Toasting Hemingway

Yesterday was Lovely-Daughter's 24th birthday. We met for dinner at La Bodegita, Cuban Restaurant. LD has had her hair highlights up-dated into very Glam, Long Summer-Streaks. Her make-up was focused on a "smokey eye". She was dressed to party with her friends after we "Oldies" went home and she and her handsome, well dressed, husband looked as though they were ready for the red carpet. ( She sure didn't get all this fashion sense from me. Blame/applause to the French side of the family). They were punctual; that she gets from me.

La Bodegita is very nice, it has warm surroundings, great service and food as well as a Rum Selection that would satisfy Hemingway.
I was advised to try a mixed drink with a subtle splash of rum. It tasted like wishy washy lemonade and had sugar coating the outside of the glass. Have they met me before? I don't want a sticky glass and please keep sprigs of mint to yourself; it is an aromatic weed and only vaguely useful in a sauce served with roast lamb.

The attentive waiter, hearing my disappointment, advised another cocktail, this one containing something called "Rum Agricole". Much more my style! I needed my teeth whitened anyway and now won't need the dentist to do them! I imagine that Rum Agricole is used to chase the rats out of the sugar cane plantations. Just what I was looking for.

We had Ceviche followed by Paella, which is always such a risk to order, not last night. The Paella deserved to be photographed, it was beautiful, but we were too lazy to get the camera from the car. The ingredients were fresh and tasty and the rice was moist and seasoned to perfection. Yum! Dessert involved flambeed bananas, of course, and we finished up keeping the men company in the cigar salon and sipping, a more sophisticated, mellow, aged rum which was like nectar of the Gods.

Today Hubby and I drove South to San Juan Bautista, one of the original California Missions, originally built in the seventeen-hundreds. The ground drops off suddenly beside the Mission. that is the San Andreas Fault Line, right there! It makes sense to pray hard in a spot where the plates of the Earth's crust collide. The Mission is still a functioning Church and the town around it is simple Western-Style with one main street. There are flowers, intermingled with enormous old cacti, everywhere. Today the roses were spectacular and the swallows were flitting around, as always in the spring. We were lucky enough to catch sight of a variety of flowering cacti.

Our favorite lunch spot is Jardine de San Juan, a Mexican restaurant with a huge interior courtyard, shaded by plane trees and accented with purple clematis, pink geraniums and a wandering troop of chickens, with accompanying roosters. There is a central fountain and live musicians.

It is hard to admit that we sometimes don't appreciate this little day trip destination, (easily bored), but today it was perfect.