giving this little gem to us.
You can see all of the tea choices at the Lavender Lounge website: http://www.lavenderloungetea.com/.