The New Purse

School started last week, and as a reward for making it through it all, I bought myself a Coach purse. Yes, it's from the coach outlets, and yes, it's probably last year's model. But I finally have a name brand purse.

I stole this picture. It's dark red suede, medium sized, $135. I had to spray suede protector all over it.

I've wanted a red purse for a while now to go with my red shoes. Red's a good happy color to have, and my god I'll need a lot of happiness to make it through another year of school. So far on the calendar: classes full of people I know but don't care to associate with (I prefer classes full of people I don't know), listening to everyone talk about the empty awesomeness of their own lives, and running the gauntlet known as the job search. Oh and it's still hot and humid. I call global warming.

My Summer Vacation

My summer vacation, the time between work and school, will last five (5) days. And it's five days because I don't have class this Monday.

What am I doing in those five days? Well, it happens that I left DC's hottest month for San Diego's hottest month, and like in DC, I have no air conditioning. Unlike DC, I can't take refuge indoors because most businesses don't have serious air conditioning for the two weeks of heat wave we get each year. Also, my car's air conditioning sucks because it's European.

So I'm not doing much. I stay indoors. I try to not think about school or how this moment right now marks the end of the height of my legal career (that's right, I peaked while in school). I try to not acquire items because I'm poor. I try to not eat to much because I can't exercise because I'm too cheap to spring for a gym membership and because it's too hot. Sadly, due to an overactive brain, I haven't accomplished any of those tasks very well.

For example, I've already acquired shoes I do not need, worried about school and employment, and made a batch of chicken marsala and mashed potatoes with (gasp) real butter and consumed it all while watching an Arrested Development marathon. That's right, I'm on season 2.

BUT I also made my DC collage.... Costco has a great deal on printing photos. They use Snapfish, but if you try to buy the same pictures on Snapfish's site, Snapfish charges a bunch more. And Costco gets it to you the next day. I had this great idea to plaster my bedroom wall with pictures of all the places I've been to, but then realized I got the idea from the US Holocaust Museum, and also, I'm not that artistic. It would look like some type of compartmentalized robot storage facility.

I also assembled my Muffy puzzle. I've got no way to mount this on the wall since my lease doesn't allow me to use nails. One day, I'll print it in giant size and frame the plasma tv with Muffy bookends.


I also got a plant. Actually this is 3 plants. And Muffy in the background. These plants only bloom once, and then die. I read they make babies though, so if that's true, well, you already know your Christmas present.

On the way to Michigan

I left for Michigan this morning. It's a five day trip by car, with stops in Utah, Denver, Nebraska, and Iowa. I'm going to keep track of this trip, and my time in business school in a new blog: http://thecrispinblog.blogspot.com.

Here's yesterday's group shot of us all in the San Diego apartment. Only the big totoro came with me.

Muffy Puzzle

C left today for Ann Arbor.

In the meantime, here's a Muffy Puzzle.

Cuyamaca & Julien

About 1hr east of San Diego, there's a mountain resort type town and a lake. We previously visited Julien in the winter and picked up an incredibly good apple pie. We decided to check it out in the summer and do some hiking in Cuyamaca state park.

A few years ago, a fire ravaged the forest, so all you can see on the hike are burned trees. That means there's no shade. Because we're in year xx of a dust bowl sized drought, the ground is just loose desert dust. Oh, and it was 90 degrees and we hiked 4miles round trip on a rocky and uneven path.
Ate lunch at the "spring." The spring had dead bees and the thing I fear most...a butterfly wing.


Close up of a burned up tree.


Afterwards we picked up another pie at Julien and came back! I don't recommend visiting Julien, it's an hour drive for a very small one street town, full of stores that sold things they ordered off of ebay. But it is important to remember the sheer size of San Diego county, and all the Indian reservations between here and there.

Things I missed about Socal

1) Beaches. Mission Beach, packed on a not really warm Monday afternoon. We also made it to Coronado beach for the sunset!

2) Sprinkles cupcakes! This is the one in Newport. I got chocolate coconut flavor =) And the line out the door....normal.

3) Good shopping, beautiful malls. Fashion Island (Newport Beach)'s koi. Not pictured - insanely rich beautiful women with their insanely rich and spoiled children.


4) Same mall, beautiful storefronts and perfect landscaping.

Looking Backwards & Forward

One of my co-clerks called this the worst summer he ever had. I thought I had a great summer. I guess the only thing that could make it better, was if I was getting paid $3000/week. Then we could actually go to real restaurants, good parties, and have a life outside of work. In fact, everything that went wrong, from the broken AC to my failed happy hour plan came as a direct result of not working for a giant law firm. But that's not for everyone. Here the work was rewarding, I got along with everyone, and DC has free museums. And next summer will be the worst summer when I'm studying for the bar.

I summarized my summer in one picture:


And the things I dreamed about here:

BTW: I hiked a mile to the dunkin donuts this morning, mainly because I've emptied out my fridge already and because I hear about their wonderful coffee. It's really not that great. I think I should have stopped at one of the many overpriced organic coffee places on the way.

I leave tonight. Only the reality of the job search and impending bills await me at home.