Eating Above Our Station at San Ysidro Ranch

The Stonehouse Restaurant

Sometimes you discover a location so enchanting and riveting that all you think about when you leave is how to get back there again. Exactly one year ago we visited San Ysidro Ranch for the first time. We were enthralled by the gardens and charmed by the tasteful cottages. Lunch on the terrace at the Stonehouse Restaurant was delicious, romantic and without a false note.

The intervening year has been traumatic in more ways than one. Looking back on the year in December, a friend remarked that all the good things that had happened to me in 2013 had actually happened to my children. It was a wise and thoughtful comment. Lana got married, Lucy got a fabulous job at Facebook. Allie excelled in her career. All good.

The gyrations of moving and not moving, selling and not selling the house were exhausting. Innumerable stressors, known and unknown, were taking a toll on our relationship. Still in that mindset, we took a trip to Palm Springs in February. The final few days were to be in LA slash Santa Barbara with a belated Valentines Day dinner at the Ranch. Plans changed and that portion of the trip was deleted.

Still hankering for a dose of Santa Barbara, we decided to try again with a June mini-break. Although Montecito is a most dog friendly town, we left Ruby home with Lana. It was her first time without Eric or me and she went on a mini hunger strike. It upset Lana that Ruby would barely eat, but that’s just how dogs are. Anyway, she can stand to lose half a pound.

We started driving down and I was kind of shocked when I realized we were driving six hours for a two night get-away. I'd been thinking it was more like a four-hour drive. My grasp of geography has always been suspect. Basically, we were traveling 345 miles for dinner. No pressure there.

Sometimes its good to be trapped in a car for hours and hours with the one you love. You talk about things you need to discuss and there is no escape. By Woodside we were pretty much talked out and the atmosphere changed. It lifted and lightened. Lunch in Paso Robles was excellent. At least I thought so until I spent much of that night in the hotel bathroom with imploding intestines. Now that's romantic!

Gastric catastrophes aside, it WAS very romantic. It was a short walk to the beach from our hotel in Montecito. The water temperature was perfect for swimming. No wetsuit required. The ocean is incredibly therapeutic. Saltwater will cure whatever ails you in mind or body. It makes my skin feel so good.

I had a huge Planter's wart when I was a young teen.  It was so painful I could barely walk. It was going to be removed when I visited my father on Long Island. A few days of saltwater and the wart was completely cured. We hoped the ocean would cure Eric's 100-day cough, but it didn't. It cured the rest of him. I hadn't seen him so relaxed in years.

My fingernails were a mess so I wandered down the street in Montecito Village for a manicure. I was shocked when they told me the price. Twenty-five dollars for a simple manicure. You might be wondering what they charge for pedicures. Forty-five. So for a mere seventy bucks, before tip, you can leave feeling pretty good. Ridiculous.

The night before we'd gotten ice cream and three tiny scoops were over nine dollars. And I thought we lived in an expensive area. Montecito really has to get over it. Unless you can control the moon and the stars and command the sun to break through the fog, you're just another place.

We were prepared for sticker shock when we arrived for dinner at The Stonehouse. You're paying for the experience and location and the food is very proud of itself as well. The bamboo-covered terrace, with hurricane lamps and sparkly lights, overlooking the property and hillside, was sensational. Eric opened the wine list and gulped. Edna Valley Cabernet started at $280 a bottle. I peeked at the menu. Risotto, at $46, was the least expensive item. Talk about eating (and drinking) above our station!

There is a certain gentle, twinkly sound at high-end restaurants. The Stonehouse was no different. The conversations were interesting in the way only an LA area restaurant can be interesting. The patrons were as eclectic as expected. The gay couple behind us was riveting. One of them had a British accent and a serious stutter.

It was hard not to overhear their conversation, not that we tried. Eric and I love to eavesdrop at restaurants. Allie and I do the same thing. Afterwards we let our imaginations run wild and make up stories about them. At one point the man behind us asked the waitress about a guy called Warner. I had no idea who he was, but he sounded important.

