The Glorious Madonna Inn

I took Steve to the Madonna Inn in San Luis Obispo for his 47th birthday. The place is fantastic, and I'd go back again in a heartbeat! It kinda reminds me of a big dollhouse, or maybe some place a Hobbit would live, except for the giant size:



It's kinda hard to describe the rooms, but the simple version is that every room at the hotel is built around a theme of some sort. We stayed in a room for the first two nights called the Old World Suite that is almost indescribable without actually seeing it yourself!



You had to walk down into a cave-like, basement-like area to get to it. The actual room number was 192. Note the downward-pointing arrow:




View from the door, looking out:



On the inside, the walls and floor were rock. Not fake rock. Real rock. And they built the bathroom within that rock! This is a pic of the vanity:


I'm in the shower here, took this picture for scale; no, not because my husband enjoyed snapping naked pics of me. :) You can even see the waterfall falling behind me!


The living room:



Steve was especially obsessed with the fireplace. It was pretty awesome, and since this hotel is on the central coast, the highs were in the low 60s and we were able to use this fireplace in August!



The last night, we stayed in the room called Just Like Heaven. It was painted entirely in blue, and had baby-sized cherubs all over the room. They were a little bit creepy but cool just the same. The furnishings look like they should be dusty and musty and stinky, but in reality they were luxurious and beautiful. I fell just as in love with this room as I did the Old World Suite! What made it kinda neato was that right in the middle of the room was a spiral staircase leading to a lookout tower above the room. You could climb up into it and have the highest view from the hotel, of the valley below.

We parked behind the hotel, and walked to our room via a little bridge.



Steve climbing the stairs:


Using my photographic talents for seeing light (haha), I took this view from the ground floor looking up at the spiral staircase (going into the watch tower) in the evening sunlight:



I thought the sink in the bathroom was just beautiful:



And last but not least, the creepy cherub. Why on earth these things are religious icons, I'll never know. They reminded me more of little demons. :)



The last pics are taken in the hotel's restaurant, where the wine was great and the food was fab. The best part? The decor. Check out the pink, and notice the gigantic roses hanging down from the ceiling. Borderline gawdy, but absolutely fantastic:



No matter what, this hotel is absolutely fantastic! I had wanted to go there for a decade, and finally made it with my best friend. 3 nights was hardly enough time, and if I ever go back, I'll stay in a different room every single night. I can't imagine not enjoying any of them!

If you get the chance to stay there, do it!! Definitely a very unique experience.

A REAL vacation

It took a while to make final decisions, but after spending the first year and a half of practice ownership without any real time off, Steve and I decided to take a real vacation. It started with planning for our annual Laguna Beach week off (at our timeshare) where my friend (a veterinarian) covers for me at the hospital. Then we realized that my friend, who is a full time relief doctor, might want to cover for two weeks instead of just one, since she comes down from the central coast for us. Heck, it's also right before Christmas, and that would give her a pocketful of change to spend! So we asked her, she agreed, and we extended our vacation for another week.

We'll be celebrating our 1 year anniversary. :)

So we'll be closing the hospital on Nov. 26 and will be closed through that weekend (we committed to do doing that when we hit the ground running, haven't looked back, and never regret it! It's a great holiday mental break for us and the staff and as we all know, a happy staff is a happy hospital). Of course in typical Deb & Steve fashion, we'll probably take off Wed. night and start the vacation early. :) But, either way, we'll head to Laguna that Friday like we always do, for a full week. Then on Fri, Dec. 4, we hop a flight to Mexico for 8 days. Don't come back till late at night on the 12th, and don't have to be back at work until the following Tuesday.

So it's nearly 3 full weeks off!!! I admit, I'm a bit scared (read: terrified as shit) to be gone for that long, esp. with a small business and this economy. But, we kinda figure that if we're going to crash and burn (something we are not even in the same universe of doing) then we'll go out with a bang. :)

I've never had this much time off, ever, in my whole life, that revolved around a vacation! Or, at least, not since I had summers off.... :)

Will be a fab time, we booked a luxury suite with a rooftop terrace and private outdoor jacuzzi. Can't go too many days without a spa, you know. :)

It's not always bad.

My husband told me the *coolest* story recently. He absolutely adored his Grandma, you see, but she passed away from stomach cancer many years ago, and he still feels the pain to this day.

He said that one time, he walked into their house to discover the strangest odor. Being a teenager of the 70's, of course he recognized the smell: the indisputable pungency of mary jane.

After walking around the house trying to figure out the source of the odor, he finally found both of his grandparents in the back bedroom, high as kites, giggling, eating and just having a wonderful time. Their droopy eyes and stoned faces were classic, he says!!

He started laughing, asked them what in the heck his 70 year old grandparents were DOING, to which his Grandpa answered, "Well, that there cancer doctor told us that your Grandma's tummy might feel better and she might eat better if we get us some of that there marijuana. So we went out and got some from one of your cousins!"

