California, California, the hills send out the cry, we're out to do or die. . .

Once again we are on the move. Tomorrow we will start out early for our drive to Ensenada and then on to the States for my Mother’s 102nd birthday in May. She is still sharp as a tack.

My Mother last month holding her newest grandchild, Paloma.

After that we go to Esperando’s son’s graduation from California Institute of the Arts. (Established in 1961 by Walt and Roy Disney, it started as Disney's dream of an interdisciplinary "Caltech of the Arts" and provides a collaborative environment for arts disciplines including music, art, contemporary dance, experimental film, video art, animation, theater, puppetry and creative writing). After 4 years with his nose to the grindstone, Youngest Son will be awarded a degree in film animation. Hot Damn! I wonder if he will remember how to sleep long hours again, since he has been splitting his time between studies and work?

But that is not the end of the odyssey. Once all the pomp and circumstance has died down we will drive on to Northern California where Esperando will be working so he will not have to travel back and forth so much while I remain a nearby camp follower and get to see him more often. We will spend the next 3 to 4 months up in the Bay Area: time enough spend some quality time with our families and friends and take in a cooking class, puppy training classes, and Pilates classes too. I always think of the Bay Area as my home since I graduated from high school and spent the next 30 years there before moving away to start this life of a vagabond.

Baby mangoes waiting for the hot summer to come so they can grow big and ripen. Yum!

However happy I am for a temporary move back to ‘Upper California,’ this will be the third summer of mangos ripening on the guesthouse trees that I will miss. They are still only about an inch long. Last year I saw one almost ripe mango when we were here for a week, but when I came back several weeks later it was gone. I will be sad to leave all of our pets (little Lupita gets to go with us) and our new planted garden. It is such a small start on greenness for us now in this new house. We have planted several hibiscus trees, a couple of bougainvilleas, a bird of paradise, some Siberian iris, wandering jew, rosemary, oregano, mint, thyme, a serrano pepper bush, 3 olive trees, a mango tree and my two roses that I brought down here from Estados Unidos almost two years ago and that have been struggling along in pots until now. I hope our plants survive our absence. Hopefully Francisco will keep them alive, but he only is here three days in a row and when the hot summer comes it may devastate everything without more frequent watering. Last week I gave my friend Don Diego’s mother over to the care of two little Jacaranda tree sprouts that I have been nurturing for the past few months. They were about 3 inches high each. She assured me that they would get excellent care and she has a green thumb, so if they don’t make it with her I won’t know why.

Esperando worries that no one will fill his hummingbird feeders properly, that the sugar water will ferment from lack of a proper bottle scrub and our little feathered friends will have to go back to getting their food from more natural sources and forget about us. The orioles, too, love our feeders and spend a good part of the day squabbling at each other because one of them wants to feed and the other won’t get out of its way.

Beautiful oriole at the bird feeder.

I won’t be here for the hot muggy summer, but I want to be and it is already hotting up. I took the extra blanket off the bed last time I made it up. It is hard having these homes in multiple locations, feeling guilty for each one you have abandoned, knowing that they are not getting all the care you would give them if you could stay put day in and out. I don’t see how people enjoy having multiple homes if they don’t need to do so. This morning New Cook started crying when I gave her instructions on caring for the pets. She said,"I don't want you to go, I'll really miss you." Bless those dear souls that take care of everything we leave behind everywhere.