As many of you know, TJ and I didn’t find his first posting, just across the U.S. border, to be that exotic, considering we have ventured to further-flung places. Little did I know that, although the country was not so foreign, our house would be. Yes, I said house, with three bedrooms and 2-1/2 baths, bigger than anywhere I have ever lived, even my childhood home. Instead of culture shock, I am experiencing domicile disbelief.
The first jolt came from the security system, which I set off my very first morning. We arm it during the night while we are asleep, and I forgot to turn it off before I opened the door to let the dog out. This alerted the guards, who were ringing our doorbell, set for some strange reason to the tune of “We Wish You a Merry Christmas,” within minutes. I felt safe but incredibly sorry.
The next day, the guards came again because the security system “called” them. Before they arrived, the system had beeped and a yellow caution light had come on, but I couldn’t find anything wrong and I didn’t know how to make the little lit emblem go away. During this visit, I remembered a valuable stock phrase: “Todo bien,” or “All is well.”
A day later, I heard the same dreaded beep, but no one ever came to check on me. I figured I had become the annoying wife who called wolf too many times, but when TJ came home from work, he said other people were reporting problems with the system, which eased my conscience a little. But still, I’m sure I will wear out my welcome soon if I don’t learn to use all the gadgets in my first home.
Upstairs, our master suite – incidentally, I’ve never been in a place with enough bedrooms to require giving one the distinguishing title of “master” – includes a walk-in closet. I prefer to call it a sleep-in closet, because truly, I have slept in a room of the same size. I was looking forward to filling it up until I realized that I didn’t have enough hangers to fully use it, so I had to stack clothes on the shelves.
The suite also includes a bathroom, complete with a vanity that I don’t know what to do with. Getting ready does not take me any length of time that would require resting on a chair. But there are also a guest bedroom and a powder room, which already are inducing nightmares about not having stocked enough toilet paper. However, it was a dream come true when I could use the toilet without disturbing TJ during his shower.
Downstairs, the kitchen is its own suite; it has multiple rooms, including one for the washer and dryer, making it the first time I have had such amenities not in a single device or outside or across town. The other room of the kitchen suite is the pantry, which was left packed with spices but no bread, leaving it with plenty of capacity for me to become a hoarder of supplies like – oh, I don’t know – toilet paper.
The kitchen itself isn’t anything spectacular, but it does have plenty of counter space, including a peninsula topped by cupboards with glass doors, you know, to show off that collection of crystal we’ve been acquiring over the years (bless my friend Erika for providing some margarita glasses to showcase; she always knows exactly what we need for a home, i.e. towels). It is nice to continue to have a full-size refrigerator and now an over-size range, with a six-burner stovetop, including a griddle you can lay across two, so I can whip up pancakes, bacon and omelets for TJ every morning. But alas, the oven is not currently working, so I cannot prepare the lovely quiche I’ve been perfecting for the past few years. (How much sarcasm is acceptable in one paragraph, anyway?)
Probably the only reason we were put in a house instead of an apartment is because we begged for a yard for Sage, whom we didn’t want to fall in with a bad street-dog gang. Our groveling paid off, and since the climate here is so great (I swear, I’m not rubbing it in; okay, I am), we can leave the door open so he can go in and out whenever he wants. The lawn was just as disconcerting to Sage as the house was for me. Although he took to peeing in it right away, it wasn’t until the evening of his third day here that he pooped – six times!
Connected to the yard is a garage where we can store our two cars and most coveted delivery vehicle, a kegerator! It only reminded me how much I love my husband when he told me he had purchased the item I had coveted in a switching-posts sale ad. It fits in perfectly with our new grill, which incidentally was the main culinary implement for the first week. The only cooking I did was microwaving leftover grilled chicken and steak.
For security reasons, I can’t describe our neighborhood in too much detail, but a strip mall with many amenities, like a gym, is within walking distance. From that mall and our house is also a great view, as long as you squint through the wire fencing and barbed wire. Now that’s exotic!
Actually, I lured him with Rite Aid ads, which promised a variety of beer cases on sale. Other people, it seemed, needed no such bait. The strand around Imperial Beach's famous pier was crammed with enthusiasts of sandy chateaus.
We only glanced at about a half-dozen sculptures before we headed to the street fair and main attraction (for me, anyway): the food. TJ got a grilled chipotle sausage; me, an equally pork-packed bacon-wrapped hot dog. We shared "Baja" fries with chili, guacamole, cheese, salsa, and sour cream. As you can see, we had to sit on the curb because the street was filled to the hilt.
If nothing else, the festival was good for people watching -- or mocking. Like the post-middle-aged guy in the T-shirt with a Tide-style "Stud" logo. Or the dude in the Attila the Hun fur hat but no shirt. At least he was ink-free; as TJ said, southern California appears to have an "egregious" amount of tattoos. Even the entertainment was rockin' some fashion, if you consider a Selena-inspired leopard-print shirt and tight pink jeans stylish.
We sipped the rest of our agua frescas as we walked back to our car through the Tijuana River National Estuarine Research Reserve. Across the estuary, we could see our city of residence, including the Plaza Monumental bullring at Playas de Tijuana (I swear, it's there along the shore in the distance).
After a stop at the aforementioned Rite Aid, we were looking at Tijuana from the inside at the Festival de la Brasa, where we managed to find room in our bellies for caprese and carne empanadas and grilled oysters topped with pork and some cool vegetable that looked like mini-asparagus. The food was high-class, but the beer was low-cost: 25 pesos (a little more than $2) for a bottle of Bohemia. Still, TJ splurged on a non-alcoholic Clamato cocktail with heaps of whole clams.
Fully sated, we carefully drove up the steep inclines to our house, stopping at one level spot to snap the scenic view back toward the States. And so concluded the first of likely many weekends spent cruising between two countries.