He says it's one of his fondest memories of them.

And I say, why does something that brings so much happiness to people who are dying have to be illegal?

This time of year

WHAT is it about it being 100 degrees outside, that makes me think about spending MORE time in the desert?

It seems inevitable that I'll start dreaming about hiking and camping when it's just not feasible. The best times for those things are spring and fall; summer and winter are pretty miserable, so why do these thoughts hit me in July of every single year? Last year we headed for Joshua Tree in September before the heat broke; we hit Tecopa Hot Springs with Bonnie and Donnie and had to run the air conditioners. I really gotta get my chi aligned with the cooler weather. :)

It must be the beauty and the desire to "be out in it."

So I'll be planning the first of several weekends out and about.

This is me at the Hot Springs.



We also decided that we WILL be going to Reggae next year, up in Eureka. My group goes every year and I haven't been since 2006, so it's time. We probably would have gone this year (the festival is this coming weekend) but things just didn't work out that way. So we'll definitely plan for it next year. If anyone is interested in joining us, let me know. :)

Economical meltdowns

I live in a world where every day can be the most difficult day of my life. It's emotional. It's draining. It's gutwrenching. I suffer from emotional burnout and compassion fatigue. Earlier this week, in one day, we had to have a hearing with a judge over the firing of an employee; we got the news that a good friend of ours who made a major mistake had his sentence reduced to 8 years suspended (great news!!) even though he won't get out of jail until December; we had to write a nasty email to the previous owner of our practice threatening a lawsuit. And then the next day, I had to euthanize my dear friend's 17 year old dog while she laid beside her in the kennel and cried. All of this while carrying a full workload and taking care of all of our clients - business as usual.

Some days I almost can't take it.

And then today, one of my good, long term clients informed me that the IRS has come down on them for not paying their taxes appropriately and they have a lien on their house. How on earth do I look her in the face and tell her that I have to charge her for my services? I honestly care about her dog; we've been through tummy upsets, ruptured knees, weight loss, weight gain, numerous medications and conversations. How do I help without hurting my own pocketbook?

It's worse than I've ever seen it. People are hurting. People are losing their jobs and their lives. It's hard to make it through the day without offering a discount, a free service or something just to help someone. But I have a business to run and employees to support and taxes to pay myself. My business helps support my small town. We make a difference in people's lives.

Thank god for Steve who gets me through these tribulations and maintains that we must charge for what we do, or like my dad predicted many moons ago, I'd be the poorest (read: broke) vet in the world.

For whatever reason, last August I decided it was time for a visit to Joshua Tree National Park. It definitely wasn't the right time of year to visit such a place, but we ended up having such a wonderful time! We stayed in a quaint little motel (read: trashy desert roach motel), ate at a local favorite bar and grill (read: vegan hippie hangout) and took far too many pictures of the cool stuff (read: cool stuff but also a funny caterpillar scurrying across the highway). I'm actually dying to get back there this fall and hopefully do some camping.


There is a place called the Ocotillo Patch where there are literally hundreds (maybe thousands?) of them growing in one specific place. It was pretty amazing.



In this particular part of the world, you can actually drive through and experience the change from the higher, Mojave desert to the lower, Sonoran desert. What makes that special? Well, besides the obvious change in vegetation and landscaping, the temperature quickly rises about 20 degrees. And I mean quickly. It's this change in altitude that allows specific little "patches" of plants and cactus to grow there and nowhere else.

Another of those little patches is Cholla cactus "forest". Kinda scary to walk through but extremely interesting just the same.



There was a path winding through the cholla forest and believe me, it's not a path you'll stray from!!!

The thing that makes Joshua Tree National Forest so famous, are the rock formations. It's a rock climbers paradise and when you're there, you feel like you're in the world of Fred Flintstone. I am quite certain that my first exposure to this park 15 years ago affected me so deeply that when I came back to the high desert, living near the rocks was a subconscious definitive.




And, yes, there is a lot of wildlife, even in the desert. Bighorn sheep love it!



And, last but not least... there were so many of these, grossing me out, that we had to stop and take pics of one that was desperately trying to get across the road without becoming a fried caterpillar. He obviously made it to the other side, and I captured a shot as he was scurrying to get away.



So the moral of THIS story? If you've never been to Joshua Tree, you MUST experience it at least once in your life. It's amazing.

Pure Love

I had to post this picture because I love my Scooby soooo much. She just got married to a terrific guy and I cannot believe she is all grown up. Thanks for the pic, Mom. Steve called it "Teeth and Cheeks". :)



Sorry I cried during my entire toast to you and Stewie at the wedding. :)

Interesting Cemetery

So while we were in New Orleans, we decided we wanted to experience a bit of the more ghoulish side of things. We were headed to the Ninth Ward, where a significant amount of Katrina damage can still be seen and where you can still feel the the walking souls and death, when we passed by a very old, very decrepid above-ground cemetery. Of course we had to stop and of course I had to take *too* many pictures.

