St. Petersburg Garden

St. Petersburg Garden

Monday, February 28, 2011

Celebrity Sighting?

The weekend started off with a bang. We didn't think anything out of the ordinary was going to happen. After all, this is San Diego. Nothing big generally happens here. At least not to us anyway. We just thought we'd wing it, do whatever, relax, no crazy plans to rush around and see this, go here, must do that. Like I said, relax. We had some leftover gift cards that we thought we'd spend so first stop was the mall. We had already been to a few stores and just wanted to hit one last place.

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/.

Thursday, February 10, 2011

Pillowtastrophe


I've heard that you don't really know a person until you've been with them for a long time. After a few years, certain little things come out that you may not have noticed before. You hear things like this and think, sure, maybe other people but not me. At least you think you did. When I first met Mike, I thought I knew him. He seemed so nice, so quiet, so giving. He was the type of guy that would share everything with me. Everything. Or so I thought.

I guess in the beginning there are certain things that on the surface appear to be one thing but when you look deeper there is an evil lurking, something so sinister, something so calculating that when you least expect it, it will attack you in your very home. I should know. It happened to me a few nights ago.


I should have seen it coming. The signs were there. Years ago, my Aunt & Uncle had given me a gift card and I decided to splurge. Going for the big guns, I went with the $50 pillow. Looking back, I smile at my naivete. I thought I had bought myself a nice gift. The operative word here being myself. As soon as I walked in the door and Mike saw my luxurious fluffiness he pounced. He said that it was nice that I got us a pillow. Us. I didn't miss his word usage.

I pointed out that it was mine. He corrected me. Ours. We could share. I had my pillow for one week. I never saw it again. Throughout the years I tried bringing in new pillows for myself. Silly me. Mike would take notice, stroke the new fluff and take it for a test run. I knew it wouldn't be long before it was gone. I'd even thought I learned a few tricks over the years. Knowing that Mike would always want my new pillow, I would get him a new pillow. Eventually, all the pillows would somehow, "magically" make their way to his side of the bed. Amazing how that works.


But this is where it reached a full cataclysmic, disaster-filled, pillowtastrophe. I'm talking full on World War III. It started out just like any other night. We were getting ready for bed, nestling under the covers, fluffing the pillows. We each have a body pillow which amazingly enough mine has managed to avoid the pitfalls of all the previous pillows that have come before it-it is still mine and only mine.

Currently I only have one main pillow. Somewhere along the way I lost my other one. Yeah, lost it to Mike that is, when I lent it to him and he sucked it into the vortex of Mike pillowdom. Mike has three. I decided I wanted my loaner back. This meant we were even. Two each. I don't know what I was thinking. It started with Mike's head inching closer to me, or rather to my pillow, then closer, then I got, "Hey, this is my pillow". It ended with a pillow tug-of-war. Then a throw. It was ugly.

Apparently, when you lend a pillow out, there is a statute of limitations. Against the lender. After 30 days, it's no longer yours. This is what I was informed of. I decided I wasn't playing nice anymore. No more one for me, one for you. I made a stop at Kohl's. TWO for me. That's right. I got two pillows. Giant, fluffy behemoths. Mike fought me as I walked them down the hall. He tried to get them. He told me it didn't matter what I said, ALL the pillows were his. He's wrong.

This time I labeled them. That's right. I took a green marker to those babies. Property of me. You'll notice the label says Llama only. That would be me. Llama you ask? Another time, another story. I got out of bed this morning and heard Mike talking. I came back into the room to hear him say this: Oh, this pillow is niiiice. Yes, he was on my side of the bed, rolling all over my new baby. I know it's not over. The Pillow Revolution will never end.

Tuesday, February 8, 2011

Sometimes you just Wonder

Do you every wonder why there are some people that seem to have all the luck? No matter what they do in life, things always go their way. From birth through childhood through teen years to adulthood, they seem to have it all. Sure, they may have the occasional hiccup and there may even be a point in their life where they do have a rough patch but overall the world seems to fall at their feet.

Then you have the others. Not much seems to go right for them. They try, do what they think is right and yet, no matter what, they can't seem to catch a break. It always seems like no matter which way they go there's a big pile of merde waiting for them to step in. It's tough cleaning that stuff off your shoes. I know. My shoes are covered in it.

They say you have to pay for your past. First of all, who the hell are "they" and why do we have to pay for someone else's past? We're in the present, in the here and now. It's bad enough I have no luck in this life - why am I paying for someone else's poor judgement? Wait a minute. Karma. You always hear talk of Karma. How you'll get what's coming to you. I never worried about this before. But now, hhhmm. Makes me wonder.

I used to have this game when I was a teenager called Past Lives. We loved that game. It was hysterical. I think it was funnier for my friends than it was for me. Why? Because I was Fatty Arbuckle every time we played. I'm talking every time. The irony is not lost on me.

What makes this even more ironic is since these teen years, everywhere I go people seem to be obsessed with my weight, whether big or little doesn't seem to matter. But that's another story. Have you read about Fatty Arbuckle's life? Probably not. I don't see why you would. You weren't him in a previous life like me.

He was initally charged with the murder of a young starlet. While he was found innocent, the public never viewed him the same and his Hollywood career was ruined. Interesting story. If you'd like to read more go to: http://www.callmefatty.com/. Was he guilty? No one will ever know. But I must be paying for something......

So as the golden children settle back and enjoy life in luxury as one amazing day unfolds after the next, those of us merde steppers are perched to await whatever wondrous event will befall us. Let's just hope that board game wasn't giving me a glimpse into the future. It didn't go so well for Fatty.