It's really strange to think that Bryan and I have been in San Diego for almost two and a half years now. I moved to western Washington in 1982, and lived somewhere between Bellingham and Kent until 2003. Going to San Diego was kind of a lark, a chance to see what life's like in another part of the country. I still love the Seattle area, but San Diego has grown on me much more than I ever thought it would.

Consider this: Thanksgiving day, we had the option of eating outside on the back deck, since the weather was around 75 degrees, beautiful and sunny. A far cry from Minnesota, where they had snow the day before, or Seattle where they're supposed to have cold, yucky weather tomorrow.

San Diego is a very mellow place to live. Flip flops are de rigeur, year round. They do the surf report on the radio three times a day, and it's on the evening news. Okay, people drive like they're being chased by Lucifer himself, and cut across three lanes within 50 feet to catch an exit, but somehow there are never as many car accidents as I think there should be.

We've been able to take advantage of memberships to Sea World, the San Diego Zoo and Disneyland, and the weather's almost always nice, so there's plenty to do. A couple of hours in the car and you can be in Tijuana (ick), LA, the mountains or desert. Four and a half to five hours and you can be in Vegas!

This morning I had to cave in and turn on the heat. My car said it was 45 degrees while I was driving to work, but by lunchtime it was in the 70s. This week I need to get cracking on the Christmas cards, wrapping the gifts that need to be shipped back east and still more shopping. But at least I get to do it in sunshine!

Sorry for the radio silence, but that cold I had really knocked me for a loop. We stripped my schedule for Tuesday down to the bare minimum (i.e., patients that absolutely had to be seen that day) and rescheduled the rest of the folks for another day. I went home early on Tuesday and took a turn for the worse Tuesday night, so I ended up calling in sick for Wednesday. I felt terrible doing it, but, as folks have pointed out to me, "No one ever died because they couldn't get their hearing tested." So I guess that's yet another reason to be glad I have the job I do.

I spent Wednesday in bed and on the couch, and by Thursday I started to feel vaguely human again. We had several friends who were nice enough to invite us over for Thanksgiving, but since I didn't really want to wear anything more structured than pajamas, and I really didn't want to pass the Plague on to anyone else, we stayed home and had a quiet Thanksgiving. We did one of those pre-put together dinners from Vons (Safeway), and it turned out pretty well. All we had to do was heat it. The "mashed" potatoes left a lot to be desired, but the turkey was terrific.

Black Friday found us in line at Fry's at 4:40 am. The line wrapped around three sides of the building, just to give you an idea. Fortunately, Fry's was the only high priority stop, so after some very successful shopping, we went home and went back to bed. Later in the day we headed out for more shopping, then back out again on Saturday. Saturday night we had a Gulls game, which we won, 5-3. We were playing those rotten Stockton guys again, who we played in the home opener. I managed to piss off one of the Stockton guys royally (Ha, ha!) at the end of the game by pointing to him and making the "Loser" sign on my forehead. He was one of the guys who played really dirty last game, so I don't feel bad, and the folks sitting near me thought it was hilarious. Obviously I couldn't hear him through the glass, but my lipreading skills suggest that he yelled something that rhymes with "Hey, truck shoe" at me.

Today was more shopping, and I think it's safe to say I'm shopped out. I'm mostly done for the family back east and my parents. I can shop for Bryan as Christmas gets closer, since I don't have to ship gifts to him like I do for the rest of the fam. Found some great stuff on eBay, which renewed my love affair with eBay and the ability to find the weirdest stuff that you can't find anywhere else.

Our Minnesota Wild jerseys finally arrived, but I don't know if we'll have any more chances this season to try to get autographs. They'll be back in town in March to play the Kings and the Mighty Ducks, although we all know that Arrowhead Pond sucks in terms of getting autographs. My new hockey goal is to get my picture taken with Derek Boogaard, my fave player. He's like more than a foot taller than me! So we'll see what my chances are. Might have to wait until next season.

Being sick has meant that nonessentials like laundry have fallen by the wayside over the past week, and the current laundry situation (and lack of socks) has now become essential, so I'm off to slave over a hot dryer.

