The pool opened! We're not allowed to use the locker rooms, and deck changes—where you get in/out of your suit while wearing a towel around your waist—are forbidden. So I have to do it in the parking lot, where the stakes are even higher. What is everyone so afraid of? Is it to protect the children? Do people not realize what kids see every day on the Internet?
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And we got haircuts!
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I still have a bunch of doctors I need to see. I might try out a new dentist....
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With the hot weather come the snakes, but around our house, we've only seen harmless ones. We still get excited, of course. The one below, from yesterday, was stretched across our driveway, leaving us just enough room to squeeze by. (Snakes don't seem to fear cars.) We were edging by it, and I was leaning out the passenger window to make sure we wouldn't hit it, when the gate started closing on us. So we both started shrieking and trying to push the gate away. I wish there was video.
Seeing the snake photo on Instagram, our friend Jane expressed concern that we're living somewhere too wild, and that we should be careful. I laughed it off—Montecito is a lot of things, but it's not wild—and then last night, we were watching a movie when this fox stopped by. We considered ourselves lucky it didn't hop over the snake guard in a nearby door.
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The movie was Portrait of a Lady on Fire, which I quite liked. Two other recent films I'd recommend, but not to everyone: Give Me Liberty, if you're generally a fan of art films, and Bodied, if you can handle battle rap.
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The jacaranda trees are blooming all over town.
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We're still looking for a house, but we can't decide whether it makes sense to buy (inflation could be around the corner, making real estate a relatively stable investment) or wait (the real estate market could crash, allowing us to get something better). There's been a bit more interest in the house we're renting; last week, the personal assistant and security guy for a "high-profile celebrity from L.A." came to scout the property for their employer, who liked what she saw online. (We knew the security guy would nix it because the house is accessible from a hiking trail.) Our broker wouldn't tell us who the star was, of course, only that she was legitimately famous and a "single-name celebrity." After some Googling, I'm pretty sure we figured it out.