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
Our new landscaping next door is settling in, Ondine is getting used to the desert-like look, and various neighbors and passers by have complimented it. We’ve already noticed the lemon tree is much happier now that it’s on a timed drip irrigation system. Roy and Danielle went on a trip to Arizona, and brought back a couple metal cacti sculptures that fit right in.
The big news next door is that there’s at last a renter for one of the rooms! His name is Dalton, and he’s a friend of someone from judo. He’s only staying a month or two while he looks for a place closer to north county, so it’s the perfect first renter situation for us.
Meanwhile, starting this week a city contractor will be digging and installing new sewer laterals and cleanouts to all the houses on the block. The signboards just went up on our side of the street, which means no parking; presumably they’re going to do our side first. We moved Leo’s car to the other side of the street.
We had the first rain of the forecast Super El Niño this weekend! It rained sporadically but at times quite heavily, and we heard thunder and saw lightning on the horizon. What a relief from the heat dome we had over the past couple weeks, with temps over 100, also part of the Super El Niño system. John was out in that heat working for the last two weeks, but this Monday his work was canceled due to rain. Later this week, the temps are forecast to be back up in the mid 90s.
Leo got a single bedroom in a different shared apartment at UCSD! He was sharing a bedroom with two other people, in a shared unit with two other bedrooms for a total of nine people in the unit. Now, he’s in a shared unit with six separate bedrooms for six people. What’s more, his new room is at the newly built Pepper Canyon West, some of the construction of which John monitored! Leo’s unit is on the 19th floor of the Vela building. Saturday, we helped Leo move out of his old unit and into his new one.
The rooms don’t have air conditioning, but the huge study area on the ground floor does, and he’ll have a gym right in the building. This building is much closer to the mass transit options – the trolley is right across the green – plus parking is much further away, so Leo decided against having his car for now.
We bought him a compact folding bike, a blue Dahon Stowaway, which John found online and took took to Mission Trails Bikes to have tuned up and put into perfect working order. Folded down, it actually fits into the trunk of the Prius C! The Giro bike helmet (also blue) John ordered was delayed in shipment, but finally arrived Sunday. Leo thinks the bike will come in very handy, plus, it’s so small, he can store it in his room!
Afterwards, we went to Marugame Udon at UTC. That's John's Nikutama Curry udon; Ondine had the
Ginger Clam udon, and Leo had the Shrimp BK udon, plus we added some gyoza, fresh vegetables, and a few pieces of
sweet potato tempura. It was delicious!
Our kitchen remodeling project is moving forward; we made the initial two payments. So now the cabinets and countertops will be ordered, along with the flooring. It’s a big project, because it not only includes the kitchen, but also the dining area and the space Ondine has been using as her office.
Also, our Hadrian’s Wall walk is booked for next May! This will be our second coast-to-coast walk across England, this time only about half the distance. We’re thinking about extending our stay at the front end with a stay at Whitby, and at the back end with a stay in Edinburgh and the Cairngorms in Scotland.
Bookwise, Ondine finished Rebecca (1938) by Daphne DuMaurier, and is now reading House of Mirth (1905) by Edith Wharton, one of John’s favorite books. John is working his way through the Rabbit Angstrom tetralogy by John Updike. He was reading the first book in the series, Rabbit, Run (1960), on our summer trip to Germany and England, and replaced his ratty copy with a much nicer edition bought as a souvenir at Blackwell’s Books in Oxford. He’s now on the third book in the series, Rabbit is Rich (1981), which won the Pulitzer and the National Book Award for fiction. John is also continuing to read short ghost stories, and also writing them. It’s getting to be ghost story season!
Neighborhood gas prices range from $5.99 to $6.39 per gallon of regular unleaded.
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