In Olde Monterey
10:08 a.m. - 2004-08-08


We went on a three-hour drive to Monterey yesterday to visit the aquarium. I did not think the giant kelp tank is at all what it used to be back when the school of sardines used to swim round and round in flashes of silver. Now it looks kind of dark and dingy, but on the other hand, the jelly fish were great. People are amazing in their lack of common politeness, though. You have to pay almost $20 admission each, so you should be able to see the exhibits, and setting up a camera tripod and hogging all the space (not a professional photog either) or sticking your huge video camera into the display window and turning on a bright spot light (all the exhibits are in dark rooms) blinding all the kids and people trying to look in, well, some people are of another species. So, while I enjoyed it, I have a lingering urge to kick certain people. Good thing I don't know who they are.

It was foggy and cool in Monterey, and after the aquarium we went to a very nice yarn shop in Pacific Grove. I got some patterns and Melissa bought a cool ball of flappy yarn. Even Abby bought something, a book on baby afghans, since she is trying her hand at crochet. We ate lunch on the fisherman's wharf, walking all the way down to the end to a place called, I think, Rappa's or something like that. All along the way, guys were standing in the door of restaurants handing out free samples of clam chowder, so I tried them all. At the restaurant I had fish and chips and it was excellent. I tried his cajun snapper, and while good, I don't think I would like a whole plate of it.

We drove home through Castroville and fields of artichokes and strawberries, and it got steadily hotter inland. The temperature in the house was over ninety. I would assume it was very very hot here while we were gone, but after a night of the AC going full blast, it is nice inside again. Abby and her dad left this morning for the new college year, so I dropped them off at the airport and drove home with the sun right in my eyes. Melissa is off to church, but I am tired from getting up at the crack of dawn to drive to the airport, so I am cleaning house and setting the kitchen up until she comes back. We are going to do clay today, so I had to set up the clay oven and find my paint. My clean up of the sewing room is beginning to bear fruit, because my paint was right there in a nice clear container(s).

Work is going to suck royally for the next three days, as they want me to renew my skills (!) such as they think they are, on the recording desk, the job I hate the most in all the world. If they told me I would have to go clean the men's room, I would like it better. OK, done whining.