So Kate and I went to a movie, American Teens, and when we returned we found on the underside of the bed loft. It is a House Centipede - Scutigera coleoptrata, and according to the online guide they are great to have around the house because they eat loads of other bugs, but…”because of their alarming appearance, frightening speed, and painful bite, few homeowners are willing to share a home with them.” Duh! Anyway as you go to sleep tonight just remember there are things like this crawling around trying to steal your freedoms.
So a few days ago when Kate was at class I decided to take a little walk to the San Diego River park by our house to see what I could see. On the way, before I could make it very far, I came across all these wonderful creatures. In fact when I finally made it to the San Diego River park the only thing I found was a littered bag Carol’s Jr. bag being eaten by ants. Anyway enjoy the pictures.
And the shot of the day was this humming bird that was feeding in the bushes as I took pictures of the Black and Yellow Garden spider.
So Kate just started here law school orrientation so I’ve been left at home to fend for myself. Lucky I do most the cooking otherwise I’d starve without her. Actually I’ve been job hunting these last few days and have had some promissing leads. The only problem with moving to a new location without a job is that it takes about a month to find anything and by that time rent is due and you won’t see a pay check for another two weeks. Currently I am waiting outside making calls as Kate interviews for a refugee case manager position. I think she will really like working with refugees again. That’s about all I have as far as updates so far. Some nice pics of San Diego to come.
In an effort to make our little apartment seem bigger we hatched a plan (with the help of my dad, who is always involved in all insane schemes) to build a loft bed. This loft bed project turned out to be quite the undertaking and in the end grew to be an 8 foot high loft of wonder. Despite the fact that this mattress tower of Babel is so lofty (ha), we have slept in it for two nights & have not sustained any major injuries so we think it is not likely to be detrimental to our health. We’ll see how the landlord likes it when he discovers it.
Afterwards, we decided that one great surprise wasn’t enough for our landlord… and painted the front room a nice “Lime Green.” That is the actual color name. It is quite splendid. And now we have a green room. It will help cheer up those cold winter… oh wait, we live in southern California. There are no cold winters. Huzzah!
That’s right. I faced my biggest actual fear today in Tijuana. We went with Spectrum Ministries to do a “bathhouse ministry” today in the La Bola neighborhood of Tijuana. We went to give showers, clothes & shoes to about 200 kids. Despite my mortal fear of body bugs, I took the job of lice remover. All the children were marked with bracelets upon entry into the makeshift bathhouse. White for “no lice,” Green for “some lice,” and Red for “rampant infestation.” I got all the little gals with Red bracelets & combed through their hair with a lice comb after they had been treated with a special shampoo, getting out as many of the troublesome creatures as possible.
Recently I red The Hummingbird’s Daughter by Luis Urrea. (Who also wrote a book about his time volunteering for Spectrum Ministries, which is how I found out about the organization.) In the book one of the characters steps back in horror from a little boy with lice & proclaims it it “disgusting.” The protagonist, a saint, then declares, “No, letting an orphan suffer is disgusting.” Today I got over my gag reflex & for a moment felt that same feeling.
Yep, that’s right folks this is a picture of us on a ride at…Disneyland. We were there from 9am to 12pm on Saturday. Why? Our friends the Hasans came to visit us from Salt Lake & it is extremely difficult to convince a family of 7 from Iraq with small children that Disneyland is not all it’s cracked up to be (believe me, we tried). So… after about 2 hours of diplomatic wrangling, we ended up conceding to go to Disneyland.
All things considered it was a pleasurable experience. We will put up more pictures when we get the internet. (Yeah, I know I can’t believe we have had time to go to Disneyland, but not to get the Internet installed. Where are our priorities??)
Kate and I pulled into our new apartment around 1 this afternoon. After a quick unload of the car I was off to find food while we waited for the landlord to come over for the lease signing and the key handover. The lease signing was painless and the manager, Dave, told Kate she could paint an accent wall (now Kate’s #1 priority). We did some important work (signed up for the Internet) and went to Ikea for some dishware and closet ideas. Now we are in the basement of the University of San Diego’s student center mooching Internet. I am really excited for this move. I think California is just what the doctor order and I think we are going to have some great opportunities…i.e. a bike path leads straight from our apartment to Ocean Beach!
We had an excellent good bye party with many great & dear friends & excellent presents from my dad (see above). We had some stellar veggie burgers that we learned how to make on Guy’s Fieri’s show on the food network (due to my mom’s obsession with said network). Here’s the recipe if you want delicious hearty veggie burgers!
After the fiesta we had a lawn campout!
Adieu Utah! Tomorrow we are on to California!
