California Shenanigans

I should probably write the "Storm Area 51" post first, but instead I will write upon California.

"It's 72 degrees, zero chance of rain, it's been a perfect day..." - James Blunt, Stay the Night

To be perfectly honest, California was a sequence of perfect days.  I went to visit colleagues and collaborators at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory for a week, and stayed with an old friend and had a great time.  On Friday we left work early (3PM) to head out to Leo Carrillo state beach for beach camping and grilling and campfires and music and sing alongs and card games and happiness.  At one time I was about the most bored I'd been in the past 4 years and the most happy, because I couldn't quell my boredom with Netflixed TV shows (no service) but rather had to sit back and lazily enjoy it.  It lasted about all of 8.5 minutes before I was running into the waves and losing my bikini bottoms to a 6-foot nasty thing, climbing rock cliffs and having the lifeguard yell at me to get down, smuggling White Claw in a coffee cup out to a secret cove only accessible at low tide, having to swim out when tide came in...  And then I remembered why I don't let myself get bored.  If I get bored, I get into shenanigans.

Let's please remember that word: SHENANIGANS.  Because that is what the rest of this post is about.

Saturday at some point, my friend Saul texts me, "I'm coming to California, will you be there?  Do you want to hang out?"  I responded, "My flight is Sunday evening and I need to do work Monday."  "You can do work in California.  Stay through Tuesday night.  Move your flight.  I'll take care of you while you work."  I called Delta.  After much pleading and begging they waived all but $35 of my fees.  Okay, that's fair.  "Saul, pick me up from Brenner Park at 7PM."  "Got it mami,* I'll be there."

*Mami is literally Spanish for mommy, but for some Spanish speaking cultures it means more like, "sweet girl" or "baby girl" or "babydoll" or anything like that.  Like, to your daughter, "that's such a great painting, mami! Make me another," all the way to, "those are nice jeans, mami, I'd like to see them on my bedroom floor."  Versatile in its application and acceptance.  Like "sweetheart" in English I suppose, although I don't speak enough Espanol to really understand all the connotative differences.  I suppose the main difference between calling your kid sweetheart, your sister sweetheart, your friend sweetheart, and a woman you met at the bar sweetheart is context and innuendo anyway... //end digression

He picks me up, we set destination "Malibu" and I find an AirBnB.  Looks good, cheap, in Topanga Canyon.  We get there late (had to stop for groceries) and crash out almost immediately.  I wake up at 7:30, 8:00AM telecon.  Saul hadn't seen the Canyon before but said it looked like the part of Mexico where he grew up.  When he joined me on the porch, he was blown away by the views.  It's so beautiful up there.  I jumped on my telecon as Saul said he would make us breakfast.  Telecon went well, Saul cleaned out the cooler we got the weekend before out at Area 51 and just as my telecon ended he walked behind me into the frame of the camera... In a partially buttoned white shirt that shows off his large muscles with his curly dark hair cascading down to his shoulders.  Now there are going to be all kinds of stories circulating Georgia Tech about my hot Latin lover and that's why I'm in California. Ha ha ha...

After mucho discussion between him and his friends, me and mine, eventually we set the GPS to Leo Carrillo again.  We get out there, find a spot to park, and walk out to the cove that is usually so isolated and alone.  It's a Monday.  I bring my computer because this is supposed to be where Saul naps and I get some writing done.  The cove is packed with people.  There are a lot of signs.
"340,000 minutes"
"That's how long I've known you."
"I've known you only 2% of my life."
"I do know one thing for certain after 340,000 minutes."
"I love you."
"I want to spend all the rest of my minutes with you."
"Marry me."
Ha ha ha!  That's why it's packed!  These are friends and family waiting to witness a marriage proposal.

Obviously this is not going to be the quiet writing retreat I had planned...  so we toss our things down in a sheltered area and start to explore.  The cave is open but tide is coming in.  Waves are high and getting higher.  We climb up a cliff and look down and I say, "We can go down there, but it gets dangerous when the waves come in and you are in flip flops."  He takes off a flip flop and tosses it down.  Looks me dead in the eye with a sly little grin as he tosses the other off. "Now we have to go, mami."

I didn't go, but he did.  He survived.  We made it to a hotel on Venice Beach that has a sign "no shenanigans."  I had to explain that his sandal thing was "shenanigans."  We watched the sun set over the ocean in a cool summer breeze, then went to the Getty and to In and Out the next day (hey, both are high class Cali establishments last I checked). 

I didn't finish writing that memory when it was fresh like I intended to.  Now it's clouded by time and struggles and... Science is so much more funny.

It's raining now, unexpectedly, and that's probably the best thing ever.  You can never beat a good thunderstorm.