My California

Finally writing about my trip home. I'll even include some pictures. It also may take me awhile to pound this out, because I am still all up in my feelings about having a brief visit back to the place I grew up. To me it passed in the blink of an eye, and I still sometimes just get hit by a certain day or memory from my time there. It also may seem a little clinical and recap-like at points, but that's just the way it goes.

To begin with, we made it home a week late due to the car issue. I don't think I've ever suppressed so many tears as I did when I saw this sign:

We were just a few hours away from my in-law's house, which would normally fill me with dread, but it didn't matter. I was home. After five years, I was back in the state I loved. I was back because I wanted to be back, not because someone I loved was dying or had died. There was still some sadness, but I'll get to that in a bit.

We made it to my in-law's house in record time. My mother-in-law was in Hong Kong, so it was just my father-in-law and brother-in-law, and not even the bro-in-law that much, because he does whatever the fuck he does and was rarely around. Now if you know me and the history that I have with my in-laws, you'd think that this part of the trip was the seventh circle of hell.

It wasn't.

I had the most pleasant visit ever with my husband's family. My father-in-law actually talked to me. We went out to lunch. We went out to dinner. We did a couple of walks around my husband's old neighborhood. We just did things, with no animosity. It was really just insanity.

We also visited with my husband's extended family, including his grandma. Sadly, we lost his grandpa last year (to fucking cancer, of fucking course), so the family meals were a lot less lively.

However.

My husband's grandma. I love her dearly, and I am sad to see how much she has declined. I hate it. She used to be pretty crazy (in a grandmotherly sort of way, like, "EAT ALL THIS FOOD AND TAKE THIS STUFF NOW!", except yelled in Cantonese), but now my husband said she is starting to lose her memory. I can't tell because I don't speak Cantonese, but my husband was saying she was asking the same questions over and over. I'm not sure how much longer she'll be with us, but I'm glad we saw her and I was able to get this nice picture of my son helping her to the car after lunch, even if it is just the backs of their heads.

It seems like the rest of the time up there just flew by. We managed to hit up Berkeley and the university (my husband's alma mater), which would have been much more fun if I hadn't developed a headache. Berkeley is Berkeley though, and that place never really changes. My son LOVED it. The last time I think he was there was maybe 2010, or possibly even earlier than that. He now wants to go to UC Berkeley. Not a bad choice, kiddo.

As you can see, he also loved the campus.

  

We left the East Bay on July 2nd and headed down to my hometown. The second time I had to suppress the tears was when I saw this sign:

This town. When you live here, you hate it. When you leave, you miss it. You miss all of its little quirks and all of the nosiness and all of the gossip. You miss your family, your friends, your short trip to the beach. Maybe I'm sentimental (yes), but I felt like I had been missing a piece of my life and had finally found it.

The first night we were there just involved hanging out with my family. My aunt and uncle came over for dinner, my dad fried fish, and oh god, let me tell you that fresh fish is the best thing ever. I hate living in the Midwest mainly because we have no fresh seafood available to us, for obvious reasons. It's always frozen and slimy and smelly. Another friend stopped by to hang out and play Cards Against Humanity, which is the most awful game ever. It was a nice first day back at home.

I'm not going to cover every day, because most of the days just involved hanging out with family, which is special, but it does tend to get kind of boring for outsiders. My husband and I did enjoy a few date nights that usually found us hanging out at the scene of our first date on Fisherman's Wharf in Monterey. I loved every moment of it. Nothing tells me that I'm home more than hearing the sounds of the Monterey Bay and taking in everything at the harbor.

I did spend one morning at the cemetery. It was...difficult. I have so many loved ones buried there, but the hardest thing for me to do was walk up to my paternal grandmother's grave and say good-bye. You see, I never got the chance to do that in person. She died in 2010, and I couldn't make it home in time. I did talk to her on the phone once, about a week before she died, but it wasn't the same as seeing her face and hugging her once more. 

Moving on....

The 4th of July found us in an old town called San Juan Bautista. Fireworks were banned in California this year for obvious reasons, so we decided to take in some sights that I hadn't seen in years. It was a lovely day, and the town had put on a Founder's Day type deal in the Mission Square. We walked through places that were several hundred years old, did some minor ghost hunting, and walked next to the San Andreas fault line:

And to let you know they're not playing, especially because the Mission is so old and, oh yeah, here is where two of earth's plates meet up:

Exciting.

This is where I'm going to cut off the story for now. I'm trying to keep it condensed to two parts, but I tend to ramble like an eighty year old, so.....

Tomorrow I think I will post the last half of the anxiety trip. I swear, I can't focus on one thing for shit.