Friday and saturday.

It is Sunday morning and it is raining in LA. We are experiencing the effects of Hurricane Hilary here on the west coast. I just seems like regular east coast rain so far. Nothing too dramatic.

Friday morning, Jeremy left early to bike Mt Wilson. This was a challenging ride, a steep grade and a terribly, gravely route. Only 10 miles, but he got to the top – he declared it to be the slowest 10 miles ever. Because it was such a steep grade and he is careful – the way down was just as treacherous and slow. Nothing hurt the next day except for his shoulders.

I’m very much enjoying this trip, but there are tensions that need to be worked out as with all vacations, except the ones were you go on by yourself. Then you only argue with yourself, I guess. Jeremy had spent from about 5:30 am until 1:30 pm biking. This long trip was really based on the fact that Jeremy had a ton of vacation (I know, a very first world problem) that he needed to use up. So we hatched this plan where he was going to bike all over the US and we were going to see friends which has been great and I fully bought into the plan. But then he gets self conscious that maybe he’s taking too much time of the vacation for his own purposes. Remember – if he goes biking, I have Edda with me and, though we are good company for each other, it can be not exactly vacation. Then he wants to talk about my “goals” for the vacation and I really have none, except to keep him company, but then he gets anxious that we are only doing what he wants, etc. etc. But as he wants to talk about it more, I think about it more and get more grumpy about it, even though when he was on the actual bike ride, I was happily knitting, napping or reading a book. So then I have to make up some goals to balance out the vacation. So my made up goals are 1. to see the Barbie movie 2. to go buy some yarn 3. that he should take me out to get a beautiful pastry everyday 4. find a capybara to see, 5. to exercise everyday.

So we went to Century City Mall to buy a Rolex – nah. Just kidding. We bought a beautiful pastry that we split three ways.

It is a beautiful mall. Outdoor, but shady. High end and great people watching. We didn’t bring Elka, but we could have. I’m slowly realizing that dogs are semi-welcomed in stores – we see them everywhere. We played Pokemon Go. I bought a shirt from Zara marked down from $50 to $10.

We are grateful to Julia for sharing her space with us for this time. We are doing some minor house things. Jeremy cooks most nights. I’m enjoying pruning this lemon tree (it smells so great when I’m tucked inside the tree). Edda broke a toilet seat, so that needs repairing during the storm (the toilet is also leaking, which I’m looking forward to fixing).

Julia has a roommate – Victor who has developed a nice friendship with Elka. Elka spends her time in the outdoor courtyard space chasing all the squirrels who are bold enough to steal persimmons. And Elka enjoys eating the persimmons that fall to the ground.

On Saturday, we headed to Santa Monica where we went to a Mexican bakery and had a snack at 11 am. And we bought some yarn at a yarn shop.

We had lunch with Tasha and her family.

And walked to the Santa Monica pier – a beautiful day!

Then we went to Ace Hardware to buy a toilet seat. I was carrying the broken toilet seat and a woman in the parking lot laughed and said – the storm is coming and you are prepping by buying a new toilet! Fantastic! we drove by Jeremy’s old house and discovered that it was in the process of being torn down for a new development. But the tree that Katherine planted it still there in all its glory. Fingers crossed it gets to stay there!