Well, I'm back from California as of today!

I flew out Dec. 17 and stayed with Ann at her condo in LA for most of the time. I did get up to Santa Barbara for a visit between Christmas and New Year's - a bad choice, as it turned out, because most of our retired friends were away with family elsewhere. I did attend Mom and Dad's old church, El Montecito Presbyterian and met with a warm welcome there from a surprising number of familiar folks.

I also got down to San Diego for a couple of days for New Year's Eve and New Year's Day, staying with Jeff Johnston and his wife Gaby. Jeff is the older brother of Cameron, Ann's husband, and an old childhood buddy from Aramco days. We had a memorable block party on their street, sort of a joint celebration that most of their houses were spared in the San Diego fires recently. The fire's effects were very visible on the hillsides on both sides of the street and in the creek bed behind many of them. They were literally islands of unburnt land in the middle of a huge burn area. A garage band named the Grateful Dads serenaded us from ... a garage, and we sat outside and listened or danced in surprisingly chilly night air till midnight reached the Pacific time zone.

I also made it a point to visit our reclusive and crotchety aunt Helen in Crestline up in the San Bernardino mountains east of Los Angeles. It, too, had been a fire zone and the entire road up the mountain side I passed huge tracts of burned trees and bushes. Helen's area, fortunately, had been spared, but she and the entire town had been evacuated for 10 days. Now the danger was mudslides from the lack of ground cover and the rain! If it's not one thing, it's another in Southern California! Dad had been pressuring her to move from her two-story mountain house to a retirement facility, but she's had a hard time making up her mind. Ann and I have finally decided the only way to get her to make the necessary move (for her physical and mental health) is to tell her we'll be putting the house on the market (Dad owned it) this summer and she has to find other more suitable accommodations. I didn't mention this to Helen when I was up there. I just wanted to see how she was and whether she was up to staying in the house for part of another year. Her memory has gotten very confused and spotty and she has contact with the outside only once a week when her Mountain Nursing nurse visits. It's always a stressful time being with her, especially as she is extremely argumentative and yet so incapable of decision making - even about what kind of Chinese take-out to order! Ann and I will be in more frequent touch with her leading up to the sale of the house and finding her a suitable accommdation.

Other than that, I visited a lot of old LA friends, went shopping for Christmas in the mall madness, and had some great meals out. I also highly recommend the last Lord of the Rings installment!

Class start up again January 20, so I have a few days to get ready for "the semester from hell" - teaching an ESL class as well as finishing my dissertation! Wish me luck!