California Dreaming
My readers are probably tired about hearing me prattle on about the joys of the Golden State, but please indulge me this last time to wallow in the earthly pleasures I find myself amidst out here in San Diego. I am still adjusting to waking up in this paradise and pinching myself that this is what I get to wake up to every morning form here on in.
This morning I had a long conference call with about ten people who were in New York, London, Monaco, Vienna and Milan. The topic was this algorithmic trading expert witness assignment with which I am engaged. The firm that is the Claimant that I represent is based in Monaco and is one of the many money management firms that have chosen to locate there, presumably for the lifestyle preferences of their professionals and the proximity to the big money people who like to hang out there. I doubt it is just for the shaved white truffles at the George V Restaurant at the Hotel de Paris, overlooking the entrance to the Grand Casino of Monte Carlo, even though I have tasted them (between 1990 and 1995 during my Private Banking days) and people tell me they are worth every penny that they charge for them. It was initially suggested that we do the call at 13:30 GMT. I may be rusty on my partial differential equations, but time zone math I can do. That would have meant a 5:30am conference call for me, but once they realized where I was, they adjusted the time to 7:00am, which was very nice of them. I am the lead expert after all and they have some large eight-figure sum on the line with this litigation. That timing meant the London folks were doing the call at 3:00pm and those on the Continent were at 4:00pm all on a Friday afternoon when there were probably cocktails and fine dining for which to dress and primp.
After the two hour plus call, I had to turn on my hot tub to warm it up since the automated timing of my usual early morning dip had long past. The good part was that today was a magnificent San Diego day. It was cloudless, sunny and warm. As I sat in the tub looking at the humming birds feasting on the fresh flowers on the succulents and cacti all around me and the massive boulders heating up in the direct sunlight, it occurred to me that I could not imagine the most luxurious Amandari Resort in Bali or some such place being any nicer than the setting I had right here on my little Southern California hilltop. Between the specimen Madagascar bottle tree, the ponytail palm and the flowering hydrangeas and honeysuckles with bees buzzing at their trumpets, I felt like I was in the Garden of Eden.
I had not taken a motorcycle ride in the three days since I arrived from New York and it was a perfect day for it. So while others went shopping I took a ride north to Lilac Road in Valley Center. Everywhere I look here I see flowering bushes near the roads. It turns out these are Bougainvillae and specifically a variety called appropriately San Diego Bougainvillae Red. It’s less red and more fuscia or even violet and it adorns all the streets on our hillside. The cacti also flower at this time of year, so there is an abundance of color acrioss gardens as I ride among the orchards surrounding every house. There are tax advantages to plant fruit trees in California, so it is most common in this area.
I suspect everyone feels they must have citrus fruit trees to feel like a real Californian. We have several between the house and garage. I’m not an arborist, but I think we have one each of an orange, lemon, lime, cumquat and quince trees. Kim picks them, along with other herbs like rosemary and thyme to use in our kitchen and serving.
This area is a farming and ranching community. Besides the spreading orchards at every turn and along every hillside, there are as many animal corrals. It seems every other home has a few horses. While we join the citrus parade, we have no room for horses and even less need for keeping anything bigger than a Bichon Frise with an attitude.
Riding slowly through the hills with flowering trees and pastured steeds on all sides was.very relaxing. It was warm enough on this post-groundhog February day that I had on only a light canvas jacket and a half-helmet, so I was able to crank up the tunes on my Sirius Sstellite radio cum GPS. I like to keep the 60’s Channel tuned in, so I was throwing the bike through it’s paces on the winding hill toads while Brian Wilson and The Beach Boys kept me thinking about the beach, which was only ten miles away. If there can be perfection in one’s day, I had attained it.
After a leisurely afternoon spent catching up on emails and old movies and finishing our garage ablutions, we got in the Tesla X and loaded up our friends and family to drive on the freeway into the City of San Diego for a dinner at the most hip restaurant we could find. We did enjoy some Wagyu beef, so we are clearly not fully reformed New Yorkers yet, but garage refurbishing, driving a trendy EV and enjoying a menu that seemed to only miss bean sprouts, all made for a strong feeling that we were heading into at least partial enlightenment.
I am now curled up in my California King bed wondering how I will spend my first full resident Saturday in this beautiful land of plenty. I am well aware that the demographic shifts are not favoring California. The Gold Rush is long past. Most orange juice now comes from Brazil and not that county south of Los Angeles. Facebook and Google are more foe than friend and the Anti-Trust Division of the DoJ is in their face. But while younger families may feel they have to move to survive and own their own hillside with orchards some day, for those of us moving out in the here and now of our aging lives, we can only marvel at the sunshine and loveliness of our surroundings. Every day is California Dreaming.