Opera

Don’t get me wrong. We moved to a beautiful place. Louisville, CO, and nearby Boulder, are lovely, enchanting. We knew we needed to try something different in this quest to find “home,” because San Diego, while another fabulous place, didn’t feel quite right. We need to see if somewhere else is the “home” we crave. We recognized from the beginning that there was a possibility that we’d leave San Diego and realize – she’s the one for us. Whoops.

Like the song says, “You only know you love her when you let her go.” I knew I was fond of San Diego. We had a history. She’s beautiful, fun, exciting. She has a lot going for her. Now that I’ve moved, I miss the things I knew I would miss, but there are so many things, often little things, that I now realize she had that I just didn’t appreciate.

We’re settled in here in Colorado, and I think it’s hitting all of us that we’re here to stay rather than on an extended vacation. It hit me so hard I’ve cried every day for the last week. Especially when my daughter said this: “Mommy, I want to go back to San Diego. I miss my French school. Can we put it on a really big truck with all my teachers and my friends and move it here?”

A van like this one? The 22 wheeler that brought us here. No, we didn't fill it!

A really big truck like this one? The 22 wheeler that brought us here. No, we didn’t fill it!

If only.

But that’s not the way life works.

An image of a place in San Diego will pop into my mind, sometimes so vivid I almost feel I’m there, and I’ll think to myself, “we should go to Spiro’s Gyros and sit on the patio where we can watch the boats in the bay,” or, “maybe I’ll see so-and-so today when I drop my daughter off at school,” then it will hit me – I’m not in San Diego anymore. A sense of longing and a sense of loss bombards me.

Here’s what I remind myself: We have embarked on a great adventure. We’ll only be better for it. We’ve landed in a beautiful place, we have good friends here, and we need (read, I need) to remain optimistic and positive and give Colorado a true chance. If I sit here and cry that I’m not in San Diego anymore, I’ll ruin all these gorgeous sunny days where I could be exploring this beautiful, dynamic place I’ve landed in. She’s no slouch, Colorado. There’s a lot to love.

But, still, Opera, I really miss you.

So good I couldn’t resist taking a bite before I pulled out my camera

Truffle Fries. Serious yumminess.

It doesn’t get more heavenly than this.

Optimism. The double rainbow we saw out our hotel window the morning we left San Diego:

I went to my first Opera recently. We saw La Fille du Régiment (The Daughter of the Regiment). Originally set during the Napoleonic Wars, it tells the story of a regiment of soldiers who adopt a young girl who then grows up among their ranks. The San Diego Opera moved the story to World War II, so the idea that a girl would spend so many years with a group of soldiers doesn’t really fly, but as the review in the paper said: don’t think about it too much. I didn’t. Honestly, what I was thinking through most of the opera was this: I’m so flipping bored. I wonder what time Ghirardelli Chocolate closes?

I know, I know, it’s terrible. Horribly disrespectful. I can appreciate, on a technical level, what the performers accomplished. But I don’t enjoy the music. Nor did I love the story. It’s not that I don’t love a good musical or a star-crossed lovers story. This one just didn’t work for me.

Plus, I felt like I’d stepped into an alternative universe. One where a man backs his Maserati up at full speed with his nose in the air, not even bothering to glance at you because he knows you’ll get out of his oh-so-important way. Where big-breasted but otherwise skeletal young women wear five figure gowns and wobble ever-so-delicately on their sparkly heels, clinging to the arms of their white-haired husbands. Where people go to see and be seen; to have their photos taken for the society page of the newspaper.

“Where are we? Who are these people?” I kept asking my husband.

He was trying to figure out what the performers were saying while I tried to not look at his watch to see how much time had passed since the last time I looked at his watch.

“I can’t understand anything they’re saying. Their French is killing me,” he mumbled.

Yeah. I don’t think we’ll become season ticket holders. I’ve always wanted to experience an opera. Now I have. Check.

Instead I think I’ll stick to the kind of opera I love: Opera Café and Patisserie. Where they serve their namesake dessert: Opera, a layered almond sponge cake soaked in coffee syrup and layered with ganache and buttercream then covered in chocolate.

The café is located in a strip mall in Sorrento Valley; not exactly the kind of place you’d expect to find a gem of a restaurant like this. It’s my favorite place to meet my husband for lunch. The preceding conversation usually goes something like this:

“Hey, babe, can I come up and meet you for lunch?”

“Sure. Do you want to try a different restaurant this time?”

“What? No! Why would you even say that?”

Gentle smile. “So are you coming to see me or are you coming because of Opera?”

Pause. “You, of course, honey.”

And this (because no blog is complete without food photos):