On the drive home the next day I put the google on the ranch. It turns out Warner is the owner. Ty Warner. Ty as in Beanie Babies! The man has 2.6 billion dollars because of Beanie Babies! Lord knows I've contributed my fair share. I must say, the man has amazing taste. It's a legendary location - John and Jackie Kennedy spent their honeymoon there. I'm sure it's always been wonderful, but Ty certainly hasn't ruined it.

We got out of dinner for under three hundred, but it wasn't easy. Was it worth it? Yes. And no. The wine, at $70 a bottle, was mediocre. The abalone appetizer came so drenched in a tetrazzini style sauce that you couldn't taste it. The salad had large chunks of Brie that were way too cold. It was like eating lumps of lard. We fared better with the entrees. My Halibut was outstanding and the portion so generous I couldn't finish it. Eric's dinner was also excellent. The piece of chocolate cake was so so. The lava cake at our local restaurant Vasco is far better.

It's always a let down to be back home. The temperature was a bitter 58 degrees and the gloomy fog dripped on the windshield and swirled around the house. It's hard for me to relax at home. Every place my eye goes there is something for me to do. House projects, the linen aprons I started for Lucy and Allie. Even updating the wills. I do my real estate work at home so that adds to it. For Eric, it's much simpler.He's either at work or at home. That's very old-fashioned, but sometimes I envy it. I'm rarely not working on something. 

My stomach is still protesting so we've been eating simple dinners. We figure two nights of tomato soup and scrambled eggs and our meal at the Ranch hasn't really cost us that much. Dollar cost averaging. And Ruby, the little stinker who wouldn't eat for Lana, she's eating just fine.

Chemical Peel

Born in Michigan to a blonde, blue-eyed father and an olive skinned brown haired, brown-eyed mother, I ended up with dirty blonde hair, green eyes and freckles. Three of my four grandparents were blue eyed. I'm not sure where the green came from, but they’re a point of vanity. They make me feel special even though most people think of me as having blue eyes. The freckles used to be kind of cute, too. Now they’re viewed with suspicion. We have no history of skin cancer in the family, but my dermatologist isn't taking any chances. 

Raised in New York, we resided for a while by a lake and my father had a sailboat on Long Island for years. There were the catastrophic sunburns in Florida- second-degree burns that blistered and peeled. At seventeen I moved to Hollywood and spent my fair share of time by the pool. When I moved to Mill Valley there was a slab if concrete in the back yard that I dubbed the "sun pit". You get the drift. That was before all the years at the girls' swim meets followed by the tennis years. Suffice to say, if I never had another drop of sun on my shoulders it wouldn't be too soon.

At a recent visit to the skin doctor he looked at me and put it quite bluntly. He said he could zap my face thirty times or I could have the blue light treatment. No third option? I guess not. Eric has the same dermatologist and he prescribed the same treatment for him. Forty years on tennis courts and a South Florida childhood had come home to roost.  

We decided to have it done together. Double date. The first question the doctor asked me was if I was ok with having a “vicious” reaction. Apparently, the longer the chemical is left on before the light treatment, the deeper it goes and the “better” the result. The medicine attaches to the pre-cancerous cells and then they peel off. He suggested I might peel for ten days. Eric had gone first so I said I’d do whatever he did. It was an hour and a half. In retrospect, it’s a decision I regret.

After Eric waited for his hour and a half, he spent seventeen minutes under the ultra-violet light. I could tell it hurt by looking at him when he returned to the waiting room. Then it was my turn. If you’ve ever had a lip wax you might be able to imagine the pain. It’s like the ripping part for seventeen minutes. Also like someone is stabbing your face continuously with tiny hot pokers. Ouch!

Afterwards, you scurry home under a hat and stay in the darkest room of your house for forty-eight hours. We have a very light house. With six skylights, it's even bright in the garage. Many of our windows are up high and have no shades. That ruled out the master bedroom, bathroom and living room. We draped the kitchen windows with towels and drop cloths. It was rainy when we went in for the treatment, but four hours later it started to clear up on the way home.

