The Weekend in Review

Well, really it's just Saturday in review because that wiped me out so much that I did NOTHING on Sunday.

I mentioned, of course, about going to the bead show, but what I didn't talk about was that Saturday was also the one year anniversary of my Dad's passing. So, I did the bead show in the morning and then we had a family trek to a couple of his favorite places and a little memorial ceremony and then dinner. The kid and I were WIPED when we got home. Kid actually ASKED to be put to bed - which, like, NEVER happens.

I'm going to talk about the day in a bit of a reverse order because the memorial part was a little sad and I want to end on a good note soooo...

We all met up at my brother's house in Irvine and caravaned down to The Wedge - Dad's favorite surfing spot. Although the water was too cold to go in and that spot is too treacherous for the kids, anyway, the weather was gorgeous. The beach there has a very steep slope - which is part of what makes it great for body surfing, but the waves can be unpredictable (we didn't even go in and we still got soaked by a "surprise" wave) and there are rip tides as well. One thing about Dad - he was pretty fearless (I know where the kid gets it from) and never paid any attention to all of that. He'd go in even when the conditions were "red flag."

Anyway, it was a great place to go to talk about and remember him, even if the wind was blowing a little too strongly to allow us to do the ceremony we wanted to do. But, right as we got ready to leave, a HUGE set of waves rolled in (even though the rest of the day had been pretty calm) and right after that, an entire pod of dolphins swam by. I knew Dad was there - lookin' for that outside wave...

Next, we drove just a bit down PCH and walked out on the Balboa Pier. Mom had brought a bag of rose petals from Dad's roses in the garden and we wanted to toss them in the water - after the conditions weren't quite right at the Wedge, the pier seemed like the next best option. Each of us, including the kids, took a handful of petals and scattered them on the water with a quick messge to Dad. The bright pinks and reds looked beautiful floating away on the waves.







Here's the kid - checkin' out the view. This picture looks north up the coast towards the Newport Pier.

Lots of fishermen out on the pier - it was a great day for mackerel. I saw several people pull up lines with 3-4 fish on each line. No wonder the sea lions and dolphins were all hanging around, too! It was "all you can eat" at the mackerel buffet.







This WAS supposed to be a cool shot of a sea lion popping up, but he was too fast for me. Faster even than the speedboat in the background.

The other thing the pier is famous for is the Ruby's Diner that's out at the ver end.

50's style burgers, fries and fountain drinks. Dad loved to order Cherry Coke. But not the can kind. Only the real deal from a fountain made with cherry syrup and a maraschino cherry floating in it. He had a special way of ordering it, too. "Easy ice, easy cherry." It was some kind of private joke (I'm guessing it was from his Navy days and that it was off-color) because he always grinned or laughed when he said it, but he'd never explain the joke. He often fell in love with certain lines from movies or strange things he'd heard people say that he thought were funny but that no one else got.

A couple of his more-frequently-repeated ones were:

"I was misinformed" from "Casablanca." My brother even got him a t-shirt with that saying on it for Christmas one year.

and

"I am a river to my people" from "Laurence of Arabia." This was usually announced loudly whenever he thought he'd really accomplished something great - like getting a particularly good parking place or a great table at dinner.

But I think my favorite one of all time was "Even though the moon is smaller, it's still farther away." Because I never knew where it came from or what it meant and he would never explain it, but he thought it was incredibly funny. I SUSPECT somebody at San Onofre said it and made themselves look particularly stupid in the process and that's why Dad kept it around all those years, but we'll never know for sure.

This is a last shot of the beach - looking south towards the jetty (which is where The Wedge is located) and beyond to Corona del Mar.

Part II of this post - including the pics from the show - coming shortly.

KJ