Life of Wry

Prolly the most cleverly strategic part about saying goodbye to Peter last week was my ability to say, “Have a great few days, honey, I’ll see you next week!” That definitely softened the transition. At least for me.

The plan was to move him in on dorm move-in day with the mini-fridge we’d bought–his pre-arranged contribution to the collective good. But the mini-fridge hadn’t arrive on time, so it required a subsequent visit. Oh darn….Appliance delivery as ruse to see newly departed college kiddo. It just sorta happened that way. Not the initial plan, not anyone’s fault, but sure worked out nicely.

Anyway, I decided to combine that with 1) a visit to mom, and 2) a haircut with Klaes the swedish hair stylist, conveniently located on Ave F in the Riviera Village.

So, last thing first, here’s that:

Klaes is mom’s haircutter and does a great job with her crazy hair, so I decided to try him. This is haircut number three with him.

I love it.

After getting all cut, weaved and coiffed (coif and poof I was glad to remove the following day), I headed down to La Jolla and checked into the Sheraton across the street from campus… sort of becoming a regular thing now. Peter’d finished classes–Monday/Wednesday/Fridays are his big days with four lectures (two math, one chemistry and some kind of cultural humanities class)–and wanted to play catch with Ray for a while, which he did while I settled and chilled. After about an hour, Peter and Cole met me in the parking lot, and hauled the refrigerator up to the elevator-less third floor:

Peter and I then made a Costco and Target run. That seems like a thing in this college transition process. Bought all kinds of important stuff, but mostly it was just so incredibly lovely to hang out with him on our little missions.

He picked out a place for dinner in the Little Italy section of San Diego..so we headed south..

Didn’t even know about that particular downtown neighborhood. I like how San Diego identifies its neighborhoods with giant landmark signs.

At the corner of Cedar and India, we ran into a bunch of Davis folks down for the Giants-Padres game… and not just any Davis folks… John, Annette, Carol and Katherine… all huge blasts from my past. Well.. it was just really awesome to show off my nice, handsome, smarty pants son right in the middle of the intersection there. Had a short conversation–it was extremely fun–then they went off to Petco and we went off to..

…and had a completely fine dinner, though it wasn’t the intimate setting of the Parma Cucina from last week’s Italian dinner in Hillcrest. Peter had his first tiramisu, and his comment, while I can’t remember his exact words, had to do with its lack of sufficient texture. Love that kid.

We walked around after dinner impressed with the high volume of Italian restaurants and enjoyed banners celebrating famous Italians the world over.

Dropped Peter back at his dorm after a failed effort at some gin rummy (due to a faulty deck) and some fun political conversation… and I sort of walked around my room trying to process being a guest in Peter’s world. Loving it and feeling all discombobulated at the same time.

Did I say how much I love that kid?