The World Wide "Web"

I love the internet.  Just this morning, I shopped for book bags, made two international phone calls, wrote several emails, balanced my checkbook, and had a Spanish lesson-- all in my pajamas and all via my computer and internet. It's convenient and addictive, and life is just that much better with it.  But before this starts sounding like a love letter to the world wide web, I'll just skip to my point.

The internet brings people together, especially if you stalk them.  

Ever since we got here, I have been keeping tabs on all of my internet friends, monitoring their travels for trips to the greater San Diego area.  No one ever comes to Tijuana for business conventions, but San Diego, being "America's Finest City" and all, is host to these types of gatherings all the time.  It was only a matter of time before someone from our past unwittingly posted their itinerary for all the world to read.  And when it happened, I sprung into action.

Our first victims were Chris's college roommate, Adam, and his wife, Carolyn, who came to San Diego for a convention.  It didn't take us long to convince them to cross the border into Tijuana for the day even though we were pretty pathetic tour guides at the time.  We had only been here a few weeks ourselves.

Next up was Aaron, a fellow State Department spouse, currently posted to Guadalajara, who was looking for a cheap and easy way across the border.  For some reason, he thought of me, even though I had never actually met him.  I had been blog stalking him for some time, and Chris knew him, so it wasn't totally like I was picking up a complete stranger from the airport, taking him to see the zonkeys and driving him into the U.S.  

Mika's at the top

 

And this week, it was Mika, a high school classmate I hadn't seen in about 11 years.  When I found out she was in town with her husband, who was attending a conference, I picked her up at her hotel and took her to the world famous San Diego Zoo for the day.  We had a lot of catching up to do since you can only learn so much from Facebook, so we probably did more talking than looking. Her thick Southern drawl was melodic and soothing-- a little piece of North Carolina in every word.  

Since I spent most of the day wearing Andrew on my back (I forgot my stroller) or wrestling him while he through a fit on the tour bus (I forgot his binky), I didn't get a picture of Mika while she was here.  Instead, I scanned this picture from our senior year of the two of us when we were co-editors of the yearbook.  (That statement is revealing on so many levels.  Having a blog is a lot like editing the yearbook, except people I like get to star on every page.)

So for those of you thinking of coming to San Diego, bring your passport.  You just might get a little tour south of the border too.  I'll be watching...