Author Archives: Marci

Dad and Mom’s Visit to San Diego, Days 4-5

Posted in Animals, Day Trips, Friends and Family, Me Me Me!, Non-cats, Travel by

Like I said previously, my dad and stepmom timed their trip to San Diego perfectly. Just after the rainy season and before the heat, that is! It’s a perfect time to head out to the desert, so that’s what we did. We even took Teddy Bear, who loves the desert, but who does not like riding in cars because it makes him nervous (where are we going? the vet? the groomer? oh no…whine whine whine…). We made a big loop going north and east on 76 out to Anza Borrego Desert State Park, where we toured the visitor’s center and had lunch at Borrego Springs’ only Western BBQ / Chinese restaurant. I had sesame chicken, and the folks had burgers (I think). After that, we drove out to see the wildflowers, which were spectacular, north of town and then south in Little Surprise Canyon. Click HERE to see all of my desert pictures. We had to go back to town to pick up some guide books that I put down on a bench and forgot, but I was lucky that they were still there when I remembered about them. Either the people in Borrego Springs are nice honest people, or they have no interest in San Diego native plants and southwestern dragonflies. I think it’s probably the former. Anyway, we drove back through Julian on 78, stopping by the Julian Apple Pie Company for warm apple pie and ice cream. Yum!

To make things easy, I ordered a pizza for dinner, and we spent the evening chowing our pie and watching Aliens in a pooped-out daze. The next day, I had to take the parents to the airport, but we drove to Old Town San Diego (near the Presidio) for brunch at a really nice little Mexican place, El Fandango. I ordered the huevos rancheros, but I think Dad won with the chorizo. Fresh tortillas! Home-made salsa! Champagne! Dad asked for mimosas, but I don’t think the waiter understood, so he brought us a separate glass of fresh-squeezed oj, which mostly ended up spilled all over the table. Honestly, I can’t take these guys anywhere!

But really, I had a very good time and was so happy that Dad and Mom came to visit me. It was nice to spend one-on-one time with them, and I hope that we got to know each other a little more. I think they enjoyed their visit too, and returning home to flooding in St. Louis probably was not too fun, compared to the warm sunshine of SoCal. Man, I really am getting spoiled here, I guess.

Dad and Mom’s Visit to San Diego, Day 3

Posted in Animals, Cats, Day Trips, Friends and Family, Me Me Me!, Non-cats by

Now I LOVE the Wild Animal Park, located right here in Escondido. I even worked there for a summer as a guide. But I don’t think that I’ve ever seen so much of the park at one time as I did on this day. We went everywhere! The weather was great, and I had free admission tickets for everyone. It was the perfect time of year to go, too, because flowers were blooming and the butterflies and orchids exhibit, which shows only a few weeks of the year, was on display. We walked around Mombasa Lagoon, checked out the gorillas (which kind of freak me out – I’m not a big fan of primates), then saw the butterfly exhibit in the Hidden Jungle. Butterflies were everywhere! We were swarmed by rainbow lorikeets when we fed them nectar, and I got some really great pictures. We then hoofed it over to Lion Camp, where I got to see my old lion friends. It’s the best exhibit in the park, I think. That day, both moms (Mina and Oshana) and Dad (Izu), and all seven cubs were out. They were initially just snoozing (trying to make sure they fulfilled that 20 hours of sleep per day quota), but as we were waiting in line for the safari tram, Mina caught a duck that had decided to fly into the lion’s enclosure. So, I took about fifty pictures of the lions running around with the duck – it was really fun to watch (although I’m sure the duck didn’t enjoy it).

After the safari tram thing, we ate lunch and walked back up through the Heart of Africa, then walked out to the tiger and elephant exhibits. We made it up to Condor Ridge, which shows some of North America’s most interesting critters (although the burrowing owls were no longer on display – boo hoo), and even walked through the Baja botanical garden and Bonsai house. By then we were pretty beat! But we managed to drag ourselves over to the Petting Kraal and through the gift shop. When we got home, Dad grilled up some salmon on the miniature BBQ that they bought for me on Saturday – it was delicious. Mmmmmm.

Click HERE to see all the pictures from the Wild Animal Park, including the lions having fun with the duck (which won the 2008 waterfowl division Darwin Award).

