Visitors, Visiting, Visitatum

Well, the phenomenon of Carmageddon is almost upon us. Yes, the heaviest-traveled freeway in the country is going to shut down for two days, and, as the name coined for the event would indicate, Southern Californians seem to think this could be the end of the world. It's getting way more press than the recent visit from Will and Kate (the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge to those of you who haven't had them pop into your town).

Yessiree, it seems we've been getting lots of visitors recently. On June 22nd, my sister Kittie called from the Hilton here in Pasadena. Seems she was at a meeting of the organization of Enrolled Tax Agents (I can't recall the acronym). She's now president of her chapter on the Central Coast, so she was representing the little people. She must have been getting bored, because she finally called and wanted to set up a dinner date with Steve and I.

Steve already had a previous engagement, but I picked up Kittie on Friday night and we popped over to Old Town Pasadena and had dinner at Mi Piace. I had the Fettuccine Bolognese (handmade pasta and the best Bolognese sauce on the planet) and Kittie had the Perciatelli Alfredo (best. alfredo. ever.). They also have incredible desserts, so we had one and ordered three to go (one for Steve and one for each of us for breakfast!). It was a short visit, but fun.

We discovered, with Kittie's visit, that Patty the cat does not like women. She's not crazy about visitors of any kind (buzz our apartment from the front gate and she's like a bullet flying up the stairs to hide), but women seem to have her particularly freaked out. I picked her up and brought her into the living room to meet Kittie and the cat looked like she was about to be trussed up on a spit, and we didn't see her for an hour after Kittie left.

Marcel, the old male cat, seems a little mellower, which is weird, because he is a rock; he is an island. He sniffs at an outstretched hand and then lopes off upstairs until the commotion is over.

The same was true when my friend Jessie came to visit just this week. Jessie is presently teaching at the international school in Port-of-Spain, Trinidad. When she arrived, she was tanned and thin and looking happier than I have ever seen her. She is definitely a tropical flower, because she has blossomed in Trinidad.

She points out that Trinidad is pretty low-rent and third-world, but still, it's in the Caribbean. If they gave someone a trip there on Wheel of Fortune, I bet they'd jump up and down and squeal with delight. We have an open invitation to visit, but I think her contract will be over long before we have a chance to use it.

So what are Steve and I doing for Carmageddon? Well, there's a family reunion in Grover Beach which was scheduled long before the public became aware of this 405 closure, so we'll be heading out of town on Friday afternoon, passing the north end of the closure about seven hours before it goes into effect.

You can be sure, though, that we'll be skirting it on our way back: The map above shows the way we normally would come in green, the 405 closure in blue, and our planned route in red. So we'll head inland on the 126 at Carpenteria, go through Santa Paula and Fillmore (two very pretty little towns), hooking up with the 5, then jumping on the 210 to head back home.