Retour aux sources

Nouveau chapitre dans notre vie et fin de ce blog. Nouvelle aventure: la France! ... Nimes! 

Rock for Obama

Got Hope? Got Vote?

By a strange twist of fate we were invited to a " Rock for Obama" fundraising event last night in London. So to all the Americans who live abroad, don't forget to register to vote here: http://www.votefromabroad.org

and visit: http://www.barackobama.com!

Goodbye California

Derniers jour en Californie, dernières marches dans les Santa Monica Mountains avec John, Charmlee et Satwiwa, dernier vernissage et dernière journée à Santa Barbara, sortie à la plage de Carpinteria et dernier tremblement de terre, 5,4 sur l'échelle de Richter, Earthquake rocks Los Angeles!

Au volant de ma petite Chevy Cobalt dernier trajet jusqu'à l'aéroport en passant par Las Virgines et Pacific Coast Highway à Malibu et Santa Monica. Dernier verre au Rat and Ferret, non, Crown and Anchor Pub à Thousand Oaks avec Janet, Richard, Michael. Un peu de nostalgie et le sentiment de suivre le flot de la Vie vers notre prochaine aventure.
I feel I am leaving a bit of myself behind.

Malibu from Charmlee Park in the Santa Monica Mountains

A little walk in Chamlee Park leads you on a cliff overlooking Malibu. This was our last trip to the Pacific Ocean. There is something about that colour...

my Chevy and I

Here we are My Chevy and I in one of the numerous parking lots of Thousand Oaks!

Murder at the Arroyo Villas?

Trouble in paradise? On our way to the pool we saw four police cars and a building taped like we see on films. Where we live is the quietest place in the suburbs of Newbury Park, surrounded by palm trees, the most serious crime I can imagine in this white clean gated community is a burglary. Even so, the wardens make eye contact with everyone and would spot anyone unusual.  

It is Sunday afternoon and families are in the pool, kids are shouting, the usual. It is just strange to see on the other side of the fence police officers coming and going.  After my lengths I decide to go home and here is a police officer asking me to go back a different way as he is also taping my path. "What happened?" I dare ask. Well, you should have seen his face...He seemed offended that I even ask anything. He should realise that in a place so quiet, and with the box feeding us hundreds of "Law and Order" episodes we are all craving some action. "I can't tell you anything" he said with a disapproving tone.

Miffed as I was I walk home the long way around. A minute later a lady asks me what the policeman had told me. She delighted in informing me of the "rumour" that had been going around the Arroyo Villas since the morning, that the lady from the office "got killed". I thought she too must be watching "Law and Order". I didn't know how to end the conversation other than uttering some patronising sentence about "We should all be careful..."

As I was walking away I was imagining some angry resident coming back to the management office with a weapon. A bit surreal. What could it be? Issues about garages, neighbours, leaf blowers?

The following day I went on the site of my favourite local paper the Ventura County Star and the content of the article, I am afraid, was quite gruesome, Man arrested in relation to death of his mother.

Stephen had reminded me that most murders are committed by someone known to the victim.

San Diego

A brief week end heading South to San Diego. Beautiful boats, including the Star of India which circumnavigated the globe twenty-one times, the Gas Lamp Quarter, with gambling halls, brothels and liquor dens where sailors would come and spend their meagre earnings.

We also spent a day at the zoo which is the home of cute pandas, and travelled back on the Pacific Coast Highway through Orange County, San Clemente, Huntington Beach.