That was yesterday. I cannot express how miserable I am today. Red, itchy, blistery, scaly face with out of control swelling. Pain like the worst sunburn I’ve ever had, along with that chilled feeling. It’s a glorious spring day and miserable to have to stay inside the whole time, but it’s probably just as well. I could scare children if I’m seen in public now. Eric is having some itching but he looks practically normal.

Now that I’ve finished all 775 pages of Donna Tartt’s “The Goldfinch”, I’m at a loss. Agitated, bored and grumpy. As unpleasant (medical euphemism) as this is, I know it’s the right thing to do. I need to get the bad guys off my face. It will heal and I’ll forget about how awful it was until I go back for treatment number two. In five weeks.

The kitchen looks like an encampment.

Home Again

Our House

Sometimes you take a trip and end up in the same place. The place where you started.  Maybe all trips are like that. I don't know. I'm getting confused. What I do know is, I thought we were moving in one direction and it seems we're not moving at all. Anywhere.

The house plans went along swimmingly until they didn't. Tilt. Shock number one was looking at apartments. On New Year's Eve we checked out The Cove. It was the emergency back up plan because they accept pets. For $2,300 a month we could rent a tiny one bedroom. But, hey, they take pets.

The Cove triggered a tsunami sized panic attack. The idea of living in a crappy apartment while someone else lived in our house was horrible. And offensive. And horribly offensive. I know. I know. It was my idea in the first place to find a temporary rental, empty out the house so we could refinish all the wood floors, and then stage it for sale. The Cove cured me of that notion. Leaving the house before we had somewhere to go was a bad idea.

Then I realized the plan had another flaw. The part about leaving Mill Valley. The concept was that we would rent until we found something we could afford to buy and if we didn't find anything in two years (which is the deadline to transfer the property tax base) we could buy in San Anselmo or Fairfax which are more affordable. It was all perfectly viable until I realized I don't want to leave Mill Valley. It's home. My post "My Town"  (http://pearlsandlemons.blogspot.com/2010/12/my-town.html) says it best. How could I have forgotten all that?

Ruby enjoys the new window seat.

Reconstructing the past few months, and even the last year or so, I can see why securing my future became of such paramount importance. Cashing out seemed to be the right thing to do. Maybe it is. Maybe it's not. It's all in how you look at it. I am such a tricky combination of eternal optimism and doom mongering. Crashing about between feelings of bounty and scarcity, I even confuse myself.

We've done so many projects preparing the house for sale. At some point it stopped being for others and started being for us again. Well, maybe for me. Eric has been so whipsawed by the process, and all the changes of my mind, that he doesn't much care anymore. So much of the work needed to be done to care for the house properly. New hot water heater, new bathroom floors, getting rid of dry rot. It's all good. The landscaping in front was long overdue and is lovely.

Having automatic irrigation at long last is simply marvelous. Installing a lawn during a drought drew some ire, but I knew having timed watering would ultimately save water. We used to put the sprinkler on in one spot and forget about it for two hours. Talk about waste! Anyway, we ended the drought. The afternoon our sod was installed it began to rain and it rained off and on for weeks thereafter. The reservoirs have filled up. You're welcome.

I've always wondered how you know when to hold 'em and when to fold 'em. As the song goes, when to walk away and when to run. Is it too soon to leave or too long to stay? For jobs, homes, relationships, it's a perennial question. Selling our house is not the problem. Lots of folks want to buy the house. One of our neighbors offered to buy it for an exorbitantly high price, and have me list his for sale. He's never even been inside!

The problem is where to go. For now, the most affordable place for us to live in Mill Valley is our own home. It's partly why there is nothing to buy. People like us can't sell because they're locked in. Things will change. They always do. For now, I'm enjoying being back home, even though I never really left.

Any Port In A Storm

Ruby wonders where the furniture has gone. 

Deep into our second week of temporary homelessness I noticed something. We are lacking the proper utensils. It started even before we packed up the house to have the wood floors refinished. In kindergarten we sometimes have yogurt or applesauce for snack. We had twenty metal spoons for the children to use. Now we have ten. We still have twenty kids. Discounting for the several students who don't care for yogurt and/or applesauce, there remains a spoon deficit. After scouring all the likely spots in the kitchen and staff room, I could only muster plastic forks. So, the kids are kind of accustomed to eating applesauce with forks now.

