Well, I’ve just spent my first Christmas in San Diego, and tonight will celebrate the New Year. Of course, the ending of one year brings about a certain sense of reflection. 2003 was one of the most eventful and surprising of my life, right up through today. Here is a list of some of the events and experiences:

January, 2003 Christopher and I discuss the possibility of him seeking employment in places other than the Columbus area. The idea being that it would be a temporary measure, until things got better.

Around St. Patrick’s Day, 2003 Christopher goes to San Diego to interview. The idea still is that, if offered a job, he would work out here, live with his parents, send money home, visit as often as possible, and move back when the market improved.

About 10 days later Christopher is offered a position, and tells me that if he takes it, it would be a permanent move. He also tells me that he wants me to move with him. After some discussion, we get engaged and start the planning to move.

April 23, 2003 Christopher gets on a plane with Baldrick (the cat) and moves to San Diego. I stay in Columbus and get the house ready to sell.

June, 2003 The house goes into contract and the move is tentatively scheduled for July sometime.

June through July 2003 Columbus experiences some of the worst storms ever. Severe thunderstorms happen at least every other day right up until the closing.

Early July, 2003 Benito (the other cat) is put on a plane for San Diego. He promptly escapes in the belly of a Delta jet as he’s being loaded, mauls a couple of Delta employees, and is finally recaptured, delaying the flight for the passengers. He is later flown out (successfully) on a different flight.

July 22, 2003 The house closes and I hit the road for San Diego.

July 24, 2003 I arrive at Christopher’s parents’ house in Rancho Peñasquitos, a northern suburb of San Diego. 2200+ miles in two and one-half days on the road.

August 5, 2003 We move into our apartment in Ocean Beach.

August 8, 2003 Our neighbors throw the first of a constant string of parties which will shortly result in our moving again.

Around September 5, 2003 We determine that in order for me not to lose health insurance coverage, we need to get married…now. Wedding date is set for 9/27/03. Entire wedding is planned in less than 10 days.

September 15, 2003 My brother Jim appears on Jeopardy. He didn’t win.

September 25-28, 2003 The wedding weekend.

October 9, 2003 My father has a semi-unexpected angioplasty where they put in a stent. He gets through it all just fine, which is great since the coronary artery was blocked 95%.

October 19, 2003 San Diego bursts into flames. The biggest fires in history strike San Diego, and we drive to Valley Center to evacuate Christopher’s nieces and nephew (the parents stayed to try and save their home). The sky is filled with smoke and ash for days. It looks like someone has nuked the city.

November 27, 2003 Our first Thanksgiving with the whole family out here. Something like 17 people for dinner.

November 29, 2003 We move into our small rental house in North Park. The partying neighbors play “Ding Dong The Witch Is Dead” at full volume as I leave. We love our new home.

December 25, 2003 A HUGE Christmas dinner event occurs at Christopher’s sister’s house in Valley Center. The weather is the worst we’ve seen since arriving here (heavy rain and wind) and Valley Center is over 1 hour away. 35 people for dinner. I’m overwhelmed at the huge family celebration—especially as the family is not religious at all.

I haven’t even mentioned the visits by friends and family, as well as the other Dell’Acqua family events since our arrival. All in all, it’s made for a pretty packed year!

Which brings me to today, the 31st. Today we picked up Christopher’s car from the shop, and are preparing to go to his parents for another big family dinner tomorrow—they’re having ham, but I’m bringing pork roast and sauerkraut for good luck in 2004.

It still feels weird to live out here, and there are so many things that are different (like having a Camellia bush that is starting to bloom by the front porch—in December). But all in all, we’re happy we’re here.

We’re just hoping 2004 is a bit calmer.

It’s really hard to get into the holiday spirit in Southern California…at least for me it is. The streets and houses are decorated just like any other city, the malls are packed beyond belief, and San Diego has an amazing number of holiday-related activities (like parades), but it just doesn’t feel right.

Take today–here it is, December 16th, and it’s 70 degrees or so in the city proper. It was about 49 or 50 overnight. And it’s sunny. And there is almost no humidity (18-19% according to weather.com). There is only one thing making today not absolutely perfect—there is ash in the air. We have Santa Ana winds again and they are kicking up the ash from the big fires in October and November so there’s a haze (worse up towards Miramar). But even that isn’t as bad as it was. It’s pretty much another lovely day.

Trouble is, for this Midwesterner, it shouldn’t be. It should be cold, with a brisk wind and snow in the air (if not on the ground). True, in Columbus the actual white Christmas was kind of rare, but at least there was frost and you could see your breath in the air.

