Taking the back roads

One of the things I've missed most since I moved from Southern California is the ability to be close enough to visit my long time friend, Judi Hussain.  Judi and I have known each other for almost half a century... unbelievable as it may seem.  We were both newly married when we lived next door to each other on Kamuela Drive in Huntington Beach.  We became friends by virtue of each of us being the only working wives in the neighborhood.  It was the middle 60's and women didn't work outside the home that much, especially in a new middle-class neighborhood.  However we did so we became the oddities in the neighborhood. And then we had our children.  Her girls are just about a year older than my son and daughter.  They played together as children and went around together for a while with the same neighborhood kids. Things changed and life continued but not necessarily in the same environment.  We both divorced and Judi moved up to Oakhurst in the Sierra mountains of Southe

It was so much fun to spend a few hours with my dear friend, Liisa, and catch up on her life and activities. We didn't have nearly enough time together, but with the busy holiday season and her getting ready to go to the river for the holiday, a few hours were all we could manage.  But it was nice anyhow. A few days later, I got to spend some fun time with friend and former across-the-street neighbor, Linda.  We had a great lunch at our favorite place, the Mongolian BBQ on Brookhurst Street.  We've had many a fun lunch there over the years and it was delightful to do it again.  Then we went to Ikea.... how much you miss the stores you were so used to when you live in a new area.  But, I've heard tell that an Ikea is coming to the Orlando area sometime in 2014.  I shall look forward to that. Managed to find the red wine glasses I've been trying to replace for my daughter-in-law. I've broken quite a few of them over the past year, so I thought it appropriate to ge

Yes, Southern California will always be "home" to me. After all, I lived there for 44 years, raised my children there, earned my education there, and just felt like I was "living" there.  Now that I reside in central Florida in a very nice little house and have begun to make a new type of life there, It's not quite "home."  Maybe at some point a few years from now, it might feel like it.  But right now, SoCal is home and feels that way to me. In any case, with the holidays approaching and after a week's visit with my son and family for Thanksgiving I decided to make a visit to SoCal for Christmas and New Year's.  Of course living on a very restrictive retirement budget, I wondered if I would be able to do it. I had thought about going back for a while and fortunately, one nite while I was roaming around the Internet, I found a great flight on United from Orlando to Santa Ana with a change of planes in Houston.  Just my kind of flight and at j