Rain and Stuff

Are you tired of these weather reports?  I promise to talk about something else today, but first -- the weather!

It really rained again yesterday - most of the afternoon until late into the night (well, early morning).  You'd think I'd spent a great deal of my life in southern California the way I get enthused about rain.  Oh, I did!

Most of the thunder and lightning was off in the distance last night, so I suppose another area got even more rain, but it was fine here.  Rain in our little town tends to simply fall from the sky.  No big winds to force the rain to strike at an angle - just straight down.  And down it came last night.  It does make it handy for leaving your windows open - without the winds to drive it into the house, we can enjoy the sound of the rain falling and the cool temperatures that accompany it.

We're only up to a little over an inch this month, but there's more predicted for the next few days - if the BBC Weather site is to be believed.  We sure can use the water; our main presa is way low.  It's going to take a lot of rain to raise it up to something approximating normal.  We've heard that there has been some water rationing in other parts of town. Luckily, the section in which we live - La Lejona - has its own water supply wells, so we've not had a problem thus far.  And all our houses have tinacos on their roofs, which hold a supply of water and provide water pressure to the house.  Once the water comes back on, they automatically refill, using a float valve like that in a toilet tank.  Our house also has a big cistern under the parking area - full of water - but without a functioning pump and valve to haul it up to the tinaco.  I suppose we should look into that some day.  Just in case....

But on to other things.  Cruising, for instance.  What else do we do?  And a suitable subject from a place many miles from the nearest ocean and about a mile-and-a-quarter above it, eh?

We had a Panama Canal cruise preceded by a short Caribbean cruise that included a stop in Key West scheduled for next May on Disney, of course.  As we looked at just how much money we needed to amass by the due date we began to reconsider.

So there was a deal on Norwegian on a ship we had previously sailed, the Star.  Not one of their newest, hugest ships, but one that we liked when we sailed on her back in 2005.    We're waiting to hear back from our travel agent re: what cabin she's managed to reserve for us and the total cost.  We're hoping for an aft balcony (always wanted to sail looking at where we've been) or a mini-suite (that aft balcony cabin is still no larger than any other balcony cabin; the mini-suite is about 60 square feet larger and it's less expensive than the aft balcony.)  It would be nice to see both sides of the Panama Canal at the same time from the aft balcony, but I won't complain if we are 'forced' to take the mini-suite.  It's a tough call, but I'm sure we'll be happy with whatever she can come up with.  And it doesn't sail until January 2014, so there's more time to afford it!

In the meanwhile, we've just booked a flight to San Diego (well, actually Tijuana) at a greatly reduced rate for next May, so we'll still be traveling somewhere.  We think Billy Elliot will be playing in San Diego and hope to get tickets for that show.  We were just in San Diego via Tijuana a couple of weeks ago for a performance of Wicked!  Love that show.  And on the trip we discovered that instead of crossing into San Diego at San Ysidro - where we waited for hours on our last trip - we could go to nearby Otay Mesa and cross almost immediately.  There were agents waiting for customers.  Now, the Red Car Trolley doesn't go as far as Otay Mesa, but Paula and Tim now know how to get there to pick us up.

We did a lot of shopping while we were in town: Target, Ross, and of course, IKEA!  However, we did leave some things un-purchased, and we tend to order items on line and have them delivered to Paula and Tim's, figuring that we'll eventually pick them up.  They're very kind to accommodate us.  So we booked some extra baggage weight for the return trip to accommodate all the possible 'stuff' with which we may return.

Otherwise, life continues apace here in San Miguel.  We'll be in Santa Fe, New Mexico for the opera season mid-August and there's still the Disney Hawai'ian cruise in mid-October (how could we ever give up on Disney???).  So travel we must.  We've just finished booking our shore excursions for the islands and have prepared a packing list, so I think we're doing fine.  I suppose we should turn our attention to what we need for Santa Fe next.

We've just received some disappointing news about friends here in San Miguel, but I'll write about that later.  They're having a party tonight and we've made Mexican Chocolate ice cream (with espresso and a bit of spice) as well as a Southwestern Coleslaw to contribute to the feast.  There will probably be a large turn out, but I've promised Michael I won't try to bring enough to feed the whole group.  You know potlucks - there's always lots to go around!