¡Qué relajo! in the city

¡Qué relajo! is an expression I hear from mijo* whenever I take over the kitchen on Monday evenings. It loosely translates to what a mess in English. First, this blog is not about this. This blog is about the storm that almost topple the pine tree in our backyard.Second, I only cook on Monday evenings because I work from home on Mondays and Fridays - but we seldom make dinner on Fridays. Third, I know that I don't owe anyone an explanation but let me do it anyway.

It is not that I am messy in the kitchen. As a matter of fact, I consider myself well organized when it comes to that. I just need room to move around when I cook, that's all. And the kitchen we have is a city kitchen. No aisle, we only have one sink, a big enough counter space, etc. We have to live in 'burbs to have my dream kitchen. Besides, breakfast, desserts and hors d'œuvre are my cup of tea.

He has another expression when he's really being teritorial of his kitchen especially the last time I made focaccia bread...

¡Qué dispije!

And that's what it looks like outside after Northern California got walloped by a hurricane-like storm a couple of days ago. I've never seen anything like it in my ten years of living here. A tree a couple of doors down got toppled. Dead leaves, branches, empty plastic bottles, small junk everywhere. Three blocks down the street close to the BART station, another tree got uprooted and it ruined the sidewalk around it.

During the storm, the power went out before noon. It was on a Friday so I was working from home and I had to call in to tell everyone in the office that I am unable to continue working because of the power outage and will just resume when the power is back. Almost half a million homes didn't power that day.

Major cabin fever at home because it was cold, dark, damp, and there was nothing to do. No tv, no wi-fi so no internet, and no music so we headed to the malls, where it is warm and lit and dry, as soon as the winds died down. To our surprise, the mall was crowded. People must have thought the same thing we did. We ended up seeing a good movie called The Orphanage. Later that day, I called our home phone and I got the phone's voicemail which means power is back in our neighborhood.

I'm just thankful that there wasn't a single damage in the house and our pine tree still stands. It was a fast moving storm so everything was quiet again after it left.

The city public works crew will have a busy time cleaning up the mess.

~ral

*In case you still don't know, mijo is a contraction of mi hijo. You know spanish, they make a lot of things sound cute. :)

(The photo above is a scene in the city's sleepy neighborhood of Glen Park.)