You know how on Idol the judges are always urging contestants to step outside their comfort zone and sing something unexpected? And then the next week the contestant takes them too literally and shows up in a tutu to sing a show tunes medley in the style of Poison? Of course, it sounds like murder and across America, people stare at the TV in horror, then stuff their fingers in their ears, praying for deliverance. Then the judges are like: “Dawg, I love you, I’m lovin’ this new look, and you got pipes, you can really blow, dawg, but that blew.”

This could not be more unlike my recent trip to Casa de Reyes Mexican restaurant, but for the purposes of this blog post, I am going to stretch the hell out of the metaphor. Picture it: Friday night, San Diego. Like an Idol contestant, I was pleased as punch to be sitting pretty on the Spanish colonial style patio under the palm fronds, sparkling night sky, and blessed California outside heaters. I sipped my Sidecar, which I always order in homage to Princess Clarisse of Genovia, and perused the menu. I normally use my Sidecar to wash down a delicious Tampiqueña, which is a kind of steak entree accompanied with a delightful serving of guacamole in a red tortilla sculpted into a flower. But, like the French Revolution at a rococo garden gate, into this idyllic scene entered a stray, crazy thought. Maybe the aristocracy is all wrong, the middle class is where it’s at, and I should try a different entree. No. I love the Tampiqueña. Yes. I should try something new. I should step outside my comfort zone. That is what Simon Cowell would want.

Well, I did. I stepped right outside my comfort zone by ordering the Todos Los Fuegos El Fuego burrito (”Careful!” warned the waiter. “It’s spicy!”). My thoughts were awhirl. How spicy could it possibly be? What is the waiter’s frame of reference- does he sit at home eating hot sauce with a spoon? Does he think porridge is too flavorful? Before I could react, he had gone off to the Fires of Hell to retrieve my meal.

This burrito was the hottest thing I have ever tasted in my entire life. I don’t adore spicy foods- after a certain point, all I can taste in that Korean or Thai or Indian entree is the heat- but this was crazy. My lips burst immediately into blisters. Tears mingled with the sweat pouring down my noble brow. My tongue lashed around my mouth like a small furry animal, unable to hide from the onslaught, but too stubborn to die.

So I pushed the burrito around my plate, taking the occasional fiery bite, and ate the mercifully mild rice and beans. It was horrible, but provided me with a valuable moral lesson: The Idol judges never notice if you butcher Country, but they know every note of Alicia Keys.

Eventually I had to vote the burrito off the show.

I read Catcher in the Rye and a lot of other incredibly difficult books and here are all my deep thoughts-

No?

All right then.

First, let me say that- as a reader- I despise misleading cover art. I HATE a photo that looks nothing like the described character. As to whether Bloomsbury is a nest of racist vipers, I can’t say.

This is my experience- as a designer- of book cover design projects:

Crotchety Lunatic Boss Figure 1: We need a cover for this book titled Seventeenth Century Colonial Teaspoons in Peru: The Gold, The Bad, and the Ugly.
Crotchety Lunatic Boss Figure 2: And we need it yesterday afternoon.
Crotchety Lunatic Boss Figure 3: Here’s a printout of the design that Suzie, the Senile Secretary, created using Paint Shop Pro and her six year old granddaughter’s assistance. Use it as your guide.
Crotchety Lunatic Boss Figure 1: No, you can’t have the manuscript, because I hate you. And also, nobody knows where it is.
Crotchety Lunatic Boss Figure 2: BTW, don’t start to think you have a budget. Just see what you can do with the computer you brought from home and the watercolors you have on your desk for some mysterious artsy reason.
Designer: Aaargh!

A week passes.

Crotchety Lunatic Boss Figure 3: I can tell you right off the bat that Crotchety Lunatic Boss Figure 5 won’t want the gold teaspoons on the cover because the book is mostly about silver teaspoons, so could you change that? I know the title says gold, but the title isn’t finalized.

Another week passes.

Crotchety Lunatic Boss Figure 4: I like this cover, but I have this great picture of copper teaspoons that my young lover research assistant took on our research trip to Peru. Can we put some butterflies on the cover?

Four days pass.

Crotchety Lunatic Boss Figure 2: All the other Crotchety Lunatic Boss Figures are out of the office, but we need to send the cover design to the printer by tomorrow, and why are these butterflies on the cover? Replace them with sweet pink birdies, and the spoons need to be silver, not copper.

A day passes.

Crotchety Lunatic Boss Figure 4: Why are these birds on here?

And so on, and so on.

Here in San Diego, there’s an area of stunning natural beauty (with sheer sandy cliffs plunging through gauzy golden light to a streaky cobalt sea) which the Spanish conquistadors called La Jolla, or “The Jewel.”  The street grid of an adjacent area of the city, built in the mid 20th century, bears names such as “Garnet” and “Emerald” and “Diamond.”

You see this convention a lot.  Sometimes it’s effective, as in

Kirin: A mystical unicorn from Japan.*

Sometimes, not so much.

Kashi: A spirit from Angola, that appears good, but is secretly evil.  Once it lures you in with its false promises, you can never escape.*

What a way to market natural foods!

*(from The Element Encyclopedia of Magical Creatures by John and Caitlin Matthews)

I feel like I’m in that story by Borges or Oliverio Girondo or somebody where every day he coughs up more rabbits. He writes letters home about it. “Today, Mother, I coughed up two rabbits.” Only with us, it is gift baskets.

We’ve received 14. Some are homemade, some purchased. Every day brings more. 10 more days until Christmas. We love it- so much easier than grocery shopping.

We went to see paragliders on the cliffs of La Jolla.

I thought it was pretty cool. Overpriced hot dogs and pizza for sale in one of those gray weather-beaten structures you see near the water. Drunk/high people in lawn chairs watching the paragliders soar around the landing area. Bright sun like almost always in Southern California, 75 degrees in November with a crisp breeze off the ocean.

It worked like this. People would strap on a giant parachute and run down the mild grassy slope to the cliff edge, chased by barking dogs, get caught in the updraft off the ocean, and take off.

Then they flew down the coast, turned around, and came back in a long oval of single file flying people. When they came in to land they did one of several things: landed peacefully, soared around like maniacs yelling at their friends, or crashed.

We also climbed 350 feet down the cliffs to the sea. I do not know how the surfers managed this feat- I took the stairs.

On the beach at the bottom, we discovered a scene of breathtaking beauty, and also naked people. Naked people sunbathing, naked people standing around like statues, naked people playing volleyball and changing their kids’ diapers.

Here is the breathtaking scene. (Naked people not pictured.)

As Mary points out, Tori Amos has turned into the ghost of Loretta Lynn fo sho:

She is immune to criticism, Botox or not. We see her and gape. You have to buy her holiday album, as well as the Sugarland holiday album. They are not to be missed.