Dad and Mom’s Visit to San Diego, Days 1-2

Posted in Day Trips, Friends and Family, Me Me Me!, Travel by

Wow – Mom and Dad came to visit me from St. Louis and we did SO MUCH that I have to break my blogging up into three parts! Plus, I’m staying home sick, so I have plenty of time to do so, but more about that later.

I picked up the folks on Saturday (March 15) and we had lunch at one of the best places to eat in Escondido, the French Bakery, downtown. It was tasty! After that, we went back to my apartment and just chatted for a while, which also included Teddy Bear barking his head off for about a half hour. They stayed at the Best Western, just down the road from where I live, and I was relieved to see that it was relatively nice (not charging by the hour was among my first criteria for selecting a hotel in the area, which ruled out a lot of places). Amazingly, we did not take any pictures this day!

Which brings me to day 2. Let the whirlwind begin…

We had plans to go to my cousin Beth’s (and her husband OB’s) house for lunch in Oceanside, so we decided to first drive out to Encinitas. We walked down to Swami’s beach memorial (just ask me about Finnish sisu), toured the Self Realization Fellowship’s Meditation Garden, and tried to find a flower shop that was open. During our ride over to Oceanside, my odometer passed the 150,000 mile mark! Woo hoo!!! Beth and OB served up some delicious fish tacos (a California favorite), and from there we went to Sea World. Mom and Dad got free tickets from a friend who works at Anheiser Busch, so that saved us a TON of money. We saw the Shamu show, checked out the bat rays, the penguin exhibit, and the Arctic Exploration exhibit, which is my favorite part of the park. Below are a few pictures, but click HERE to go to my picasa web album to see them all.

My first night outside since…???

Posted in Animals, Day Trips, Non-cats, Travel by

Last weekend Mark and I drove out to Anza Borrego Desert State Park, which is only about an hour and a half to the west. It was so nice out there! The weather was perfect, and getting out to the desert made me remember how much I miss it. When I was in grad school in Colorado, I usually went backpacking or camping in the Utah or New Mexico desert during spring break. Anza Borrego has spectacular wildflower blooms in the spring, but we were a few weeks early for the wildflowers. Everything was pretty green (as far as a desert can be), and we even got a rare glimpse of some desert bighorn sheep as we were driving through the mountains. We car-camped at the Tamarisk campground, which seemed to be sandwiched between two busy roads. It was fairly quiet though, except for the boy scout troop that was camped a couple sites down from ours (“Joel, get out of my sleeping bag!” and “My patrol, we’re washing all the dishes NOW!” were phrases heard several times).

Anyway, we just stayed the one night, but it was good because it has honestly been probably three or four years since I’ve spent the night outdoors. How sad. But I get to reset that clock; hopefully it won’t be too long until the next time!

Here are some pictures, but you can click on the photo album to the right to see more of my pictures of Anza Borrego.

Teddy Bear demonstrates Teddy Bear (the dog) and Teddy Bear (the cactus). We only lost one turkey burger to the campfire gods (and another to Teddy Bear).

I forgot that it gets sunny early when you sleep outside.

A nice view of the valley.

All that TV watching is finally paying off!

Posted in Entertainment, Humor, Movies and TV by

You guessed it – I’ve been chosen as a Nielsen family! Today I received my Nielsen Ratings TV Viewing Diary, and $30 cold hard cash. When they called to inform me of this honor, I thought I’d be getting a check for $30 or some form that I had to turn in with the diary in order to get $30, so you can imagine how surprised I was to see $30 in cash tucked in with my TV diary package. Woohoo!!! Thirty bucks to watch TV???!!! I have to track all my TV viewing for a week, starting this Thursday. I hope the TV diary has enough paper…

I know you are jealous.

New Year Update

Posted in Me Me Me!, Updates by

Happy New Year, everyone! I know it’s almost the end of January, but not a whole lot has been happening. I’m trying to get over a cold that I’ve had since before Christmas – it keeps flaring up every week or so and I have to take a day or two off work. I’m anticipating that my boss will call me in some point soon to ask me what’s going on, suspiciously inferring that I must be “faking it”. Unfortunately, my accrued sick leave is taking the brunt of my actions – my coworkers think it’s stress-related, and I tend to agree.

Zoe is doing well – she’s pretty stable, and has resigned herself to the fact that she must get pills shoved down her throat twice a day. She’s not gaining any weight, but she’s not losing any either. And, her last round of acupuncture went relatively well – she resembled more a pin cushion (and the vet resembled less a bloodied puncture-wound victim of feline fury) than her previous visit. I’m not sure the acupunture and herbs are doing her any good, but Zoe seems pretty content and happy for the time being.

