Big Sur

I recently had to turn in my computer, so it's put a real kink in my blogging...but I'm using one of Walt's, so maybe I'll get back on the bandwagon. We just got back from three days in Big Sur; it's my last hurrah before starting work again. We rented a big house and invited my dad plus some other friends, and it was really lovely. The weather was just perfect, and Devon had a fabulous time running through the house and playing with Billy, our friends' Sharky and Naomi's son. Walt and I also slipped away for a delightful massage and hot tub soak at Esalen. It was divine. Walt got a masseuse who actually stood on his back at one point during the massage and gave him some kind of pressure point treatment that caused "electric" feelings down his spine. He said it was the best massage he had gotten in his life.

We spent a lot of time at the house we rented, since it was fairly large and had a nice deck and Japanese soaking tub (Walt's so enamored of it that he's been researching them online -- clearly not something that we could install in the current setup, though). One of the days we did go down to Pfeiffer Beach, but it was incredibly windy. As Walt mentioned, we got some great dermabrasion for free; Devon still enjoyed herself, even though she took to wearing a towel on her head part of the time to sheild herself from the blowing sand. I was sorry about the weather, because Pfeiffer is a truly beautful beach, and I'm sure it's glorious when the weather is better.

I realized that I've really grown soft since we moved into this apartment and gotten modern luxuries like a dishwasher and garbage disposal. The house we rented, which billed itself as having a "luxury kitchen," had no dishwasher; I must have washed at least 5 rounds of dishes. I was really starting to get crabby about all of the dishwashing (having grown accustomed to just throwing stuff in our dishwasher -- no rinsing required). I'll have to read the fine print in the future...

We went to the Monterey Aquarium on the way out of Big Sur, and Devon had a good time. We had gone once before, but she was quite young and didn't remember a thing. This time she was much more cognizant of her surroundings, which made it a lot more fun. She was especially taken with the jellyfish exhibit (which, admittedly, is fabulous). Walt took some excellent movies of them, which I'll try to post. The only bad thing is that the "splash zone" section, which is especially designed for children, is closed for remodeling. When I read it on the web site, for some reason I thought it was something else (something to do with penguins, don't ask why), so I didn't realize that we wouldn't have a special kiddie zone. I think we would have had a much longer visit with the kiddie area; a two-year-old can only take so much of staring in tanks without any real interactivity. Walt and I really enjoyed it, though, since many of the exhibits are really more appealing to adults than to small children.

I think Devon is going to have a lot of trouble when I start working again. She's really gotten used to having both of us around, and she's really going through a clingy mommy phase. When we drop her off at Elaine's now, she screams bloody murder when we leave (although Elaine has been on vacation for 3 weeks, leaving Shauna in charge, so I think things might be slightly better when Elaine returns). We actually have to get Shauna to hold her (screaming) so we can get out of the door. We still don't have a preschool for her, which is also part of the problem; all of her friends from Elaine's have gone off to preschool, so she's now the oldest one there. Walt's convinced she's not getting enough stimulation (which is very likely true), and the preschool scene in SF continues to be a hideous one of applications and groveling. Ugh. We're hoping that we can find a class to enroll her in so she'll get some additional interaction outside of Elaine's. We need to find something other than the current situation.