Chillin With the Chillen

Let’s get one thing straight right from the get-go, I am inclined to be lazy. The word sedentary was designed for me. I am both a home body and I am contemplative at all times, which predisposes me to sitting and thinking or sitting and watching or siting and listening, and as most of you know already, sitting and talking. When I garden, I like to sit. I now have nine benches on the back hillside, and six more up in the Cecil Garden and around the parking area. My theory is that you can never have too many benches, just in case you feel the need to cop a squat, as they say. I know everywhere on my property where I can sit and enjoy the gardens whether they are technically for sitting or just convenient in height and sturdiness to allow me to sit on them. There is no way around it, I like to sit, rather than stand whenever possible. When I go to a cocktail party, a veritable nightmare for those of us who do not like standing, I am always immediately searching out a place to sit. It is less my approach to life that makes me liken myself to Colonel Kurtz all the time, and more about the fact that the famous party in the jungle scene has him sitting stationary with the world coming to greet him rather than vice versa.

With son Tom and his wife Jenna here for a few days of post-Christmas relaxation, I am inclined, as we are always doing when guests come, to produce a list of ideas of things to do. Some of these are just routine San Diego things to do and some are more seasonal and holiday-focused. I’m guessing that Jenna has been here at Casa Moonstruck perhaps seven times over the last six or seven years (I was told yesterday that Tom and Jenna are on the verge of celebrating their 10th anniversary together). Over that time, we have done many of the usual San Diego things including the Zoo, the Safari Park, Old Town and the Oceanside Pier. The other day, Jenna asked the rhetorical question about why people rave so much about San Diego as a place to live. It was posed as a sort of challenge, kinda like, “so, why is San Diego so great?” We had just both heard during our holiday gathering from my nephew’s wife Ashley, a native three+ generation San Diego resident, that our hilltop was simply NOT San Diego. I understand that what we call North County up in this area, is not either the urban hip part of the county, nor is it the postcard shore area of the county. I didn’t want to sound defensive or to denigrate the beachy, cluttered area Ashley grew up in (Pacific Beach, Mission Beach, Ocean Beach, etc.), since clearly that, to her, is the real San Diego. Kim and I felt obliged to try to define what a person Jenna’s age might consider the San Diego that is so attractive as a place to live.

I had to begin by reminding Jenna that a lot of the lure of San Diego has to do with the weather. It is warm and temperate year round. I am sitting here on December 28th and the sun is shining into my eyes through our east-facing windows, as I sit on my living room red leather sofa. To my right and to the west, towards the ocean, the glass railing on the deck is clouded with morning dew that is starting to drip down the glass as the morning warms up and yet before the sun reaches it. In some ways, this scene defines the weather here. It is a strange balancing act between a dry desert climate and a moist sub-tropical climate. I’m not sure how it is that we have both simultaneously, but we do. It really is a best-of-both-worlds set-up. Too much hot and dry and desert-like and you find yourself making excuses for the dry heat and letting rocks and Xeriscape gardening dominate your existence while you always wear a floppy hat. But then again, too much moisture and you get jungle rot and dripping heat that cloys and attaches itself to your soul to make you crazy with a wild eye seeking a respite from the mold that you know is building up somewhere you can’t see it. Here in San Diego you can dial in the exact blend of the two that you like. If you want more tropical, move closer to the coast and hope that the sea breezes keep the moisture heading inland where it is more needed and where the succulents store that moisture all around you. If you want drier, move east towards the desert central valleys where succulents turn into cactuses. You see, all cacti are succulents, but not all succulents are cacti. Succulents are plants that store water in their leaves, stems, or roots, allowing them to survive in arid conditions. Cacti are a specific family of succulents (Cactaceae) that have specialized features like areoles – distinctive circular cushion-like structures from which spines, flowers, and new growth emerge, and spines – modified leaves that help protect the plant and provide some shade, and minimize water loss. So, San Diego is a great place for both cacti and the broader array of less defensive succulents, since both are all about bridging the water gap between arid and tropical.

To address Jenna’s initial question, we decided to take a survey drive to give her a view of what makes people like San Diego. We know that Escondido, as the anchor to North County, will never win any awards as a destination, so we drive through Escondido to the Lake Hodges area where we can drive through the Elfin Forrest Recreational Reserve (could you pick a more whimsical name?) into Rancho Santa Fe with its expansive horse country corrals and bridal paths. Ranch Santa Fe is less a town or village (though there is a small one), and more an area with sprawling residential properties carved out of old coastal ranches. This leads us into Del Mar, where the old Fairbanks Ranch has been parsed into a series of upscale developments and a golf links or two as you approach the coast through what is obviously a alluvial basin of the San Dieguito River. That has some more of the commercial zone that every area needs in one place or another, and eventually leaves us near the Del Mar Racetrack and Fairgrounds. This brought us to the Del Mar Dog Beach and the ocean. The village of Del Mar is a typical coastal upscale town and that leads us southward through Torrey Pines on the bluff with the rolling waves below. This is starting to feel like San Diego to Jenna.

We decided to go down into the ultimate San Diego by driving through La Jolla Shores and up into the village of LaJolla. There we just had to go to George’s of the Cove for a late lunch. We had Buddy with us, so we went up to the rooftop patio since it was warm enough. We were told that they allowed service dogs and since EVERYONE had an apparent service dog and the wait staff seemed used to that, we just just declared Buddy to be of service to us and got a table that overlooked LaJolla Cove and the best of San Diego surf views while we lunched on everything from chicken and black bean soup to a burger and fries. It was there that we finally got Jenna to admit that she could see what other friends of her see when it comes to living in San Diego.

And here’s the good news for me as Mr. Sedentary, all that Tom and Jenna want to do for this few days they are with us, is sit around and relax from their otherwise too-busy lives. They seem to like sitting around our hilltop, which I secretly snicker about, since that’s what we like about living in San Diego, especially just chillin with the chillen.