"You hadn't posted anything in a while, so I was worried something might be wrong," said a friend, explaining why he called, as if I needed a reason. I'm delighted to report that nothing is wrong in our little bubble—except my vision, that is, because I gave in and got progressive lenses and something needs adjusting. My left eye is functionally dead when it comes to reading. Brace for typos.
I've just been busier than ever with Siteline; readership is been up, and this past week likely set a record, thanks to the news that the Duke and Duchess of Sussex have moved here. (They're about a half mile from the house we're renting, and no, I won't tell you the address.) It's funny how that put Santa Barbara on the map for a lot of people we know.
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Speaking of Siteline, I posted this the other day, so if you saw it there, feel free to skip ahead.
I’m generally irked by the F45 Training fitness studio: its loud music makes me not want to sit outside Dune Coffee Roasters as much as I used to and its patrons often stand around outside Dune with no masks on. This morning, I went to Dune anyway—the café was selling breakfast burritos as a pop-up event—and I was glad I did, because an F45er made my day. After complaining that F45’s cook-at-home recipes use foreign measurements, she wailed, “I mean, what the hell is an ounce?”
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We still haven't found a house, but not for lack of trying. The market here has turned insane with people from L.A. and elsewhere snapping up everything in sight, in an effort to wait out the pandemic somewhere more delightful.
We could always buy our old house, which came on the market this week. Not! I loved that house, but you can't go home again. Still, the listing photos brought back a lot of memories—we had sold a lot of our furniture along with the house. The current owners got about as far as we did filling those bookshelves....