San Diego, CA
December 20, 2017
We arrived last night, tired but without incident, wearied from a year during which the ground often felt unsteady beneath our feet and eager for two weeks of uninterrupted relaxation on a surface where undulation is expected.
Rising with the sun, and after an hour walk through a somewhat subdued Gaslamp quarter that appeared to be recovering from the previous night, we proceeded under monotonously magnificent San Diego weather to a rendez-vous at The Breakfast Republic at 7th and G Streets with Rita’s second cousin Lina from Odessa.
Although Rita, Alexander, and David visited Lina on the Southern California segment of their summer vacation in June, I had not seen her since attending her wedding twenty years ago, the reason for my only prior time in San Diego.
“What brought you to San Diego?”, I asked by way of reacquaintance.
“The collapse of the Soviet Empire”, came the reply to what she may have assumed was a trick question, and politely omitting the implicit “duh….”
“I completed my Masters in Odessa, then we came first to LA, but soon moved to San Diego, where I have been since.”
Lina is a delight – intelligent, humorous, and engaging. Her marriage did not endure, but a propensity for adventure persists. Among her journeys was one several months ago, to St John, or to what had been St John before Hurricane Irma decided to accompany Lina on her vacation.
Trapped for several days with no power, her hotel converted to community shelter, she maintained the positive and charitable attitude that has her prepared for a return to the Caribbean next week to assist those multitudes in Puerto Rico still struggling to escape the ravages of Hurricane Maria.
So seemed the theme this year. Fires raging not more than a few dozen miles from where we sat were stark reminders of the conflagrations that recently ravaged Sonoma County and consumed homes of good friends in Santa Rosa.
That destruction, being only a month after Hurricane Irma threatened Tampa, reinforced how fortunate our own family, having fled to our home and to George and Molly’s in Atlanta, was to have averted a similar fate. Hurricanes, fires, and persistent temblors of a natural and political sort contributed to the pervasive sense of unease, while our respective work obligations left Rita exhausted and me constantly shuttling to a virtual second residence in St Louis.
Escape could therefore not come soon enough. Embarkation to the Amsterdam, a ship we sailed to Alaska eighteen months ago, was as smooth as any we’ve endured, requiring less than an hour from cab to cabin.
After receiving our luggage and completing the requisite lifeboat drill, we found ourselves along the rail of the top deck, raising champagne glasses as first San Diego, and then the sun, descended over their respective horizons.
Our primary focus this evening was celebrating David’s 13th birthday, which we did with an Indonesian serenade from a large contingent of the dining room staff, whose relentless effort and energy is matched, and masked, by their indefatigable enthusiasm and cheer.
JD