There are several things I've been meaning to blog about, but this past week has just wiped me out. I think I picked up something on the plane, because I was totally dragging around at the beginning of the week, and then on Thursday, I started getting the sore throat and stuffy nose that signal a cold. I'm lucky - I talked to my mom a couple of times over the past week and she sounds terrible. I'm just tired and cranky and stuffy. Hopefully it'll clear up quickly - I don't want to waste my four whole days off at Thanksgiving feeling like dooky.

I went to see the new Harry Potter movie today, and had planned to stop at the grocery store on the way home for orange juice and soup, but that felt like a little more of a challenge than I was up for. The latest Harry Potter was pretty good - obviously a fair chunk of story was cut compared to the book, but I guess that's to be expected, since Hollywood doesn't really put out six hour movies. What was there was fairly true to the book, but this is definitely a much darker movie than the previous three. Bring on the next one!

Anyway, this afternoon, my plans involve a nap, the latest People magazine and maybe a little throwing the ball for the dog. Bryan has duty today, so low key is the phrase of the day.

It's been a really busy past few days. Thursday evening, I caught a flight for Seattle (thanks to my Dad) to visit my family. I didn't get in until pretty late, so just about all I was good for was small talk and the walk upstairs to bed.

On Friday, we headed out to breakfast, which is actually a weekly Saturday ritual for my parents, and then we were off to Bellevue Square so I could engage in some major retail therapy at Lush. I won't go into gory details, but let's just say that I'm very confident that the Bellevue Lush location made their sales goal for the day, and I headed out with two shopping bags of wonderful stuff, including the Stinky Garlic Mask (the bio-fresh Cosmetic Warrior mask). We also made a pilgrimage to Fry's and as always, I was amazed at my ability to wander around there and look at things for endless amounts of time. Dad made the famous family Harvest Fruit Pie for dessert.

Saturday was running errands and then off to Bellingham for my best friend Stacey's wedding reception. Stacey and her husband Tim eloped in September, and this was a great chance to see them, and Stacey's family. I've known Stacey since 1987, and since she's the eldest of six kids, I remember her younger siblings from when they really were little kids. They're all grown up now, and the youngest is 21, which means I'm about 150 or so. Tim and Stacey are an excellent match for each other, and they seemed happy and radiant at the reception.

This morning, I was off to the airport by 10. A flight delay meant that I didn't actually get in the door until almost 5. Bryan was off at the hockey game with his friend Gabe, so I wrapped his gifts and baked his birthday cake. The guys called to say they were going out to have another beer or so, so I'm going to go climb into bed with my book, turn on Desperate Housewives and veg. I'm beat, and it's off to work bright and early tomorrow morning. But I get to pick up my Bailey from Dog Daycare at the end of the day tomorrow, so that's something I'm definitely looking forward to!

Last night was the Wild/Mighty Ducks game in Anaheim. We got to Arrowhead Pond early, to check it out. (Actually, we got to Anaheim at 10am, but that's another story) I know comparisons are odious and all that, but it's hard not to make comparisons between Arrowhead and Staples Center. I prefer Staples Center, despite the fact that it's almost an hour further away from us. Staples Center seems fresher, better taken care of. It also offers cup-holders for your drinks, and it seemed like they kept the temperature at a reasonable level. At Arrowhead Pond, I spent most of the night shivering despite a long sleeved shirt and hockey jersey. The other big, big advantage that Staples Center has is access to players. We were able to hang around after the Kings game and get autographs from the Wild players as they were on their way to the bus. At the Anaheim arena, there's no player access, which was a bum deal, and would have been an even more bum deal if Shop NHL.com had provided decent customer service and gotten the Wild jerseys we ordered a month ago to us.

Anyway, it was a really good game. Except for one goal, which made me wonder if Fernandez was on a coffee break or something, the points scored by both sides were very well played. There was a truly excellent fight between Boogaard and Gillies, who had just been called up to the Mighty Ducks from their AHL affiliate the day before. Now Boogaard is a big guy, even for a hockey player. He's 6'7" and 250, and when you see him on the ice, he looks huge compared to just about all the other players out there. Boogaard also leads the Wild in penalty minutes, at 37. Gillies got a few shots in, but Boogaard totally put the smack down on him. Boogaard got five for fighting, but much to our delight, Gillies got slapped with two for instigating, five for fighting and a ten minute misconduct. Hahahahaha. You don't mess with Boogaard.