I'm not nearly as flexible. This is our tenth day away from our house and we just ate Caesar salad for lunch with spoons. Plastic spoons. It's strange what you miss. I'm kind of formal about eating my meals. Eric would say I have a lot of rules. Let’s just call them preferences.

I prefer not to stand in line for my food. At potlucks I'd rather wait until everyone's served themselves and then help myself. I prefer to eat sitting down. When viewing property on Broker Tour there is often food available. If I'm going to eat I will make a plate and find a place to eat. Often these properties are astonishingly beautiful. It's a luxury to have a 

chance to sit in one of these locations. No standing around eating for me.

Home on Broker Tour

I also enjoy the proper utensils, but when in Rome... After moving all our belongings into two bedrooms and the master bathroom, we walked away from the house for two weeks. First stop was Lucy's beautiful apartment in North Beach. Lucy and Greg were in Tahoe so we had the place to ourselves. In the rain. With a damp, little dog. The rain that had been falling for five days non-stop. We went from dangerous drought to dangerous flooding in the span of three days. I started seeing photos on Facebook of flooding in our neighborhood. Not again!

In 2005 we had a nasty flood and lost everything in our garage.  Many neighbors lost their cars or had damage to their homes, but no water entered our house. We recently had the property surveyed and the certificate of elevated stated we are above the 100-year flood level. Except for the garage.

So many little bits of serendipity influenced the outcome this time. We had planned to refinish ALL the wood floors. In January we reserved off-site storage as well as a pod for the driveway. Thinking that might be overkill, I recently canceled the storage space. At the last minute the idea of getting everything off the floor of the entire house (including closets) seemed like too much. It was too much. We decided not to have the wood floors done in two of the bedrooms. I canceled the driveway pod, which was to store all our belongings, along with what we could cram into the garage. How fortuitous that would turn out to be.

Ruby assists with the landscaping.

Prior to the floor work we had a fair amount of landscaping done. Part of the project required a debris box, which was placed in the driveway. Despite repeated reminders, the landscape person neglected to have the full debris box removed. It seems they only pick it up when you call and she didn't call until the Friday morning that the driveway pod was scheduled to arrive. The debris box wouldn't be removed until Monday. Fortunately for us, (and the landscape lady who was an utter dingbat) we had canceled the pod. Between the endless rain and threat of flooding, disaster could easily have ensued.

The mighty moving men. 

Thanks to Sam and Max we got everything piled into two bedrooms except for two enormous pine armoires, which we slid with great difficulty into the master bath. It was impossible to move them downstairs.

That night we were so tired and achy we could barely move. Eric, who flew down five steps and landed on his back on the mattress, was especially sore. That's what you get when you try to turn a lawyer into a moving man!

When we got back to Mill Valley Monday morning I drove by the house and all was well. Even the driveway didn't flood, but not all the neighborhood was that fortunate. Parts of Miller were a river and Joe's Taco Lounge took on two feet of water. I believe our elevation certificate.

Progress. Looking good. 

It was discombobulating to be out of Lucy's, but not yet checked into the Holiday Inn, where we would spend the next five nights. Our clothes were in the car, the bird was in the classroom and Ruby spent the morning in the car in her crate. The weather was cool so it was fine. This is exactly why I haven't gotten the floors sanded and coated in all these years. Such a pain to be displaced, but the Holiday Inn wasn't bad. Conveniently located for work, pet friendly with hot breakfasts. You really couldn't ask for more. Except decent coffee and utensils. One evening we ate takeout in our room. We had plastic forks but no plates. On the plus side there was a fire pit and s'mores kits.

The week of exile turned into a road trip leading to a vacation. An ugly experience contracting hot tub folliculitis last May turned into two free nights at La Quinta Resort in Palm Springs. Just add money for the third night and a stop in LA and Santa Barbara, and it starts to look like a vacation. This morning I drank coffee from a real mug. I’ll take it.