Us, May 10, 2026: John, Leo, Ondine, Roy, with Shadow pasted in from May 24, lol
Us, May 10, 2026: John, Leo, Ondine, Roy, with Shadow pasted in from May 24, lol
We have, as usual, been too busy to post a journal. But here are the highlights from September!
We went to see a play at Lamplighter’s Theatre: Calendar Girls by Tim Firth. It was great!
Leo is now off to UCSD! Last weekend he moved to his dorm room/apartment, which has three people per bedroom, multiple bedrooms, and a shared kitchen and common area. It’s different than the other shared housing situations he was in, in L.A., more intimate. Plus, he misses the autonomy of having a car, which means he can’t visit his friends or go off-campus to study, which was one of his favorite things to do. We’re shopping for a bike, which will allow him to park his car in the neighborhoods farther off-campus. We also got a cat shield installed on the car to make it harder to steal the catalytic converter while it’s parked on the street.
Anyways, classes at UCSD started late last week. He said it’s been hectic, with various orientation activities planned plus getting to know his roommates plus classes starting. UCSD is on the quarter system, so classes are intense.
Before Leo left, we all went to dinner to celebrate the send-off at Ultra Menya Ramen. Here's all of
us, then Ondine and Danielle, then John, Roy, and Leo.
We got our flu shots! Ondine felt a little off afterward, which is unusual for her, and John just felt a
bit achy, which is typical for him. And, Shadow also had his vaccines brought up to date, including the
rattlesnake vax. He really doesn’t like going to the vet.
We got the front yard next door landscaped! It was looking ragged and no one has time for
gardening, so Ondine got two proposals and ended up hiring the same person who landscaped Ray and
Joyce’s back yard across the street. The design has native and drought-tolerant plants with rounded
leaves, a couple mounds to give it texture, and a curvy river rock swale. It also incorporates the
existing fruit trees and grape vine, and the rasied beds were moved to the side. And, it has an automatic
drip irrigation system, so the whole thing should be pretty care-free. The front looks great, although
Ondine preferred the look of the loamy, dark soil before they laid down the light tan dg. The dg is
necessary, though, otherwise the Super El Nino we’re supposed to get this winter could wash it all away!
We are also apace to have our kitchen remodeled. We've chosen our contractor (Cabinet Expo, a recommendation from John's art director friend Jose), and our cabinets, countertops, and flooring. We’re very excited! Our kitchen right now is the original from 1972, with the laminate flooring we installed ourselves in 2002, nearly 25 years ago!
More upcoming trips! Our hopes to reprise the Coast to Coast late next spring were dashed because it’s sold out for anything close to the time we wanted! We want to make sure we avoid the heat dome predicted for Europe next summer; we had enough of heat domes this year in Germany and England! So, we decided to do a different coast-to-coast walk, this time following Hadrian’s Wall! That one seemed to be more available, so we’ve paid our deposit to Mickeldore, the company that arranged the Coast to Coast for us, and things are being booked!
By way of preparation, John’s new backpack arrived, a blue Rab Airox 30. It seems perfect, and he likes it a lot better than the Gregory Zulu 30 he took on the Coast to Coast. He’s looking forward to taking the Airox on a shakedown cruise as soon as the weather cools down (we had another heatwave, with temps in the shade on our patio just this last weekend hitting over 100 degrees).
Our trip to Mexico is also booked for next February.
John is also preparing for the predicted Super El Nino by getting new tires and wipers on his car. We’re preparing for both extremes of weather in 2027!
Neighborhood gas prices range from $5.99 to $6.59 per gallon of regular unleaded.
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