San Diego

We came back to the States knowing it would be but a temporary jaunt into the Fatherland, just long enough to see some family, chide our friends for not reading our blogs, and renew our passports. We'd actually planned on just spending about a month in San Diego but, once that sweet, So Cal summer air hit our dangerously-exposed-to-H1N1 skins, we knew that a month just wouldn't be enough.

So we got some jobs. Well, sort of. For part of the time. Within our first week back, we both interviewed for temp jobs with AppleOne, America's least effective temp agency. After an hour and a half of pre-interview tasks, I breezed through my interview in about 3 minutes, only to find that another 2 hours of post-interview aptitude tests awaited me. Kate had a very similar reception, though I believe she got about 10 minutes on her interview. Not to mention a few days of paid work at the San Diego Comic Con. Indeed, Kate even managed to sneak me in for a few hours and I got to wander around amongst the most awkward people in the entire world. It was awesome. The costumes were amazing and there were some crazy toys in there, like the Mindflex game where you control a little ball using only the power of your MIND. We also got some cool free schwag, like a Live Long and Prosper giant foam hand. So not a bad job, though AppleOne didn't really come through for either Kate nor I again.

Despite my apparent lack of personableness, however, I did manage to secure a more interesting, rewarding, and steady job than Kate - through my mom. For those of you who don't know, my mom - who you may remember from Egypt or Peru - is a speech and language pathologist who works with special needs kids at Patrick Henry High School in addition to running the local branch of Circle of Friends, a social skills program for teens and young adults with disabilities. Through this (admittedly biased) connection, I was introduced to one of her former students, Will Hammer, and his mother, Liz, who hired me as Will's aide for a summer school course. I took notes, helped Will study, and drove him to and from a music appreciation class at Grossmont College. Solid professor, interesting class, and good to meet and befriend Will.

But if you think work was all we did over the summer, you obviously weren't in San Diego. I don't even know how to sum up the intense chilling that was going down through those few short months. Lots of Risk: The Game of World Domination™ was played, beaches were conquered, bands of friends from both San Diego and Los Angeles were seen, kickball was oft-repeated, FIFA 09 was learned, IRONMAN was amazing, and burritos were devoured. Suffice to say, it was largely all our old friends who made it such an awesome summer, so I'll just take a moment to recognize (in alphabetical order) Allison, Asher, Avi, Brian, Denise, Derek, Elliot, Gabe, Gabriel, Ilan, Keith, Lannice, Lauren, Mike P, Mike K, Morty, Nate, Nissa, Richard, Rosanna, Sam C, Sam K, Sean, Tony, and the others I've forgotten. I even reconnected with an old friend of mine from high school, Derek Pickern, who now has a two year old daughter. So weird for me.

And that's just San Diego. We also made it up north for a weekend in the Bay Area to go to the wedding of a friend of mine from film school by the name of Elaine. The wedding invite called for semi-formal attire, Art Deco encouraged. So Kate and I spent some time trying to figure out what to wear, settling on a three piece suit for myself and a cocktail dress with shoe clips and a feathered hat for her. Another film school friend, Elliot, and his girlfriend, Catherine, also went for the retro look… but we were pretty much the only four. Indeed, most of the attendants were in what could be described as business casual, with an emphasis on the casual. Probably smart, given that it was about 104 degrees outside, but definitely not particularly snazzy. Consequently, the four of us were in about 80% of the wedding photos, with Kate's hat even being borrowed to provide a backdrop for the rings photo. Definitely good to meet up with the old filmies, including Regina and Taneisha, again...

Now the wedding was in San Jose but we stayed with my sister Laurel in Berkeley and hung out with her and her boyfriend, Marcelo, for a night and a day, grabbing some tasty Mediterranean food and hitting up a farmer's market before the wedding. The day after, we met up with my old friend Brian and went to Thai brunch at a Thai Buddhist temple. So delicious - you just eat wherever you want in the neighborhood and wash it down with some Thai iced tea and some mango and sticky rice for dessert. Then you wash all that down with some beer while watching the US valiantly try to defeat Brazil but eventually losing pretty horribly in the Confederations Cup final.

It was good to see the sis and we also got to see some family a bit more locally with a few visits to see the grandparents, including a few milestones. My grandfather Sidney, aka Pop-Pop, turned 94, my grandmother Charlotte turned 91, and Pop-Pop and Granny (Sylvia) celebrated their 69th wedding anniversary. We also got some tips on Vietnam from my traveling aunt Marsha and discussed Entourage and The Hills with my uncle Al. My mom's other sister, Neetie, came out for a weekend so we got to catch up with her, as well as see my mom's cousin Margie right before we left. Oh, and we spent a lot of time with my parents, though I'm sure they'd tell you otherwise.

One thing they can't deny is that we ransacked their garage to help them sort through the mountains of stuff that have to disappear if they're going to get a couple cars in the garage. Some of that stuff is ours that we're storing… but most of it is their's that's just, well, there. But not nearly as much of it is there now as before we hit town, thanks to effective persuasive methods learned from Rosanna. We were able to get it rid of it partly by introducing the 'rents to the wonders of craigslist… but mostly by the fact that they already knew about the wonders of the Salvation Army.

So much more. Sushi nights, 5 foot snakes in the backyard, two Padres games, concerts, a trip to the World Famous San Diego Zoo, IMAX adventures, movies watched, and bars sampled (especially the Triple Crown Pub, which I can whole-heartedly recommend to anyone who likes bar games and good times). Somehow, despite our 12 weeks in San Diego - by far the longest we've spent in any one place in the past 2 years - the summer came to a conclusion before we'd even realized what had happened. We still managed to forget to do so many things and scrambled together in the last few days to put everything together for our bid to become certified English teachers. But get it together we did and we bid San Diego, the US, and all therein adieu as we boarded the plane that fateful Wednesday morning in September and set out for the next adventure: Vietnam.