These aren't meant to be phallic

This Santa Monica joint decided that plain old churros -- sugary doughnut-like rods deep fried, then dusted with cinnamon and sugar -- were too blah. So they introduced the customizable "xooro." Want your dough regular or chocolate? Filled with caramel, chocolate, or vanilla? Dipped and/or rolled in any number of toppings, including bacon. Knock yourself out, amigo.

Ellen's Secret

Ellen wants to wear a "ba-ra" on her "ba-rests". Three years olds can be both hilarious and frightening at the same time.

Meet me in the souk

I have a quick retreat with the curriculum planning team I'm part of. My boss wants us to meet at an Afghan-themed restaurant. This is the private dining room, set up for our meeting. Not quite the standard hotel conference center, eh?

Just like home

Up north, we have places that have a fake tropical theme. The most recent is a bar that opened up in the Mall of America, complete with (indoor) thatched roof. In SoCal, we have the equivalent. Here's a northern lodge style place, with fake snow (including icicles!) on the roof. Can't you feel the wind chill?

Meet the new boss

My cat Pirate was known as quite a terror in his day. I still have friends and family members who live in fear of him (or have heard the stories). He's not exactly mellow now, but he has accepted a new master.

Bounty

The produce in California is mind-blowing. Big, cheap, plentiful. This place had papayas bigger than my head.

Where's the Pensky file?

Here's my new office. I haven't seen one this barren since George Costanza started work.

Look! At! Me!

Not quite the Google Streetwise car, but the next best thing? Anyone know where their pics get published? I followed them for a while on East Colorado in Pasadena, hoping to be immortalized in someone's online atlas.

Magic Kingdom

A three-year-old obsessed with princesses comes face to face with her heroines. She was so excited when she met Snow White that she blurted "I missed you so much!"

You (boxes) complete me

Finally! Our stuff is here. Now to figure out where to put it. At least we get to sleep in our own beds tonight.

Treat me right

Speaking of things I'm not used to, how about this? The best parking spaces reserved for me and my Prius.

Shake it up, baby

This is not a game I've played before.

Agriculture

More distraction. We went to the Pasadena children's museum, which is mostly outside. They had a small vegetable garden where kids could water the plants. Here, Ellen drowns a cabbage.

Purple Sky

Rachel and Ellen flew in today. Still no delivery truck. We're living in a hotel room and spending our days trying to prepare the house and keep Ellen entertained.

The trees, shrubs, and flowers here are strange and beautiful. A tree called "jacaranda" is flowering -- brilliant lavender blossoms lighting up the sky.

Delivery

First delivery! The truck with Rachel's car has arrived. He was also hauling several vintage Mustangs. I don't understand why the guy with a load of cars (all of which he had to pick up after loading ours) made it the day after I did, but the moving truck isn't coming for almost another week. It's going to be a long wait...

Reboot

And here it is. The final leg of the trip, from Phoenix to Arcadia, wasn't too bad. The terrain was mostly desert. I did hit the only real traffic of the trip -- construction creating a stop-and-go bottleneck for several hot, dry miles just north of Imperial Valley.

I made it to our new home in early afternoon, got the keys, and dropped off the cats. No furniture or family yet, but the driving is done.

Endless

Day three of the move was the longest. Amarillo to Phoenix was a twelve hour drive, though jumping back a time zone every time I crossed a state border made it seem shorter. The strangest, most varied, most desolate, and most glorious landscapes passed me by -- from Texas scrub to New Mexico painted cliffs, to Arizona mesas, to the high coniferous forests around Flagstaff, to the cactus-dotted Sonoran desert.

In Phoenix, I wound up at a branch of New York's Grimaldi's pizza for dinner. They asked me if I wanted to sit at the bar to watch the game. I had no idea who was playing whom.

Kumback

Day 1 of the drive was hardest. I planned to be on the road by 11ish, but the movers were more than three hours late, and they were short a loader. I ended up leaving them to finish the job without me and got on the road around 2. My mood wasn't improved by dozens of miles of construction on I-35 in Minnesota, making my first 90 minutes of the drive a slow, maddening crawl. I put pedal to the metal once I got out of that mess, made up some time through Iowa, and got into Kansas City late, but still at a civilized enough hour for dinner.

The cats meowed throughout the drive but were otherwise well-behaved. They settled into a dated and bad-smelling 'pet friendly' room at the Kansas City airport Microtel. I was resigned to this being the cost of bringing pets on the road, but the other hotels on the trip were much better.

Day 2 was long, but more relaxing. Kansas was flat and green, Oklahoma was flat and red (with the occasional oil well decorating a grazing pasture), and Texas was flat and dry. Amarillo was unremarkable, though the Holiday Inn upgraded the cats and I to a suite. The cats appreciated that.

The best part of the day was a lunch stop at the Kumback Lunch in Perry, Oklahoma. I had the best chicken-fried steak of my life there (a dish I usually detest), and I got to see some local color. The fellow in the overalls (with his wife) had a lovely exchange with the restaurant owner. She bought his lunch, asked after his dog, got him a bag of scraps for the dog, then walked him to his pickup truck. Just a little slice of small-town life.

I also tried one of the famous drinks at Sonic. Way too sweet. I don't get the appeal.

Goodbye

Farewell to Minnesota and the Little Brick House on the Corner. You weren't perfect, but you were ours. And we still pay all your bills, until someone wants to buy you.

The movers have arrived and the house is being emptied into a big truck. I have packed my car with necessities and three cats, and we're about to hit the road.

Life, boxed

This is it. The packers have packed everything up. Rachel's car is being shipped. Tomorrow, the moving truck comes. For a week, we'll be in a suspended state, as we make our separate ways across the country. At the end of the transition, family, cats, stuff, and cars will be reunited in California, and something new will start.

Friendship

One final evening out with my best friend (and Ellen's future husband, if you ask her). Our last few days in Minnesota are winding down.