Encinitas, California

I’m going to move back to Heaven and open a coffee shop…I made 16 cups of coffee yesterday for all of my new friends here, and I made a wonderful batch of oatmeal for about half of them. I love it. I love feeding people, I love to eat, and I love the great sense of family and community that you experience when you sit at a table and share a meal. The coffee club has certainly grown in the past month. Now as I write this it is my last day in Mexico. I haven’t blogged in the past few days because I’ve been having too much damn fun. Dinner party, 6 people. Dinner party, 6 people + 1 straggler. Dinner party….4 courses, 13 people. The amazing thing, I cooked all of this food on one burner, with one pot and one mini-pan. I’m gonna toot my own horn and say that I even impressed myself! I’ve been having a blast hanging with our good crew: JamieD, Scott and Alex {Vancouver, Canada}, Luli Scott and Bill {Encinitas, California}, and Javier {Mexico City, Mexico}. Javier is 51 years old, a chef…a lover of women and food. He’s too kind, too compassionate and a good friend. Luli is a fucking fireball. Puerto Rican, ripper, en fuego 24/7. Her boyfriend Scott is tall, quiet, slow to talk and move but fast in the water. A shaper, a simple man, a perfectionist. Billy is their friend…originally an East Coaster, but living on the left coast for along time now. Blues band man, always smiling ear to ear, catches waves from the outside allllll the way to the beach – always a kind word rolling out of his mouth followed by a little chuckle. Good man. Scott and Alex, well they are just epic. New to the dinner table for my final night was Juan, Camilo and his girlfriend Nina. All from Panama, all absolutely lovely. Juan is very precise with his words, softly spoken, intelligent beyond his years and compassionate towards all things: large, small and inbetween. Lawyer turned environmentalist…lover of photography and Bonzer surfboards. Camilo is the frontman of the band CIENFUE – and outrageously talented, and successful Latin American band. His drop-dead-gorgeous girlfriend Nina is their manager. The centerpieces on the long beachside dining room tables were coconuts filled with fresh flowers that I’d collected from town. For dinner we started with a salad topped with tomatoes, marinated onions, bleu cheese, cucumbers, sunflower seeds and raisins – dressed with a homemade balsamic vinagrette. Next was a spicy seafood soup with lime and cilantro. It was supposed to have avocado in it and crackers on the side but the whole 13people/1burner thing had me a bit stressed out. Following soup was spaghetti with a white clam sauce. For dessert was flambéed mango and pineapple topped with vanilla ice cream, cinnamon and granola. Christ. To end it – we had shots of tequila. Vavavoom. We digested around the bonfire, had a few laughs and then retired for bed. Woke up, had some coffee, started to pack, had a little surf, and then finished packing. Had Luli and Bill over for some coffee and then we all went to the little shack up the way for some filet de pescado, served up with freshly made blue corn tortillas! MmMm! Loaded up the car, said our goodbyes – and finally parted with Jamie for the first time in two months! Bill, Luli, Scott and I hopped our flight to LAX and to my surprise and delight Alex and Scott were at the airport too…on the same flight!! The three hour flight to LA flew by because I was sitting with my favorite Canadian duo. Scott is an expert on Bali, so he helped me plan my trip for next year. Woohoo!! As we were approaching Los Angeles my excitement was quickly displaced by disappointment as the first billboard I saw read “1-800-GET-THIN”. Ugh. It’s going to be a bit of a culture shock being back in the States…especially being here in California. I know that I’m going to have a great time and I’m looking forward to heading home in a few weeks…but it finally hit me that my wintertime rendezvous is just about over. Currently I’m freezing my ass off in LAX with the crew, waiting for our commuter flight to San Diego where Lenny will be waiting to pick me up. I gotta say – I’m blessed with great adventures, beautiful surroundings, perfect waves, delicious food and good friends. Great friends. Amazing friends. Some that I have only known for a short amount of time- going to great lengths to accommodate me. Hospitality taken to a whole new level. California here I come.

I’m totally overwhelmed with hospitality. Lenny is amazing. Picked me up at the airport around midnight, hauled all my shit back to his house in Encinitas, and since my arrival he’s gone out of his way to make sure that I’m totally 100% comfortable. He has two vehicles, so he gave me the keys to the one…a new Toyota Tundra. Well, I haven’t driven a vehicle in over 6 months, and the one that I was driving here and there in Costa was like driving a tractor. I sat in the car for 5 minutes before I put the key in the ignition – mentally preparing myself to drive a vehicle…and not just any vehicle, but a beautiful clean and shiny vehicle that wasn’t mine, and in California traffic none the less! Bopped around all day running errands and spending lots of money. I bought a new camera, a new iTouch, badass microphone-included earbuds so I can use SKYPE on my iPod, a new cell phone, a wetsuit and some jeans – because it’s FREEZING here right now! Lenny told me that the news said it’s 20 degrees colder than the average for this time of year! Just wonderful. Made some friends in town at the surf shop where I was buying my suit and the one girl that worked at the shop even lent me her suit, which would be more appropriate in this cold ass weather! How cool! Brought the truck back to the house and walked a bit over a mile to Yoga Tropics for an evening class. It was $10…and that’s good for the whole week. Also, they run about 8 classes a day! Holy mackeral. The yoga class was great…in a heated room that they keep at around 102degrees. I was sweating to death, we all were, and we were crammed in that room like sardines…but it was a totally new, exciting class. Walked my sweatyass home, hopped on the Tetanus Shot {Lenny’s favorite bicycle} and sat at the beach – watching the sunset and the waves. The storm surf is finally gone and has cleaned up into some nice overhead, clean waves. I think that tomorrow will be really good. Going to catch a 5:30am yoga class, coffee and then a surf. Good times.

Lenny's Garage: all his toys and my tacklebox of a boardbag