Last night I left the hotel and had a not-so-great experience.  I found the Gaslamp District to be touristy, overpriced and shitty.  I got lured into a restaurant for "happy hour specials" and then found out after I went in that the happy hour special was only for the bar area, fine, and then apparently my martini was not eligible for "happy hour" and thank god I asked when he gave me a food menu because the default menu was NOT the specials menu.  He gave me another, smaller menu.  Whatever.  I was pissed at being duped.  I hate, hate, hate that.  I wanted a deal and I was upfront about that.  I feel like I was lured in.  The whole area made me uncomfortable.

My conference today got done at noon, so I took the ferry to Coronado and I was charmed.  The ferry was reasonably priced, uncrowded and on time.  The island was delightful.  I walked and walked and walked.  I took a bajillion pictures of cute houses and plants.  I sat in the sand.  I came back on the ferry.

I stopped at a restaurant attached to the Embassy Suites that had a sidewalk sign that said "Happy Hour 4-7pm."  So I went in and asked about "happy hour."  They directed me to the hotel lobby and when I ordered my drink at the bar I realized that it was a free happy hour for hotel guests.  I tipped well.  I ate hummus and crackers.  It was really all I wanted for my dinner.

It always amuses me to crash events like that.  I figure if you are respectful and tip well, what's the real harm?

Sunburn and free happy hour.  This is the California I like.

It's so damn sneaky.  It has me hate it theoretically and then I get here and the sun and the air and the nice people and I am all like, "Oh, CALIFORNIA!"  And I want to roll in the moderate temperatures and awesome.

I did not know fish tacos came this way.  I am obsessed.  Salmon, mahi mahi and tilapia have all been consumed.  Wow.  So, so, so good.  Why didn't I think about the tacos when I came to San Diego?!

I got involved with a large scale eviction case that included a federal loan guarantor a nasty landlord and lots of really salt of the Earth folks who got unceremoniously booted from their apartments.  I did some fast lawyering and got a good result for them.  Also some headlines for my boss, which he loved.

I flew out on Thursday to go to San Diego for a bankruptcy conference and got a text on the way to the airport from my paralegal telling me that I won my Supreme Court decision.  I thought she was kidding.  By the time I got to the airport I had reporters that wanted to talk to me about the case.

And then air travel.  Spending so much close time with people that you don't really talk to in a real way.  I was overwhelmed with emotion.  I actually cried at one point and I am sure the guy sitting next to me worried that I was a basket case.  I was just happy.

I am here alone and the bankruptcy attorneys around me don't really want to talk about my housing case or my juvenile court appeal, but my email is blowing up from colleagues, family, and even my favorite law school professor who read about me in the paper and sent me an email to congratulate me.  I feel disconnected from it all.

I have finally stopped crying.