I saw it on TV!

We don't have a television at the beach so if I want to see something important, such as the inauguration or the State of the Union speech, I must depend on the kindness of strangers (thank you, Charlotte!). But here in the big city, aka San Miguel, we have cable in the apartment. I get to watch CNN (boring) and FOX (egad!), and CBS. Tonight I watched 60 Minutes, first time in 4 month, and the president. I have been reading the Daily Kos, Real Clear Politics, Politico, the NYT, WashPost, etc., and thus all the negative stuff about the recklessness of the president'a plan, Tim Geithner, the budget and the various bail-out schemes. But watching the President tonight, listening to his even, measured, tempered explanations and responses to Steve Croft's questions and comments, I am again reassured and deeply thankful that we have him dealing with the crisis rather than the former President and his band of pranksters or the McCain-Palin crowd. If we think this is bad . . .

We had a low-key, quiet day today. We went out this morning to do banking and some wine searching. Needless to say, we can't get any really good (or interesting) wine where we are, but up here in Gringoville, there are more possibilities. Interestingly, however, most of the good stuff comes from Chile. Although there is fairly decent wine produced in the area of the northern Baja (thank you, UC Davis department of viticulature and enology), it's still not as good as the Chilean products. We bought a couple of things to try; tomorrow we'll go back and load up with two or three cases that should, if we're prudent, see us over the border and home. The inspectors are quiet lenient about how much wine you can bring across.

Tomorrow is the final "shop 'till you drop" day. I am contemplating a beautiful rug, although if I bought it I wouldn't know where to put it. But it's so beautiful and so inexpensive . . . That's the problem with coming here. There are really gorgeous things at such reasonable prices, especially when the dollar buys so many pesos. But I guess prucence should be the watchword. We'll go to the fish taco joint for lunch, then find someplace interesting for our last dinner treat. Then back to the beach early Tuesday morning. It's been a great get-away. As we drove around through the hills this morning we ooh'd and ahh'd at the beautiful houses ~ many for sale ~ but agreed that, although living here would be lovely and offer many more amenities, there's nothing like our little corner of paradise at the beach.

On a more serious note, my thoughts and prayers go to the families of the four Oakland police officers who were senselessly gunned down today in a stupid shootout in that oft-violent city. What a waste, all around.