San Diego Made Me Sick! And Shamu Loves Kenny G

It did, literally. And now I’ve had a nasty cold since Monday. If anybody knows of any good remedies, please share.

We spent the weekend in scenic San Diego with some friends and their now 3-year old daughter, or as my daughter likes to call her “NO! My friend!” She's in this “No - My” stage right now that I'm finding difficult to break. Everything is hers, “No! My Daddy!”, “No! My Car!”, “No! My Princess!”, “No! My *insert pretty much anything*”.

On Saturday we were at the San Diego Wild Animal Park. We haven’t been there in about 9-10 years and the place doesn’t look any different - it’s still big, and has a valley full of “wild” animals that have been living in captivity for nearly 40 years. The only part that changed is that they now charge extra for everything in addition to the entry price. So you pretty much pay admission just to use the sidewalks.
My favorite area in the park was this HUGE Slush Puppy wagon near the Lions - I loved these Slushies growing up. I found them to be far superior to 7-11's Slurpees.
Anyhow, after I bought my $6 cup (inflation?) and filled it, the nearby Lions were all staring at me like I suddenly turned into a huge turkey leg. My daughter picked up on it and told them “No! My Slush Puppy!”
And then she experienced her first brain freeze near the African elephants trying to quickly drink about 1 gallon of melting slushy - by the way - trying to explain a brain freeze to a 2-year old is extremely challenging. I stopped trying when everybody around us was talking about this one elephant who was really excited and was dragging ‘it’ on the ground as he walked.

The next day we paid a visit to Sea World. Sea World was much better as the shows and rides were included with the price of admission – how old fashion but very convenient of them. And what made it even better was that none animals were dragging anything around.
As we walked around throughout the day I couldn’t help but to notice Kenny G playing the entire time. It was like somebody left the CD on repeat all day. Later, when I was asking a Hostess where the local Slush Puppy wagon was, I also asked about the Kenny G. She told me (jokingly) that all of San Diego loves him.

Then my daughter said “No! My Kenny G!”

The Art Of Christmas Shopping Procrastination: Don’t Think About It And It’ll Go Away!

So what did you do over the weekend? Perhaps you, like millions of others, did some Christmas shopping? What did “I” (and family) do you might ask? Well, surely not Christmas shop. We did what the French do best - just ignored it and did something fun (minus the cigarettes). We went to San Diego. There sure is nothing like 78-degree, cloudless, sunny weather that gets you into the “Christmas Spirit” (I even had Hot Chocolate with marshmallows- you can’t get more “Christmas” than that!) Although I can’t honestly say the weather was that good all the time; it did get down to 50-degrees at night (Brrrrr! – practically snow weather.)

We haven’t been down to San Diego in about 4 years, and we heard about this event they have called “Christmas at the Prado” (which was renamed “December Nights”) up at their Balboa Park area. We had a good time, Balboa Park is an absolutely amazing place – it looks like a piece of Spain landed in the area. Ornate Moorish/Spanish Renaissance architecture with towers, manicured gardens, great city views, and enough museums to make any 16-month old scream from boredom. Add Christmas lights and about 4 million people there that night (well, not 4, maybe ‘3.4’) and you have quite a bash.

The best part was walking past the (lonely) Atheist Coalition booth that had a bunch of creeping looking, sour-faced hippies working it and then about 100 feet up the way was some crazy over-the-top Jesus freaks wearing t-shirts and holding signs like “Repent!” When I passed the dude with the sign, I told him that he should talk to the dudes down at the booth - they needed Jesus (I would have liked to have seen that conversation...)

One thing I really like about San Diego which is much different than L.A. -- the people -- they're much friendly there. Total strangers will just chat with you as if they’ve known you for a while. You don’t get that in L.A. unless you know them somehow (or you just had a fender-bender or sell crack).
Or it could be the fact that if you have a kid (or a dog) people deem you as “approachable”.

What about all of you? Does having a young kid (or dog) make it easier for strangers to talk with you?