In the above picture - seriously - a drain???? What's down there???



It was almost like walking into an apartment complex for the dead.



Some of them (below) made me feel like the souls were sealed off and banished to the grave forever:



I expected someone to come out and mow the lawn on some. Or maybe the soul of a doggy to come running out and bark at the fence?


Was there any soul here, kneeling, praying? Did I walk right past someone?




It's hard to read, but this was the grave of a PFC from World War II. It gave me a sense of creepy patriotism:

This one was like a mini prison grave:


The one below just looks like a darned kiln (crematorium). I looked for any remaining bones but didn't see any. (haha)



And yes, someone was actually squatting in this one!!! I tried to get Steve to lay in it but it grossed me out too much.


And this is what you get if you don't have much money:



I believe this particular cemetery is one of the ones that supposedly is haunted. Of course we didn't know that until later, when we were looking at some flyers for "things to do in New Orleans" and we saw some pictures of this exact place. Considering we walked around in here for quite some time, I'm certain we absorbed some spiritual energy without even knowing it!! :)

Crawfish

Now, down south where I'm from, eating crawfish is a pretty big deal. It's kinda like the BBQs we have out here (we have the BEST weather for that!!) except on a larger, more social scale. There's just something about hanging out, drinking beer, swatting mosquitos and boiling crawfish that brings a family together. :)

Steve had crawfish a few times, but never quite like we do it in the south. We had our first taste at a small place in New Iberia, La. It wasn't the usual, large social gathering, but that was coming up a little later. I told Steve he had to "suck the head" to get the spices out, and so he did:


I neglected to mention at the time that I don't actually do that. :) But *Real Men* do. :)

So when we got to my sister's house in Houston, we all decided that boiling a bunch of mudbugs was the thing to do. My BIL, Kenny, got 40 lbs of 'em and away we went. He taught Steve how to purge the crawfish, and Steve just found this to be entirely too much fun:



He almost couldn't wait until they were boiled!



But eventually we got 'em boiled along with corn, potatoes, mushrooms, deer sausage, etc. It put a huge smile on my face.


I miss the south. It's so much more interesting than any place on earth.

Best Vacation So Far!

Steve and I took off for the south a few weeks ago. We drove from New Orleans, La to Houston, Tx and had a fabulous time!

It started with this at Harrah's in New Orleans:


The coolest bar I've ever seen! Yes that is a tray encircling the bar, chilled and coated with ice. You just keep your drink on it and it stays cold. GREAT idea!!!

This, of course, led to this:




Which then led to this:



I ended up winning about $640 with this little lucky slot! It was still counting when I took this picture. :)

After leaving New Orleans, we headed to Avery Island, La. Steve had never been south before, so showing him my neck of the woods was a ton of fun! I thought that knowing where Tabasco sauce is made is pretty important in the grand scheme of things, so off we went.

Yes it really was this beautiful! This is a photo of the entrance to Jungle Gardens, a 4 acre garden of gorgeous trees and plants, along with swamp. It's a driving tour so you don't have to walk it, but you can stop your car and take pictures along the way. And believe me, this is how to do it. 4 miles ain't much, but it's halfway around the world when you have to battle the mosquitos this place had to offer!

The day wouldn't have been complete had we not eaten some boudin and some hot links along with some icy cold beer in front of the Tabasco store.


After Avery Island we headed a few hours west to Lake Charles, my home town, for the most part. We saw some significant Katrina damage that *still* is not repaired, and found a cemetary that I swear I never saw before, despite knowing that town pretty darned well. There was a crazy statue of Jesus in this cemetary and, well, being the atheistic heathens that we are, we had to make some fun:



Okay so we're not *that* bad, but we just could not resist taking this picture. But seriously, this cemetery was so cool and I have a huge interest in exploring these old places. There is just something cool about seeing graves that are over a hundred years old! And this particular cemetery held the graves of the founders of Lake Charles. Pretty darned cool.


I'm gonna start a new thread so this one doesn't get too long. I haven't even gotten to the best part of the trip yet!

Nasally Stuff

Last October, I got a cold. Nothing out of the ordinary, but it hung on. Because we were getting married on Thanksgiving, I called my doctor and she put me on oral antibiotics. No biggee, except that I didn't really get over the cold. In fact, I was sick on my wedding night with a sore throat and extreme exhaustion. My honeymoon was spent sniffling and coughing and resting. :(

I sort of got over it but never 100%, and at the end of December, I got sick again. Went on antibiotics again. Sort of got over it but not 100%.

