Solstice Recap, Coincidence, and Other Ruminations

Saturday's Summer Solstice parade was a total riot and shed an entirely new light on what Santa Barbara's all about. The hippies came out of the hills, quite literally, donning their most creative interpretations of this year's theme, "stars." There was Whirlin Merlin, Mr. & Mrs. Big Head, Capoiera dance-fighters (see photos), and an overdose of glitter, hula hoops, stilts, and roller skates. One man, dressed in a wizard costume in stilts, stopped in front of us and, upon realizing that he was being watched by everyone, proceeded to make up a bizarre song "we are so luuuuckkkyyyyy, we are so blesssseeeedddddd." Nick and I were reeling with laughter.
The parade ended at local Alameda park where all the parade-goers and the kooky folks of the parade themselves gathered for an afternoon of celebrating summer. The top picture of the last post is of Nick and I enjoying some hippie tunes in the beer garden. Other highlights included: the world's best guacamole, organic peppermint and eucalyptus soap, "synergy jewelry," and an all-out hula hooping party that lasted the full 4 hours we were there. We had a blast and loved the total eccentricity of the Santa Barbara scene, but we couldn't help thinking it would be better if we had some friends... We contemplated how a couple can go out and try to "pick up" friends at a bar but concluded that all options were excessively awkward.

Later that evening, as I sat on the deck reading Deepak Chopras new-age cult favorite, "The Book of Secrets," I overheard some chatter on our neighbor's deck next door. This caught my attention for two reasons: first, they were speaking English; second, they sounded fairly young. After peering through the bushes, I determined that they in fact were probably only a couple years older than Nick and I. I proceeded to call out a greeting to them and blindly introduce myself. Nick and I went over for a beer and got friendly. Turns out the two had moved in only two days before us, a young married couple ages 27 and 29, who went to UC Boulder. Andrew grew up in Santa Barbara and the two had lived here for a couple of years before moving to San Fran, and they just moved back. They are incredibly nice and so knowledgeable about the town. I secretly cant wait to go on double dates with them.

While I was talking to Valerie out on her deck, I glanced inside where a box sat open on a table with some yet-to-be-unpacked belongings strewn around it. Lo-and-behold, I see that Valerie has the EXACT SAME TOWEL as me! What are the odds? My recent new-age reading has told me that all coincidences are signs of some deeper meaning. Then, later that night, as I was making dinner, listening to a good song called "Jerusalem," by Matisyahu, I turn over the bowl in my hand and lo-and-behold - it says JERUSALEM on it in capital letters. Two coincidences in one night... I decided that this means that Valerie and I will become very good friends (option b: I need to buy new towels), and I need to go to Jerusalem.
Having determined that there was major energy in the air, I put on another tight tank top and hit the Santa Barbara bars in the hopes that a bar owner would see me and miraculously offer me a job. That part was unsuccessful.

In other news, it turns out that in addition to all of the booze and food Lisa left behind for us, she also left an estimated $500 in brand new gourmet cooking supplies. This included a top-of-the-line Cuisinart food processor, 12-piece non-stick cookware set, and a gourmet pasta making set. In that spirit, Nick and I have been cooking up a storm - most recently seared ahi tuna pizzas with wasabi mayo, and chicken curry w/ cashews from scratch.

Other funny observations and experiences include:
- Tuesday afternoon farmer's market: organic fruits, veggies, flowers, and wheatgrass shots galore
- Hybrid Taxis
- My hippie yoga teacher wearing a Cartier watch
- Neighborhood skunk aka "Pepe"

More to come...

A few pics of Nick and my journey down the coast... I have not yet mastered the art of adding photos to my blog, so I will post the rest up on facebook soon.

Santa Barbara

So I'm sitting on a lounge chair on my deck in Santa Barbara and I have to say.... life is good. Incredible, really. Nick and I departed from Seattle on Monday morning, made it as far as Eureka, CA on our first day of driving. Word to the wise: don't go there. We drove through the Redwood forest which was huge and powerful and completly indescribable, which made it worth the crazy meth-heads mumbling to themselves in the shadow of my car parked in the garage. Day 2 took us down another beautiful stretch of North California Rt.101 and into San Fran, where we spent the afternoon with Nick's good friend Eddie. Finally, at 6:30pm on day 3, after braving the coastal route 1 until we were blue in the face with carsickness, we made it to Santa Barbara. Incredible.
The owner of our house is a Law & Society professor at UCSB who decided to pick up and move to LA to help her boyfriend produce a low budget film while school was out for the summer. She cleaned the house but pretty much left us everything - including a fully stocked fridge and liquor cabinet and some ambien in her bedside drawer. Nice.
The house is in a residential neighborhood just west of downtown - known to most as a Mexican area. But I like Mexicans and the place is safe and quiet, not to mention being a 10 minute walk from the heart of downtown. It is so peaceful here, and the house is sick - for lack of a better word. We could not have asked for a better place. On a similar note, we have a guest house and enough couches to sleep at least 3 more people here comfortably, not counting nick and myself.
Santa Barbara is chill as can be and yesterday I saw a real live shaman walking around the organic supermarket barefoot with his flowing white robes and waist length silver beard. I love that shit.
The beach is incredibly beautiful, palm trees line our street, birds are chirping in the trees, and I am in love. Talk about paradise.