Now, before you start thinking that I’m complaining, I’m not really. Right now in Columbus (according to weather.com) it is 47 degrees and it’s raining. I can live without the cold rain (though 47 isn’t as bad as usual), thankyouverymuch. The forecast up until Christmas there is a mix of snow and cold rain, with a cloudy day here and there. Ick. The forecast for here is sunny or occasionally partly cloudy, with highs right around 70—right through Christmas.

It may not feel like the holidays, but damn, it sure is nice.

We moved into a cute craftsman-style bungalow in the North Park district of San Diego around the first of December. It’s a great house, with a secluded back “yard” (almost entirely patioed and surrounded by palm trees and other tropical vegetation), a hot tub on the back deck, a big kitchen, a fireplace, very quiet neighbors and, best of all, really caring landlords. This was, after all, their house for eight years; they only moved because they needed another bedroom for their two kids. However, there was one not great room in the house, and that was the bathroom. All the parts worked fine, but it needed work esthetically. Being fantastic landlords, they had already scheduled a complete re-tiling of the room. Unfortunately, it was scheduled for after we moved in.

On Tuesday morning last, the house was invaded by a California “dude” (complete with pony tail and soul patch) and his workers from Tijuana. The dude gave them their marching orders (in Californian, with a liberal sprinkling of “like y’know”) and left, and the demo began.

They stripped the tub surround down to the studs, ripped the floor off and, while they were at it, took out the fireplace hearth for replacement too. I sat in my office, making calls and sending emails, to the strains of Mexican radio, Mexican-Spanish discussions on how to attack the job (and other things), and sledgehammers.

This has been my first experience with probably illegal workers or, at the very least, Mexican laborers. I’ve had a huge dose of Liberal guilt because these guys are incredibly polite to me, work hard and well, clean up after themselves, and do it all after making the boarder crossing every morning which takes at least an hour, plus commute–but they are probably not getting paid half of what they were worth.

Anyway, they’ve been here every day since then (except the weekend, of course) and today, eight days after starting the project, they will finish the job…theoretically, of course. That would be great because it’s been a bit inconvenient. Not only have we had to find alternative bathing places (like the in-laws’ house 20 miles away, or the sink in-between), it’s also changed my daily activities.

Since I work from home and the house has only the one bathroom, having workers in it means that I’ve had to find other facilities to use throughout the day and/or have had to time my bathroom activities around their work. Thus, a typical day for me has been: get up, drink morning coffee (necessity) then go as often as possible before the workers arrive in the morning; then either wait until they leave for lunch around 12:30 or, if waiting isn’t possible, go shopping at the Target or Whole Foods and use their bathrooms (both of which have fine, clean facilities); then, after their lunch, wait until they leave for the day (usually they have to stop by 3:30 or 4 because they can’t do anything more while the brown coat sets or the tile sets or whatever) and then be free to go at will.

It wasn’t really possible for me to just ask them to step out as they had to take the door off to do the work and, well, that just makes it way too uncomfortable to go, doncha know. Luckily, long car trips with a father who used to never stop for bathroom breaks (hardly) means that I’ve been perfectly trained for this sort of situation. Still, planning your day around bathroom behavior is just not the way to live for any length of time.

This was all fine, though, until yesterday when they pulled the toilet. The idea was that they’d have it out for the day, then back in and usable for the evening. Unfortunately, the complex tiling around the converted clawfoot tub delayed the floor and the main tiler was out (with the flu, I think, from the way he sounded the day before), so, by the end of the day, it was clear that we wouldn’t have a toilet for the night. Luckily, the in-laws are lovely people so off I went to meet my husband there to stay the night.

The problem with that, though, is that the in-laws live in Rancho Peñasquitos, which is about 20 miles north off the 15 and, unfortunately, the 15 has the worst traffic on it every rushhour. So, I had to fight the commuters to get up there last night and this morning I had to be back at the house by 7am for work (and the workers). At least this morning, it being the very early morning commute, the traffic wasn’t horrible—just heavy. I have no idea how people do that every day.

Anyway, just to make things even more interesting, my husband greeted me in the morning with the two words you never want to hear, “I’m sick.” The poor guy appears to have the flu (which is hitting here pretty hard)—fever just over 100 and all the usual symptoms. So here I am back at the house, ostensibly working, while he lies sick up at his parents’. He can’t come home because we still have no toilet hooked up and all the pounding and tile cutting wouldn’t help his headache, I’m sure.

So, keep your fingers crossed that the workers really will finish today, get the toilet put back in, and that we’ll have a bathroom to use before the day is over. In the meanwhile, I think I need to go buy that fireplace screen I saw at Target…now.