Saturday, November 8, 2003
Tina, Patrick, and I had breakfast at Arterra (858-369-6032, 11966 El Camino Real, San Diego, CA 92130), a fine dining restaurant in the Del Mar Marriott hotel. A woman in the kitchen was a student of Tina's from the Art Institute, and we learned shortly after being seated that all our meals were compliments of the kitchen. That put big smiles on our faces. And the meal was splendid. First of four courses: huckleberry hotcakes. on the side: fresh raspberries, blackberries, champagne grapes, and very thinly sliced apple. Course 2: smoked salmon hash: smoked salmon stacked atop diced mini new potatoes, cooked with scallions, dill, and yellow onions on a plate decorated with citrus sambal hollandaise. Course 3: huevos rancheros with quail eggs: fried, 3-inch tortillas, black beans fried in butter, diced tomatoes, jalapenos, onions. (There were more ingredients but I didn't get them all written down.) Course 4: apple crisp with vanilla ice cream. After breakfast we drove over to the cove at La Jolla and walked around the park area. The day was warm and sunny. I was in jeans and a t-shirt and felt overdressed. Tina took the stairs down to the beach to look at something in the water which was unusually clear. We drove back to Tina's place in North Park. I got my shirt mended at a laundromat with a seamstress. Patrick and I took a nap. We woke and continued playing Lord of the Rings Risk. Didn't finish the game yet, but Patrick and I had to leave for dinner. I had arranged to meet with my cousin Corinna and her husband Patrick who have a home in Del Mar. They invited Tina along to dinner, but Tina had to stay behind to get some work done. Bought whipped cream in a can from 7 Eleven. Corinna cooked us a delicious dinner served on their new china dinnerware: baked brie in sourdough round to start, salmon and beef Wellington, homemade mashed potatoes, soda, water, and coffee. We met their adorable dog, Molly, who barked only once (when we rang the bell) and behaved very well throughout our entire visit. My throat started getting sore on the way back from Corinna and Patrick's. When we got back to Tina's place, we found half of her apartment in darkness, and we found her spooked out because the power had gone out on one circuit in her apartment and she didn't know where the circuit breaker box was to fix it. She knew it was outside, but she didn't know where. I got my flashlight out from my backpack and checked in the back garden shed, which I noticed was very well supplied, but no breaker box. So I went back to the apartment, and the 3 of us crouch-crept around the other dark corner of the building Scooby-Doo-style down a narrow passage between the house and the fence. Patrick eventually found the box and did the fix by pushing the magic button. We introduced Tina to the Powerpuff Girls movie on DVD.