I got sick again in Jan. Went on antibiotics AGAIN. Sort of got over it but not 100% and at this time, had been coughing since October. I don't mean a light "cough cough" I mean a loud, honking "HACK HACK" kind of cough.

At the beginning of March, we headed to Yosemite for our annual trip and on Day 1 of the conference, I got so sick I missed the REST of the conference. There we sat, in a great hotel room, in one of the world's most beautiful National Parks, and I was sicker than I'd ever been.

At this point I was convinced I had lung cancer and Steve and I were extremely emotional. We got a hold of our doctor and scheduled an appointment with a CT scan and chest xrays - results showed a severely abscessed sinus cavity!

Surgery was scheduled. Thank god.

So they roto-rooted out my sinus cavity, and it helped quite a bit. The only part that sucked, and I mean SUCKED, was that after surgery, they packed my sinuses with a strange torture device known as a "nasal tampon". Not so bad, until they pull the darned things out!

Just imagine having your nose stuffed full of fully expanded tampons. Now imagine someone YANKING it out it right after having the sinus cavity scraped clean (read: raw and irritated and bleeding and painful) without giving you any good drugs to aid in the process.

Did I say it SUCKED?

So now I'm here, about 2 months since surgery, and I have to say that while I'm not totally normal yet, I do feel a LOT better. No more colds, headaches, coughing, etc. Hopefully this thing will work. I am a bit more "nasally" than before, which I think is due to the new holes they cut into my sinuses to facilitate drainage, but it is what it is... as long as I'm not sick, I'm happy. I'll give up my singing voice for now.

I just had to post this one because of the SUCKAGE of the nasal tampons. I just can't reiterate that enough. So let me know if you're going to need this procedure - I'll be sure to lie to you like my doctor did to me, and tell you "it's not so bad, just a little uncomfortable". :)

On Turning 40...

I have to say that I had the BEST birthday this year and I have Steve to thank for it. Last week, on my actual b-day, he gave me my first "gift": a Wii!! We've been competing ever since. :) He got us several games, the Wii Fit and a lot of extra gadgets that go with it. Since I'm pretty compromised at operating these things, it's definitely something that we are able do to "together". (read: he has to show me how to work it)

Then on Saturday, he threw me a big party here at the house. Lots of fun! Old friends, new friends, staff members, etc came and helped me celebrate. Everyone ended up in the pool at least once, of course, and I hung out in the spa while Poppy grilled the food.

After that, all I knew was that 1.) we were going somewhere and 2.) I'd need an overnight bag. This isn't the first time my love has done this; he's really good at giving me surprise prizes. So Sunday morning, we packed and headed out.

First we went and saw the new Star Trek movie. Yeah! It was great! And, we both had been wanting to see it so that was a nice thing to do at 10am when it wasn't crowded. Afterwards, I was thinkin', "he had me pack a bag to throw me off so he could take me to a movie?". I should have known better. WAY better.

We headed down the hill and he still would not tell me where we were going. It wasn't until we were almost there that I figured it out: he had reserved us a large, beautiful suite at the Mission Inn in Riverside! This is one of my FAVORITE places to hang out! Simply gorgeous! So after checking into our beautiful room, he tells me there's one more prize and that I need to change clothes for that; then we headed down to the spa for a surprise couples massage. Those are ALWAYS great!!

This is a view from the window in our room:


After our massage, we headed to the bar, enjoyed some good drinks, some halibut ceviche, and then went off to dinner. I had one of the best prime rib dinners I've ever had, and Steve had a Surf and Turf special. It was absolutely fabulous!

Another view, from another window, in our ginormous suite:


We slowly got up and out of bed on Monday and headed back home to the real world.

Thank you, my beautiful husband, for making me feel loved and special and beautiful and all of those things that a husband is supposed to do for his wife. There is no bigger motivation to make a marriage the best it can be than for both spouses to simply love and be kind to each other.

Everything else falls into place. :)

Bruce!!

The Boss

Oct. 29th, 2007 was a very special night for me. See, my super cool boyfriend (now Hubby) surprised me with Bruce Springsteen tickets! My ex couldn't get a clue for 13 years that I really wanted to see him in concert but I mentioned it to Steve ONCE and he came up with tickets! He's a keeper. :)

When we showed up to get our wristbands, we were assigned a number somewhere between 1 and 1000. We were 612 and 613. The way Bruce lets the floor ticket holders into the building is like this: a fan picks a number and that number becomes Number One for the count, on who gets to enter the building first. Well, well... the number picked was 597 - we were the first 20 people to get into the show!!! What that means is we were in the first group to get to the stage - so not only did I get to see my favorite performer of all time, I got to stand 5 feet away from him the entire night! I got to see everything, including the sweat pouring off his body and the snot running from his nose. :)

It was absolutely an amazing night. Thank you, Honey. :)