We did get to see Mikko Koivu score his first NHL goal, so that was pretty cool. Apparently he's quite the up and comer, and it had to be a great night for him.

The game was close, and pretty tense. At the end of regulation, they were tied, 3-3, so that led to overtime, and they were still tied at the end of that. It was around this time that I had my moment of revelation. In my head I was muttering "Please let Minnesota win, please let Minnesota win" and I realized that I wasn't praying that they'd win just because I had to live with Bryan, but because I really, really wanted them to win. And that was the moment I realized I have been converted into an Official Hockey Fan, or more specifically, an Official Wild Fan. Bryan will be thrilled. Anyway, it came down to the shootout, and thank you Randy Robitaille, because Minnesota won.

I was once again surprised by the number of Minnesota fans that were there, wearing their jerseys. Bryan wore his autographed jersey, and I borrowed his U of M Gophers jersey. It was funny - we saw another couple, but the guy was wearing the Gophers jersey, and the lady was wearing the Wild jersey, exactly the opposite of Bryan and I. We also saw several Minnesota fans that we'd seen at the Kings game last month, so that was kind of funny.

Bryan has embarked on a mission to see the Wild play at every NHL arena. It's going to take a while, but I have no doubt he'll accomplish it. Now we just have to figure out whether it'll be Phoenix or San Jose next (and I hope NHL.com gets us our freakin' jerseys by then!!)

So I am very pleased to annouce that the Crazy Dancing Guy is back this year. We went to the home opener of the Gulls on Saturday, and Crazy Dancing Guy was there in all his Crazy Dancing glory. We still haven't managed to snag one of his "What the Puck?" t-shirts, but the season is young. Unfortunately, the Gulls lost, the first home opener they've lost in something like nine years. But it was a good game, and there were some good fights. Unfortunately, the officiating was terrible. In the NHL games we go to, I rarely see the penalties that occur, I just have to take the officiant's word for it. At Saturday's game, the penalties were so obvious Bailey probably could have spotted them. There's no way around it, Stockton plays dirty. This probably means that when we meet them again on November 26, there will be some major fights (which is just fine with me!)

The low point of the evening was when a Stockton player checked a Gulls player into the boards right in front of us, spilling the drink I had so cleverly placed on the ledge there. Lesson of the evening? Keep your beverages on the floor. The ledge is darned convenient, but I felt like a big idiot after it spilled. Mostly because almost the same thing had happened to us last year!

Anyway, I think this is going to be a growth year for the Gulls. There are a lot of new faces, and only a few players I remember from last year. This works both ways - several of the new guys are draft picks for the Colorado Avalanche, so they've obviously got some skills. But new players change the team's dynamic, and I'm not sure they've found their stride yet. The next game is on Sunday, and I'll be flying back from Seattle that day, so it's a little up in the air whether I'll be accompanying Bryan or someone else will.

The evening ended up being a little more eventful than we'd bargained for. We got home around 10:30, and I was in the living room watching the news while Bryan messed around on his computer when we heard a car crash. We went running outside and called 911. Turns out someone who lives up the street from us had crashed into the next door neighbor's parked car. The police came, and apparently the driver refused a breathalyzer, so he was arrested and taken off. We didn't end up getting to bed until after 1 am. I hope the events after the next game are a lot less exciting!

Last night I was surfing through several friends' websites. When I visited my friend Cliff's site, I came across the following:

I immediately burst into hysterics. Bryan came over to see if I was okay, and it took me almost five minutes before I was able to stop laughing enough to talk, and even then, all I could gasp out was "Look!!"

Cliff said that was in his hotel bathroom at the Standard Hotel in downtown LA. (Apparently it's quite the cool place to stay - he said the rooms are rather unique.) Anyway, I begged Cliff to send me the photo so I could post it - it's too classic not to share with as much of the world as possible.