a fantastic saturday

Dustyn and I spent most of the morning cleaning up our house, organizing, and giving away our moving boxes via craigslist. That stack of boxes had been sitting on our balcony since we moved in and emptied them, and since our friend Maggie (from UT) was supposed to be coming over to the apartment today, we decided that it was time to remove the boxes and ultimately, be able to enjoy our balcony now. Those boxes take up soooo much space.

I had a hair appointment at 12:45, and this turned out to probably be the most interesting part of my day, aside from seeing Maggie and her sister Aleks. (No, I didn't spell Aleks wrong. They're actually Polish, so their names are Magdalena and Aleksandra. Pretty cool, huh?) I had heard about this salon that was really good, and it looked like an old gas station. It was one of the neatest places. For the stylist's stations, they didn't have cabinets - they had the red Craftsman toolboxes. Their electrical cords pulled down from the wall, similar to the line when you're pumping gas at a station. It was an all around really neat place, one that I wish I were able to say I had designed.

When I walked in, my stylist (who I learned also happened to be the owner) was running a little behind. The receptionist (who also happened to be the manager) sat down beside me to talk for a little while. I learned that she had only been there a month, had a hard time fitting in with her co-workers, and the job was a lot different for her than anything else she had ever done. I'm only repeating this because it becomes an integral part of the story to come. ;)

I was finally able to go back and start my appointment with the stylist. She was really cute and young, surprisingly. I guess I automatically assumed she would be older and "less hip". I really liked that automatically, I was able to tell her what wasn't working for me and she knew what to do. I didn't have to give her some long, drawn out explanation. She was pretty quiet during the coloring part of my visit. She talked when I had something to say to her, but otherwise, it seemed like she was really thinking about something. While she was doing the color, sometimes, she would stop and look at something reflecting back in the mirror. Only she could see it, but she seemed disturbed.

Right before I was left to sit and let the color process she told me she had to fire someone while the color was working. Aha! That was it. I told her, "That's probably the hardest part of your job." She agreed that it is hard, but after the very first person she ever had to let go, it probably couldn't ever get worse. She said the girl started cussing, stringing together words she had never heard, in front of all of her stylists and customers. She left me to sit and then went to their break room and cleared everyone out. At this point, I had kind of put two and two together. That weird conversation I had with the manager and the direction in which Candice had been looking seemed to indicate that it would be her to go.

Sure enough, Candice went to the front desk, bringing with her a temporary replacement to take care of customers. I wish I could say that something overly big and dramatic happened, but nothing really did. You could tell when the [ex-]manager walked out that she was pretty rattled. She left immediately, and honestly, the entire salon's atmosphere changed. When Candice came back to do the cut, she was so much more relaxed, enjoying the music, and extremely talkative.

I know this story was pretty anti-climatic since the manager didn't have some crazy reaction to being fired. But, I did learn what she had done, or a few things. She forgot to charge people for things, at one point resulting in $1000 of missing money. Just yesterday, there $300 went missing. When Candice went on vacation the manager, in front of customers, cussed out some of the stylists. Dustyn always laughs at me because the most random things happen while I am in places. One of the girls I used to teach Sunday school to always had random things to happen in bathrooms, but for me, things happen just about anywhere.

I went back to our apartment and picked up Dustyn. We headed to La Jolla (pronounced Hoy-a). Maggie and Aleks were waiting for us at a restaurant so we could sit and catch up for a while. Dustyn and I have been through La Jolla several times, but never actually walked around. It's incredibly beautiful. The water is crystal clear blue. People are all over the place, playing soccer, volleyball, and at night, using the fire pits for a bar-b-que.

We saw a ton of people kayaking, several people swimming freely in the ocean, and a lot of people taking pictures. I've posted a few on here for you to enjoy. Overall, we had a really interesting evening. Tomorrow, the U.S. Open Sandcastle Building Competition takes place at Imperial Beach. We are planning to go; they build between 8:30 am and 1:30 pm. Viewing is only available until 4:00 because the tide starts to come in. You'd better believe that I will be taking a ton of pictures for you to enjoy as well. :)

We are still undecided as to whether or not we will be trying a new church tomorrow. We liked Kaleo, but after some serious thought and prayer, feel like maybe we should still have an open mind and try out a few more new places.

Oh, one other important thing. I think we might have mentioned that there is a serious lack of good Mexican food in California (aka: Tex-Mex). It's not spicy here, in fact, it's sweet and onion-y. Not my style. Therefore, we've detracted from actually trying Mexican food because the few times (two times) we did, it wasn't particularly our style. We did find an On the Border yesterday and decided that since we have them in Texas, surely it should be similar. The food was good, but I must comment, that the queso was completely opposite. I would've thought that all restaurants use the same recipes no matter where you are, but evidently not. It seems as though On the Border for sure changed their queso recipe.

Dustyn keeps telling me that we're reducing the amount we eat out. Granted, since we've been here, we've eaten at home a lot more than usual. That's nice, except that lately, Dustyn's favorite place to eat out is Costco. If you're not familiar, Costco is the California version of Sam's Club. They offer a drink and a hot dog for $1.50, so Dustyn loves going here so that we can eat for $3.00 (+ tax). If it's not here, he suggests Ikea, which happens to be in the same shopping center. Why Ikea? Well, they offer a drink + a bag of chips + 2 hot dogs for $2.50 (tax included). Needless to say, when I think of hot dogs, that vomit reflex thing starts happening. NO MORE HOT DOGS! I'm on protest.

Okay, well that should be good enough until tomorrow. I'll make sure to make mental notes of more humorous stories from the sandcastle competition and I'll update you on our church decision. Hugs and toodles!