After giving myself a day to unpack and take it all in, today I put on a tight tank top and heels and braved the streets of downtown SB in search of a bartending job. Many of the places were closed, and of those I visited it was generally hit or miss. But mostly hit - so things are looking up.

Even better - it turns out this weekend is the "Summer Solstice Festival" here, the biggest party of the year. Tonight Nick and I are headed to a park for some live bands and drinking at a beer garden. Tomorrow, starting at noon, a ridiculous "bohemian" parade marches down State St (the main drag), and all of Santa Barbara comes out to see it. All the bars have crazy parties going on all day. I am like soooooo bohemian, LOL!

So I will hold out on specifics of which bars are looking promising because a) I dont want to jinx anything, and b) you dont care, but I will be writing shortly hopefully with news of a great new job and definitely with all the pics of the Santa Barbara leg of the vision quest thus far.

Will somebody please comment or send me a freakin email so I know there is at least one person reading this damn thing?!

Santa Barbara Digs

Nick and I will be living here from June 21 through the end of August. Come visit us!

"To Travel is to Posess the World"

"These words are, I think, true words. I know that through travel I have possessed the world more completely, more satisfyingly than if I had acquired the whole earth by purchase or by conquest. There is no implication of selfishness in the kind of possession of which I speak. Whoever posesses the world through travel takes naught from any man. No one is poorer because you have made the world yours.
You have gained everything, but you are no monopolist. The wealth is there for all to share. It is not yours alone. You may invite all men and women to travel with you in imagination and they too may feel that they, like you, are rich in vivid mental pictures of places worth going to, of people worth knowing, of things that are world-famous.... Now I am at work with nothing but a sheet of paper and a pen to help me re-create the atmosphere of "otherwhere," to help me make real to those who have not seen, the things which I have seen and can still see with my mind's eye.
Word pictures are hard to paint. We are told that "words are the only thing that last forever." Therefore words should be the most durable pigments with which to paint pictures of the things that have seemed worthwhile, the things that have become one's property, in the sense in which travel endows one with a title deed to the entire world.
One great advantage of possessing the world through travel is that one may enjoy all the satisfactions of possession without the responsibilities of ownership. Now, in days when our most valuable assets become or threaten to become our most crushing liabilities, it is good to contemplate property which cannot depreciate but must increase in value, property which cannot be taxed by federal goverment, or state or city authorities, property which calls for no repairs or alterations.
Everything from real estate to diamond tiaras has had its vaunted worth reduced to pitiful and sometimes complete inconsequence. Stocks, bonds, and all manner of gilt-edged, beautifully engraved certificates of value, to secure which we have slaved and saved and denied ourselves the joys of travel, may sink in worth to such a point that it will seem absurd to pay the rental charges of a safe deposit box.
The only things I own which are still worth what they have cost me are my travel memories, the mind-pictures of places which I have been hoarding like a happy miser for more than a half century.
In the past I have reproached myself for my extravagance, for my lack of foresight, for my disregard of proper provision for the future. My wise friends saved and economized, went without things they wanted, denied themselves the costlier pleasures of the table, the bouquet of vintage wines, and the, to me, supreme joy of going places and seeing things.
And now, where are we? We, they, and I are all at the same dead-end of life's highway. They are weighted down by all the leaden burdens of their golden hopes gone wrong. They have their memories but these are memories of wise, dull, and frugal days of piling up hard-earned dollars in safe places where those dollars would increase and multiply and be there to console for all the pleasures that their owners had denied themselves and all the fun they had missed.
I, too, have nothing but my memories but I would not exchange my memories for theirs. I have a secret treasure upon which I can draw at will. I can bring forth, on the darkest day, bright diamonds of remembered joys, diamonds whose many facets reflect some happy dream come true, a small ambition gratified, a long-sought sensation, caught and savored to the full, a little journey made, an expedition carried to success, several circumnavigations of the globe accomplished.
Yes, it has been a good life. And it is good to rest, with nearly all of one's dreams realized. Dreams of going, seeing and doing most of the things that seemed worthwhile -- good to know that I have, in my own way, possessed the world."
-Burton Holmes, Renowned Photographer and World Traveler, 1953