Mmmm, Earl Grey and chocolate digestive biscuits. I found the nearby British shop today. I already had the tea, though. But I bought the biscuits, a big ol’ box of PG Tipps tea, and some Caerphilly cheese.

It’s raining today, and it’s been overcast and/or rainy for most of Teresa’s visit thus far. So much for that sun she came out to find. Happily, it’s remained warmer than Boston. I still feel a little bad, though.

Let’s see. Wednesday we grocery shopped at both TJ’s and Albertson’s, and ran a couple of other errands. That evening we went to Ken’s nephew Aidan’s 1st birthday party. It was enjoyable, although not exciting or anything. It’s always good to see Joelle and Steve, and Mom and Dennis.

Thursday, the morning was mostly clear, so we hied ourselves down to San Juan Capistrano. The sun actually came out and it was a gorgeous late morning/early afternoon as we wandered around the mission. She got ideas for a story she’s working on, and I got ideas for a new story. We had a fantastic Mexican lunch at a nice restaurant—I ordered shrimp and scallop fajitas, and she got enchiladas suiza, and we shared.

Friday we went to a local grocery store that has a lot of Armenian and other ethic foods, and she went wild in the spice areas, going so far as to buy a bag of something she can’t even identify. It drizzled in the morning, but by late afternoon the clouds were just grey, not glowering with rain, so we popped down to the Bolsa Chica Wetlands, another one of those places I’ve been meaning to go. There are several miles of trails, through wetlands and saltwater pools. We walked for at least 2 miles, and saw four or five blue herons, which was very neat. Inexplicably, we both forgot the binoculars. I’m looking forward to going there in each season, to see how things change.

When we got home, I made a mess of chili, and Teresa and Cat and I curled up at watched “I Capture the Castle”, which was a really good movie, but different than what I expected, leading us to pronounce it good but weird. We watched Eddie Izzard’s “Unrepeatable”, and then Cat went to bed, and Teresa and I watched part of “Sexie”, until she started dozing off.

Today has been a pretty lazy day. We ordered pizza for lunch and the three of us watched the rest of “Sexie”. Teresa went with me to find a good dry cleaner’s so I could drop off the dress of Albra’s that I borrowed for New Year’s Eve, and we stopped at the British shop along the way. Tonight we’re going to Tani’s Mardi Gras party, hopefully bringing Amy along with us.

I haven’t gotten nearly as much writing done as I’d hoped, primarily because when we got home from wandering each day, I had to first get the damn copy editing and indexing done. But I did get it sent off on Friday, yay, and I won’t have another job until Ken and I get home from Baja California the second week of March.

It’s looking pretty positive that he’ll be home by next weekend. Wow and yay! On one hand, he’ll have to go back at some point, when the machine is sold, to install it at the customer site and provide training. But it’ll be wonderful to have him home, and I think I do prefer relatively shorter trips, all told. As I mentioned before, the BajaProg festival in Mexicali, Baja California, is in the beginning of March, and I was planning to go to support Cat and her band. The current plan (tentative as always, but getting closer to firm) is for Ken and I to ride down and stay for the festival, then ride to San Filipe for two nights (one full day), then cross to Encinada for a night (grey whales!), then ride home. In all, we’ll be gone just a week. Not bad, and a whole new country for me.

March is going to be busy overall. There’s also Collegium, and Black Oak Lodge, and then Sarah arrives! (Yay! Whee!) (Gee, can you tell the caffeine is really kicking in?)

Right, I was talking about writing, or lack thereof. On the way down to and back from San Juan Capistrano, we plotted a few stories to collab on. I did start one of them, and she wrote on it as well, and now it’s back to me for the end. Which I should probably get going on now.