Marzipan Moments and More

Sigh.

I'm back from Santa Barbara. I got back last night and discovered that Universal Studios isn't the only thing that got a bit burned.

Yes, I forgot to apply sunscreen to myself first thing in the morning yesterday. Seeing as how I walked around in downtown Santa Barbara and on Stearn's Wharf -- all before heading to Butterfly Beach -- I am now a nice lobstery color.

It hurts and I firmly believe that sunburns make my brain stop functioning so here's some highlights from my trip in list form because I'm so exhausted that all I can think of is lists.

1) Beaches in Santa Barbara are beautiful and much cleaner than the ones in LA. I already knew that but both El Capitan and Butterfly Beaches took my breath away. If you haven't been, you should go. Butterfly Beach is a little more chi-chi than El Capitan. Butterfly is technically in Montecito (home of Oprah and a bunch of other celebrities.) But, folks are still very mellow and nice.

2) Speaking of nice people... Yesterday I chatted with an ageless looking woman laying out in an American flag bikini on the blanket next to me. She told me how her family's been in Santa Barbara for five generations. She grew up super rich, married a guy who was also super rich. And then she got most of his money in their super expensive divorce. He cheated, but she said it was ultimately a good thing because the experience made her grow up and start living in the real world.

We went to Arlington West and I talked for a long time with the veteran volunteer there. She was a wonderful woman and gave me a nice hug when talking about the war made me cry. There are 3,000 crosses laid out even though the death count is over 4,000. 3,000 crosses covers an acre and so the organizers ran out of allocated space. My sons spent some time looking at all the little pictures of soldiers who have died in the Iraq War. It broke my heart last time I was there. It breaks my heart again.

Oh, and on a totally shallow note, there were some flirtatious Italian guys at Butterfly Beach who blew me kisses and told me I looked like some sort of flower. They were hot and nice and disappointed I'm not single. My ego grew considerably because of it.

3) I got offered some weed by a hippie at Stearn's Wharf. Dude said, "Here, smell it. It smells great. You won't be disappointed."

When I politely declined, he tried to hold his handful of weed under my nose again and told me it's a shame I'm discriminating against weed since it was created by God and isn't a bad thing.

Um, sure.

Dude, that's such faulty logic. God created boa constrictors but I'm not gonna snuggle all up in the bed with one.

His van is pretty cool though. Every single surface of it is decorated. He's lived in it since his divorce in the mid '90s. He said his wife got the house so he decided to check out of the rat race. Now he lives in it and told me how he hasn't paid taxes in 14 years and is totally off the "grid".

Hmm... What if he's the ex-husband of the divorced woman I met on the beach?

4) I seriously OD'd on marzipan. I went to The Andersen's, a Danish bakery and restaurant, on both Friday and Saturday night. They have a lot of delicious marzipan desserts there. It's the only place I ever eat the stuff because it's sort of hard to find here in LA. But, it's sooo super good.

You can only eat a little bit because it's incredibly sweet and I ate it two nights in a row. Gosh, I love that marzipan at Andersen's. I can't wait to go back. And by the way, if you've never had marzipan, you should try some. It's a really old-school sort of sweet and you'll feel like you're in the Renaissance while eating it.

5) I'm actually sort of happy to be back in LA. Yes, I'll admit that I did get a little happy yesterday at around 7PM when I rounded that curve on the southbound 101, just past Cahuenga, where you suddenly can see all of Downtown LA, the Capitol Records building and the rest of Hollywood. Home is home, after all.

Actually, I got even happier after I flopped down on the couch and slathered some aloe vera gel on my sunburn.

Now I'm going to go run at the park. I need to work off some of that marzipan!