Welcome back, how was your vacation?

It was great, I set the city on fire -- figuratively, of course, since it already was literally.on.fire.

On Monday morning, I was merging onto "The 5" from "The 8" and the moron in front of me threw.his.cigarette.out.of.the.window. Are you freakin' kidding me?! Do you not see the ash and the smoke all.around.you.

Clementine had to do some studying so I didn't see as much of her as was planned. We met for dinner on Thursday at The Melting Pot. Four hours later, we finished eating. I got there a little early and parked in the garage. She was running late and as the garage is completely confusing and getting from the garage is completely confusing, I told her I'd pay for valet for her. Wish I'd done the same. Hers was a flat fee of $7 and mine was $16. Umm, yeah. And my hotel charged $14/day parking, which was not disclosed on Hotwire.

On Friday, we went to Fuddrucker's which wasn't nearly as good as I'd remembered it being and then to a movie -- The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford which was very long, but with Brad and a creepy Casey, not bad on the eyes. Also, if you're going to tell me in the beginning of the movie that Jesse had an eye condition that made him blink more than normal, don't fill a 3 hour movie with deep penetrating stares.

On Saturday, we went to the zoo and Ghirardelli and the play. Thank God our parking was validated or it would have been $22. For about 3 hours. How do people afford to go to the mall to buy something with the parking charges? We weren't hungry since we had Ghirardelli, but by the time I dropped her off, I was starving. Thank God for In N Out.

On Sunday, we went to breakfast at The Cottage in La Jolla which is now going to be a tradition. So good. I dropped her back off at her place to study and I went to the Museum of Art at Balboa Park. Then I went downtown -- shoulda learned my lesson from the night of the play -- and circled around several blocks (one way, not left turn) to try to find a Fatburger. Gave up and went to Old Town for carnitas. I had in the previous days tried to find another Fatburger so I struck out twice. Now I sooo want one. I guess I'll have to settle for my Top Secret Recipe clone. Sunday was when the fires suddenly cropped up. On Friday night, the news was talking about the Santa Ana's and how everyone was worried about fires. I kind of blew that off as there not being any news so they had to manufacture some. Guess I was wrong.

On Monday, I was getting packed up and about to head to breakfast when Clementine called to say classes were canceled due to the fires. So I went to pick her up and we went back to The Cottage. She was talking about voluntarily evacuating to her roommate's place in Huntington Beach. I haven't heard from her so I'm assuming that she did. She wanted to go to Rosarita since it was probably the one time that the air quality would be better there, but her roommates didn't want to.

I flew out late Monday afternoon and happened to look down and see several fires surrounding a small community. A little scary.