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It is Day One of my California vacation! This blog entry is all about it. It's a bit longer, but some of you are fans of my earlier "travel writing" style and will enjoy this. I understand if you quit reading now since most of you live where I do and may not want to hear about warmer temperatures. However, it’s not really a warm weather bragging piece. So, if you’re feeling risky keep reading. I moved away from Southern California a little over two years ago. People always ask me if I miss anything about living in California. Or more often, they assume and ask WHAT I miss about California. My answer is always the same: the geography. This morning, I flew into San Diego where I’ll be spending most of my time. But I wanted to make a quick trip to see some friends in LA, and to revisit some of my favorite spots. I am writing from one of those at this moment. More on that later.  This was my first experience with Southwest to my knowledge. At least, it’s the firs

I get nostalgic for shows from my childhood with some frequency. Thank goodness for Netflix. This past week, I've been reacquainting myself with Saved By the Bell . Not the college years. Not the ones with Miss Bliss. The real episodes. The good stuff: Rapping Snow White, catching Kelly's new boyfriend at a nightclub with another girl, Jessie's jerk of a stepbrother. The list goes on. Watching this show has provided a few insights that--I think--escaped me when I was younger. The first, and most immediate realization is that this show makes me miss California. It's lucky I have a trip to San Diego coming up or the cold weather blues would have really sunk in. I have avoided watching the episodes where they work at the beach club since I got snowed in last week. It would have been too much to handle. The second realization is that Zack was a really crappy friend! How did I not get what a jerk this guy actually was? If you take his behavior out of the sitcom setting

Most people who know me would have expected me to say "turtle" or "owl." Duck probably seems a little out of left field. So, let me explain. I have a tendency to do one of two things when reacting to situations involving any level of stress or anxiety. On a good day, I'll be totally unreadable. I'll choose to stand still rather than get into the muck of whatever is causing the anxiety. At these times, I'll keep my thoughts and feelings to myself and no one will ever know there's a churning volcano of craziness rumbling below the surface. On a bad day, I'm Vesuvius. And everyone around me gets ashed on. Big time. Now, everyone has bad days. I, however, began to feel like they were outweighing the good ones. It is true that we cannot expect to control our lives in such a way that no bad stuff ever hits us. But we should expect that we can control how we react to the ugly stuff. We can get ugly, too, or we can be ducks. Obviously I mean this