It's fall. The air smells different. The air feels different. Sure, it's colder, but it's more than that. I've come to the conclusion fairly recently that, well, summer isn't my favorite season. Fall is.

Oh, good lord, am I really this oblivious?

Sometime in August, when I was purchasing tickets for Kris and I to fly to some tournament (pick one, doesn't matter, I don't recall which), I tried to find the receipt for our tickets to Seattle for Regionals. I thought I had bought the tickets early for a discount, but couldn't find them in my receipts folder. I figured I was wrong about the purchase, confused our Regionals tickets with the Spawnfest tickets, and bought tickets for Regionals.

Last week, I came to the realization that, no, I wasn't going to be able to take a week off in two weeks to spend the week in Seattle with Ben and Lisa and Jake. Work was going to be rough, and, well, honestly, I always want to come home sooner than I think I do when I book the tickets. I'm flying up early to spend time with Ben and Lisa, and staying late for more time, but well, neither flight would be flying with Kris, and that would be less fun.

So, I looked at his flight, and bought another ticket for me to fly home with Kris. I IM'd him and told him what I did, after which he asked me when his flights were. When I commented they were early, he'd have to leave the field before the end of the final round of play. "That's probably not a good thing, eh?" Well, no it wasn't, but I was flying with him, did that help?

No, no, it didn't.

So, we looked online at various tickets, and at different airlines. I favor Southwest because their reticketing policy doesn't include change fees. When I have an $89 flight, I don't want to spend $50 to reschedule my flight out. Things happen, plans can change, whatever, deal, but don't freakin' charge me $50 when, if you were smart and had a decent system, it would cost 3 cents in electricity costs to allow to change my flight anyway. So, yeah, Southwest gets my business when I have a choice. Kris hates them, but lurves the free tickets.

Southwest didn't have any decent return flights at lower enough costs at a good enough time for us to be excited about them, so we're flying back on a different airline. Eh, loyalty loses when you know you'll be using that ticket no matter what, or crashing on Doyle's hotel floor if not.

In the end, I have two tickets to get me to Seattle, and four tickets to get me home. In my book, that's four tickets too many for this trip.

Kris says I always have a stupid expression on my face when I take a picture of myself with a camera.

The next time I took a picture, I tried to have a better expression on my face. Instead, I ended up with a look akin to "I'm going laugh as I bite your head off" expression.

Lovely.

Bob and Suzanne Diller were up in town today, having driven up from Los Angeles for a friend's mother's 90th birthday party. They stopped by Santa Barbara on their way up, driving the 101 through Salinas where some event backed traffic up for an hour to drive twenty miles. Like we've ever heard of such a thing.

Suzanne's friend Savite selected an Indian restaurant for dinner on Friday night. I convinced Kris, I don't know how, to join me at the dinner, and off we went. I didn't realize the restaurant was an Indian buffet restaurant. With a name like Kabob Korner, I was expecting more of a, oh, I don't know, Afghan or Greek restaurant. At least one which served kebobs of some sort. Shish kebabs maybe?

In retrospect, I should have realized the difference in spelling of "kabob" and "kebab". I didn't.

Bob and Suzanne arrived slightly late, giving each of us time to become ravenously hungry, gnawing on each other's arms in a circle waiting for the Dillers. They arrived in good spirits, so off to the buffet where I managed to find two dishes that I could in theory eat, neither of which turned out to be non-spicy enough for me to actually eat.

Did I mention I really don't like Indian foods? "Mild Indian food" is an oxymoron.

At one point Bob commented, "In Pasadena, we have an Afghani restaurant that serves a cross between Persian and Indian." I, admittedly, had to stare at him for a long time before pulling out my phone to text myself that quote. When Bob looked at me puzzled, I had to assure him that I had absolutely no idea how to tell the difference in tastes among Afghan, Persian and Indian restaurants. "Well, if you'd visit us, we could teach you."

Oh, the bitter bite of truth. I clearly need to visit them more.

Once all of us had our food, conversations started up, and Bob turned to us to ask where we had travelled recently for tournaments. Peter from across the table asked what type of tournaments did we travel for. I managed to say all of, "Kris and I play ultimate frisbee," which is when I usually pause to take a breathe in anticipation for the explanation of what ultimate is and how it doesn't have any dogs or freestyle in it, when Peter commented, "Oh, Joann's niece also plays ultimate. Maybe you know her?"

Thinking, "Ugh. You used to live in Indiana? I have a friend who did, too. Maybe you know his family?" I replied, probably not, but possibly. Where does she play? She plays in the City, her name is Bea. Maybe you know here?

Holy crap. Yes, I do know her! Peter and Joann are uncle and aunt to Bea Leung who plays on Brass Monkey, and wow, yes, I do know her, and heh, wouldn't you know her team is our cross-town rival, and oooooo, they beat us last weekend, but we're playing again next weekend, and isn't her blog great with all the food reviews, what, she's going on a two month vacation, that's awesome, yes, I do know Will Lavery, he's an awesome ultimate player, have you ever seen a game. The conversation was wonderfully entertaining and delightfully animated as Joann told Bea stories.

We talked a while longer before I asked Bob how he knew Peter, and had I ever met him before. "Haven't you ever had Peter's Caesar salad?" Peter's Caesar salad being a salad Bob makes, and has been making for years that is fantastically good. Peter laughed and commented that he hasn't had a Peter Caesar salad in ages, he didn't know what it tasted like any more. Oh, but he didn't know what he's forgotten!

When we left that evening, I couldn't help but laugh with Kris at just how small this world is.

Bella hates Annie. Annie tolerates Bella. That's pretty much the way it's been for the last four years. Bella was first, and thinks she's the alpha dog. Annie was second, but knows how to use her size and weight on Bella. They don't really play together, and usually each does her own thing.

Recently, the frost between the two of them has started chilling. Not really warm yet, but warming.