I’ve mostly been trying to catch up on my scrapbooking – I’m finishing up 2005, which was a challenge because 1) 2005 pretty much sucked ass and who wants to revisit that; and 2) half my pictures were film, and half were digital. As I’ve previously mentioned, I’m doing all my scrapbooking digitally, so I’ve had to spend a fair amount of time scanning photos and other mementos during my lunch break. I’ve got a pretty good handle on Photoshop Elements now, so making pages is easier, but still time consuming. Anyway, it’s coming along.

That’s all for now – I finished watching Season 2 of The Office and am looking forward to seeing how the Pam and Jim cliffhanger turns out in Season 3. Okay, I’ll admit that I have a bit of a crush on Jim too – he’s a perfect match for Dwight’s evil Machiavelian (is that how you spell it?) tendencies, and he’s kinda cute, too.

Christmas in Camas

Posted in Animals, Cats, Friends and Family, Me Me Me!, Non-cats, Travel, Vacations by

I flew up to Portland for Christmas this year to spend the holiday with my mom, brother, and sister-in-law. I stayed with Mom, who lives in a really cute house in Camas, Washington. Camas is home to a huge Georgia Pacific paper factory, or as it appeared to me, a tree crematorium. Paul and Anne live across the river in Portland, and they came over to open presents Christmas morning. Lots of presents. I think I like giving presents better than receiving them, especially when I get to give presents to the fetus that is nestled in Anne’s tummy right now. I gave the fetus a black one-piece outfit that says “ABCD: for those about to read we salute you”. Awesome. It snowed a little on Christmas day, but was otherwise gray, dark, rainy and cold. Huh – who would have thought that winter in the Pacific Northwest could be so dreary? I enjoyed sitting on the couch by the fireplace during most of my visit, staying warm and dry. Here are some pictures to enjoy!

Christmas Eve – yup, that’s a pink tree, and “A Christmas Story” on the TV behind it.

A very bad picture of me, but clearly Mom’s cat (Leo) and I bonded during my visit.

Below, Bailey savors the remains of his stuffed turkey, destroyed and eviscerated within 15 minutes of presentation.

Everything’s turning up…PREGNANT!!!

Posted in Friends and Family, Me Me Me! by

My god, everyone is getting pregnant these days. I feel like some old freak, single, not wanting kids. That’s ok though – I’m perfectly fine being “Crazy Aunt Marci”. Here’s a list so far:

Cousin Beth and OB
Brother Paul and Anne
Friends Kristi and Adam

Yay, pregnant people! Anyone else I need to add to the list? Huh? Huh???

Festival of Lights

Posted in Friends and Family, Me Me Me! by

Can you believe I haven’t been to the Wild Animal Park in over a year? It’s true. But that all changed when Janet (from work) invited me and a few other girls to go see the park at dark, a.k.a. the Festival of Lights. Apparently, the wildfires of October destroyed a trailer that contained most of the lights, but they were able to cobble together a fairly decent display. It was really cool to see the lions and tigers I regularly visited while I was guiding for Roar and Snore in 2005; I got to see Delta’s three Sumatran tiger cubs, Izu at Lion Camp – all grown up, and Mbari in the big lion exhibit. I can’t believe how huge those lions have gotten!



Speaking of Teddy…

Posted in Animals, Non-cats by

Teddy Bear actually got in his new dog bed for about 30 seconds the other day. Miraculously, I had my camera in hand, so I snapped a few photos. Then he left the bed and Zoe took it over again. She loves it! Meanwhile, Jesse continues to enjoy his “donut”, which is about half the size of him. Somehow, he manages to squeeze himself into it and sleep. Weirdo. Anyway, last week Teddy went in to the vet to get his snaggle-tooth removed; it was hanging out of his mouth crooked and turning brown – yuck! I waited a while to see if it would fall out, and I even tried giving it a tug or two, but I got grossed out and decided to let the vet handle it. Plus, I’m sure that it didn’t feel so good for Teddy. They removed the tooth, and two more fell out when they were cleaning his teeth – poor geriatric puppy! The vet said that a lot of his larger molars had been shattered somehow, maybe by chewing bones or other hard things when he was younger. Yuck! But now, his teeth are all taken care of and I can’t even smell his breath. Amazing!