Here and There Blog

It's never to soon to plan Thanksgiving! This year it's been settled - the family destination is Tahiti! I've cashed in hotel points to stay at the Intercontinental's on Mo'orea and Papeete and on the last two nights, I'm splurging on one of the over water bungalow  rooms that you see below! We'll be there the last week of storm season so I hope we get the beautiful weather just like the picture!

Bring on the weekend! It's another great weekend at home and I almost feel like I'm on summer vacation! Travel has had me out of town each summer for the last 3 years and it's nice to be around and enjoy it. Too bad there are no movies opening this weekend that I want to see. Transformers at almost 3 hours is too long to sit through! That gets saved for a long plane flight later this year. What to do this weekend? More yardwork! The palm trees are coming down in a week and that will hopefully motivate me to clean up the gopher-ruined ice plant.

For the upcoming London trip, I was able to get 3 of the 4 nights for free locked in months ago. There was one final night eluding me as it seemed like every hotel in London had free nights available except the one where I am staying at. For the last 3 weeks, I've stalked the hotel on Marriott.com several times a day waiting for the free night to open up and at last, this morning it was there! Keeping my fingers crossed as I've booked 2 rooms on points but still have to wait for the hotel confirmation to come in. Once that's here, I can cancel the paid night and enjoy the rewards of my work life on the road. After all, isn't the whole point of working on the road the payoff for free nights of vacation on the road?  And in London, the savings of hundreds of dollars!

I'm free. I don't know what of but the person that I was subpoena'd to testify against put in a guilty verdict and the trial was avoided. I'm sure it was for the good for all involved (and our tax dollars) and it's a relief not to have to deal with it all. Still, part of me is curious about the experience but I'm going for this is a one-shot deal in my life and it's over. Tuesday has been given back to me and I'm okay with that.

Saturday morning, 9:00 am. Fog is slowly lifting off the ocean water and bringing on the heat. In a few days I'll have to get there at 7:00 am to stay cool while exercising. Still, this has to be one of the emptiest beaches even in peak summer tourist time.

The eye is healing I guess. I'm starting to cut out the stitches as they get exposed. I'm not sure if the doctor is supposed to do that but the stitches are plastic-like and having them poke my eyelid is annoying. I tried pulling them out but got the ouch message loudly from part of my eyelid so they stay for now till the healing is done. I'm on to an even smaller bandage now so good news there. 3 weeks and counting now! I like being able to pre-book shore excursions online. It's sort of a pre-budget plan. It turns out the only place I'm doing ship tours is Ireland, the rest of the ports are all independent activities. Mr. & Mrs. OB are meeting us in Le Havre to go to Normandy. I'm not sure what this weekend will bring but I'm determined to get to Snooze restaurant in Hillcrest and finally try the pineapple upside-down pancakes! Each time I go the wait is over 1 hour so the goal on Sunday is to get there at 7 am when they open. Wish me luck!

One of the happy moments about going on a cruise is when the travel documents arrive. For my upcoming July vacation, I'm going on a cruise around the British Isles and according to my documents I'm in cabin 9034. That makes it real! Vacation! Food! Fun! Ports of call include stops in France, Scotland, Ireland, Wales and an overnight in Liverpool. A good mix of castles, beer and history! The hardest moment about having the travel documents - having to control the urge to go pack the suitcase right away!

While I still don't know why the car crash that I'm subpoena'd for is a criminal case, I do know that the court is trying to resolve the case before it goes to trial. I have June 24 set aside to testify (what I don't know, other than a truck was speeding and reckless driving, and then crashed, nearly taking out 4 or 5 other cars) but ultimately only damaging the truck. Very nice court clerk, she took down the all important dates of my July vacation when I won't be available should the case happen to change dates. And I don't have to hang out while they select a jury. On the eye front - it's either infected or it's healing. I'm going to go with healing but this is where it looks worse before it looks better stage. At least it doesn't itch anymore and the dry eye situation is improving.

Finally a day with nothing going on but normal boring work. No personal issues,  no new work strangeness, the universe let today be boring and that was fine with me. The eye is itching less (but still looks bad enough to keep it covered up) and nothing of any importance occurred. Breathing room! Who knew that boring could be so great? Thank-you universe!

If anyone remembers back in February, I put in a 911 call on the freeway for a truck that crashed into the center divide. Four months later, this was put on my front door this morning. My first ever (and hopefully last) subpoena! I always wondered what happened to that truck and driver and it looks like I'll get a chance to find out! I'm scheduled to show up in court on June 23, pending the case going all the way to trial.

I've lived near this lagoon for years and today was the first time it occurred to me to see if there were walking trails around it. Turns out, there are. The trail goes along the lagoon which is a protected tidal wetland. Plenty of bird watching for the birders. The trail is flat and leashed dogs are welcome which makes it a fun outing.  Looking across the lagoon. The pelicans were too far off to get a good picture.  A few flowers grow but the area is mostly full of salt water plants. I only walked a short portion of the trail. This will be one to come back to sometime.

Ventured out this morning with bandage back on and under the cover of the coastal fog. Turns out a side effect is bright light bothers my eye. It's similar to what happened after Lasik, except the eye wasn't involved. Hat and extra dark sunglasses and I was back in the exercise business. Now that the Del Mar Fair has started up, the I-5 is off limits on weekends unless I have a reason to get up early and head out. Luckily Carlsbad is not so popular and even in summer, the beach crowds are light most of the time.

Pain today. Light hurts my eye. Computer glare hurts and on top of that the nerves are coming back to life. And I had to pull off the bloody bandage and start the antibiotic swabbing process. Ew!

I slept for 12 hours thanks to the help of pain medication. I feel much better but the swelling is worse today so I'm starting the day with coffee and an ice pack  A little groggy from too much sleep but since I've been working and having not enough sleep for the past few weeks it's a good trade. My goal for today is to not go crazy with boredom since I can't do anything that could pop open the stitches. Have a great Tuesday!

I highly recommend sunscreen to everyone with a daily dose of Vitamin D to make up for the sun loss. This morning was the Mohs Surgery to remove the skin cancer from my eye area. From a small dot of a mole that looked nothing like the cancer causing mole photos, I ended up having skin removed from the tear duct to part of the eyelid. The seam of the eyelid! How does that even see enough sun to get cancer? First up - you get numbed. My dentist can tell you that this takes many attempts as my body processes through the numbing agents quickly. I dislike being numb and it takes many injections to get there. Injections right next to the eye and on the eyelid - not recommended! Ouch. Since the biopsy was a big chunk of the work, what remained was the rest of the mole and the cancer. I don't know how the cancer cells are mapped but the doctor was confident that there was nothing under my eye which was great news. After slicing off skin for about 45 minutes, I was sent to the waiti...