Goodbye, city lights:
So, we are back in Texas after a week in San Diego. The weather here is exactly the opposite of there: hot and raining. Seriously, I was all in a fall mood from wearing my leather jacket and eating pumpkin pie in California and now it is impossible to believe it is October. On the plane, totally inspired by Julia Child, I was making lists of fall recipes I could cook - clam chowder, pumpkin soup, squash risotto - and now it feels ridiculous.
The long plane ride was awesome; I love first class. It's one of the really pretentious things that I adore (it doesn't count since it was a free upgrade, right?). They had a little tv on the back of my seat and I watched The Proposal (which I had been wanting to see, it was so funny and cute, I couldn't stop laughing out loud), and ate a pretty great lunch (compared to the cheeseburger in a bag they usually have on the plane) and the seats are so comfortable and spacious.
San Diego is such a nice combination of warm and breezy. It feels so great to be outside - if we lived here I would probably abandon my excersise tapes and start jogging outside. I went out to pick up Chinese food...
and, since I was sans hub, stopped into Forever 21. I'm way, way past 21 but there were women much older than me in there so I didn't feel too bad. I'm a sucker for striped shirts:
The bums here are quiet and funny, not like in San Antonio at all! One man, after I said I didn't have any change, joked that he accepts major credit cards too.
View from our window last night, it looks so pretty when the lights come on and the sun starts to set:
I so want to live in California now. It's October and I spent the morning at the pool with my book and iced pumpkin spice latte. It was beautiful - sunny and quiet (except for the sounds of waterfalls and faint music from the restaurant).
Now, I'm going to take a quick bath (baths! my favorite thing about staying in a hotel room since moving into an apartment with only a shower), then walk around the gaslamp district to find something to eat, and maybe back to that mall.I'm liking Julia Child more each day, and her husband too. They seem so young and playful and in love, even though the book begins when she was already 36. It's inspiring; I want to learn to speak French, tour Europe in an old car, cook and cook and cook, bring my camera everywhere, and send out a card like theirs from 1956 every year:
(from this Vanity Fair article)
Another thing I like about these conferences is the excuse to go out to eat every night and go to Starbucks every morning. We've been several downtown restaurants so far, from seafood (Oceannaire - very good stuffed sole), Indian (Masala - really slow service), Thai (Rama - decent), to a steak restaurant (Fleming's - great service and really good food).I, for one, and not at all a steak person. I've ordered it maybe once at a restaurant, and never been able to eat more than a few bites. It's just, well, gross - the taste, the texture, the color. But the other night, I was craving red meat. I kept saying I wanted a burger, which I rarely eat, and when we wound up at the steak place the chicken and seafood on the menu just didn't seem appealing. So, I got the steak... and ate almost every bit of it. It was so good, the best steak I've ever tasted without a doubt, although that probably has little to do with the restaurant and more to do with my unusual craving. I wonder if I'm going to like steak from now on or if it was a one time thing.
Today I walked all around the harbor in downtown San Diego. I walked to Seaport Village and into a bunch of little touristy shops selling soaps and tshirts and silver and candles and Christmas ornaments. 
They had chives planted everywhere - mixed in with the birds of paradise and palm trees - and the whole place smelled like them. Their smell is so potent and distinctive, a weird mix of both slightly attractive and very off-putting, and it's quite an odd smell to find lining the walkways to restaurants. I heard so many people say out loud, what is that smell? when they passed by the planters and almost answered it's the chives! several times.
Then I sat outside for a few hours on a bench in a little park on Harbor Drive. I read, and watched a guy flying a kite and a couple snuggling in the grass. I honestly can't remember the last time I just sat outside in the sun (you just can't yet in Texas without sweating, and we don't have a backyard or anything, and it usually just doesn't feel safe enough in my neighborhood to sit outside if you don't have too). It smelled like the beach and felt incredible with the sun on your skin and the breeze off the water. 
Yesterday was cold, but today I could've worn a bikini by the pool if I had wanted too. The pool at our hotel is a funny scene: you see only men and women in business suits lounging on the pool chairs, I guess because of the conference center next door, maybe taking off their blazers but that's it.Anyway, I was reading Julia Child's My Life in France, which is really good. For some reason I can relate to Julia, I totally get this feeling of accomplishment and, hmmm, maybe purpose? when I cook up something nice for my husband for dinner. Like that's part of my contribution to our relationship or something and it really makes me feel proud. It seems silly, but I never, ever, was one to cook anything for myself or anyone else, and it feels good, I like it. I get a sense she felt that way about her husband too.
When I picked that up from Borders yesterday, I also found a new (to me at least) book by one of my favorite authors, Richard Bach. His books are always so good; I can't wait to start it.
On my walk home, I took this picture of an advertisement for condos, because the message just really appealed to me: 
Measure your life in steps, not miles.
Some random things that are making me really happy at the moment:Makeup! I usually feel like a drag queen when I leave the house in red lipstick, but I think I figured it out: Tiny bit of beige eye shadow, tiny bit of peachy blush, the lightest line of black liquid eyeliner, dots of mascara along the upper lashes, and then the bold red applied with a lip brush. Inspired by looking at these pictures of red lipstick done right (and some others of it done wrong), and by the pretty red lipstick my hub picked out at Sephora (Rouge Dior Replinishing Lipstick in Red Premiere).
Minidresses (a.k.a. the first time having really short legs is an advantage)! After looking everywhere for a basic cotton long sleeved minidress, I found them in dark gray and black at BCBG, except as the salesgirl pointed out, they were tops.
I tried one on, texted this pic to hub who agreed it could pass for a dress, and bought away. I wore one out last night, and I honestly did feel a little but obscene, but I think it was mostly because I kept thinking: Am I too old to be wearing a shirt as a dress?San Diego! If Gloucester sounds like seagulls, and San Antonio sounds like ambulance sirens, I would have to say downtown San Diego sounds like train bells ringing and wind blowing... Got here the day before yesterday. I love places with a beautiful city view, which San Diego has for sure:
It also has the coolest outdoor mall I've ever seen with, like, 5 stories of zigzaging outdoor walkways and shops (including the above mentioned BCBG and the mini-teeshirt dresses):
My favorite is being able to walk all over. To shopping and groceries and coffee and bookstores and even movie theaters. People are nice too. I would probably live here.
Makeovers! I love them and I love these Model-Morphosis posts [via] showing model transformations for the runway. I always liked seeing how different the same girl can look in various magazines and shows and these posts really show the extent of the amazing things you (well, they) can do with makeup:
Fall coffee! Pumpkin spice lattes are back at Starbucks... I love the fall, I especially love pumpkin. I'd been craving one, and am now on my second for the day. Here in San Diego it is freezing (compared to Texas anyway). I brought my iced latte to the pool, then had to go get my jacket, then just had to go in cause the cold wind and iced coffee were too much together...
