La Verne, CA 2021

Thinking about it today, it dawned on me that the whole reason I relaunched Stilettos is because I wanted to keep track of what's happening in our lives. My Favorite and I realized that whole towns and experiences were getting lost. As wonderful as they all are in the moment, they do start to meld and even drift away after so many nights. Seems like a no-brainer, but still. 

The issue is that I'm so busy writing about last summer that I haven't written much about this summer. So there's going to be some bouncing around. It's my blog; I get to make the rules. 

The current company (that we love. I mean, love. Like don’t jinx this shit, love) is based in CA, a little outside of LA. Expect to hear a lot about that area. For now…

This was a super odd season in that My Favorite went to annual training for three days. I didn’t go with him this time, because, instead of coming home, he was going to hang out with his best friend a bit, and then come home.

Only, when he got off the plane in SLC (Salt Lake City, an airport we fly through often), there was a message. He was needed on a fire back in CA. So, he got his bags off the next flight, called his buddy, and went to the fire. And was there for 10 days.

Finally, more than three weeks after he’d headed out for eight days, he was home. 

Twenty hours later, they called him back out again. AZ had a fire. When he asked if this was the start of the season or if he should expect to stay out, nobody knew. It was early-ish, but not ridiculously so. It was small, but it was Arizona in a drought… No one knew.

So off he went, and I stayed home (for reasons I’ll explain in another post). This was May 31st. On June 29th, I went out. 

We weren’t sure where he was going to be. It was either going to be a five-hour drive, so I’d (hopefully) see him that night, or a twelve-hour drive, and I’d see him on July 1st.

Only this time, when I landed, there was a message on my phone. He was headed back to the hangar. He’d meet me there.

For those of you doing the math, at this point, we had been apart since May 17th with no warning. Also for those of you who know us well, this was a miserable situation.

Which is why, even hot and sweaty, even just sitting in the car, even tired from traveling all day, we look this damn happy in this picture.

This is the hotel. We're probably going to stay here a lot (*knock wood*) so expect to see more pictures.

And I expect we'll explore the area a lot, too (*knock wood*). But when we were there this time, we discovered a Turkish restaurant. So what did I do? I texted my Turkish friends "OMG THERE'S A TURKISH RESTAURANT!!! WHAT DO I EAT????"

And they hooked us up:

My Favorite went with chicken shawarma

I tried the lentil kofte there in the left bottom corner

For the record, the kofte would be my go-to if I could find it anywhere else in the country.

Then he finished up with Turkish baklava ~ which is different from Greek baklava, not nearly as sweet. Sadly, we ate it before we got a picture. It tastes different, but it looks the same. Picture that.

But we did get a picture of the kunefe, which is a cheese covered in shredded filo, drizzled with simple syrup. Again, not too sweet, which I loved, and addictive after one bite.

So addictive

Hopefully, we'll get to eat here a lot, too! (*knock wood*)

The adventure continues, and is tasty good...