Vacation

The San Diego trip materialized after all.

It was a spectacular week for the kids. We pretty much did it all: The Bodies exhibit in Vegas, on the way down. The Zoo. Legoland. The Temple. Coronado Beach. The Wild Animal Park. Tijuana (for an hour and a half...long story). The La Jolla Cove, where, after intense negotiations with my wife about the Cove's relative protection from the open sea, I had the deep satisfaction of teaching my daughter how to snorkel. SeaWorld, three times. In fact, the best segment of the trip came on the Friday before we came home. My wife was tired of me, after our sprint across the border. So after we spent a couple of hours on Casa Beach (where we snorkled again and my daughter saw a seal), I dropped her and our youngest off at the hotel late afternoon, then took the two others for sublime fish tacos at Los Dos Pedros. We went from there to Mission Bay, where we ate our meal and they Rollerbladed and scootered. It was a "joy of fatherhood" occasion that I may never forget. On the way home, long after dark, my son pointed out the red light atop the Skytower. Which gave me the idea to drive by --without telling the kids my intentions-- to see if they were still open, for one last hurrah before heading back to Utah. It was, and we ended up sitting front and center and getting drenched at Shamu Rocks, and riding --after my son got over his fear the first time-- on Journey to Atlantis 11 times, the last three coming at my son's insistence. The evening was exhilarating and exhausting, and, sadly, would have had an entirely different (not for the better) dynamic had my wife been along.

So it's June in San Diego, which means lots of calves and cleavage, but not lots of coverage. My wife didn't have to see my eyes to see me noticing or "trying really hard not to notice what I'd already noticed." The tension grew each day, and my "noticing" was a miniscule compared to the basic dynamics of our relationship that become so pronounced when we're stuck together 24/7. She asked more questions about my first fiancée than she ever has, wanting to know what I liked and disliked about her, why I didn't marry her, etc. She asked if I was "desperate" when I met her (meaning, my wife) and therefore so eager to get married without knowing her better. By the end of the trip, we more or less agreed that it might be a good idea for us to vacation separately.

On the way home, we stopped to eat dinner at the Vegas Venetian. On our way to the restaurant, we passed the Wolford boutique, and I know that she noticed me noticing the window display. (Which, naturally, I went back to document -- for archival purposes only.) No surprises there.

Skyscrapers

Just got back from a business trip to New York. Lots of long, shapely legs poking out from under navy skirt suits in the Financial District.

In the airport, saw some CNN coverage of the pre-election protests in Tehran. Iraqi women are...what's the Persian equivalent of habanero hot?

Shamuck

The tone was set this morning when my wife said of the Air France flight that went missing recently, "The Americans say the debris are from the plane. The French insist they're not. I smell a cover-up?" "A cover-up of what? What's the motive" "Oh, that the government has some people it wants to be kept alive but presumed dead, so they stage a plane crash."

So when she brought up our (tentatively) forthcoming vacation to San Diego and expressed reservations about taking the kids to the beach because of the risk of "rogue waves" (which "snatch people unexpectedly off the shore and carry them out to sea, never to bee seen again" and are "a lot more common than is reported, probably because the seaside communities don't want people to hear about them since it would devastate tourism"), I blew a gasket. I couldn't believe that I was with someone whose conspiracy radar / barely-rational fear factor was so highly developed. I said unkind things. I felt bad. I still feel bad. I need to apologize. I don't want my kids to grow up in a shroud of paranoia. I need to apologize anyway.