Eight things we do in San Diego in December and not in July!

Last week, we made a "workation" out of our Spring 2009 sales conference for Farrar, Straus & Giroux, which was held in sunny San Diego. We jumped at the chance to go to San Diego in December to see just how eerily empty it is, to us anyway. And we were also able to celebrate Thanksgiving American-style. Trust me, Canada celebrates Thanksgiving on a Monday in October and it may as well be Arbor Day. Here are the things we got to do in December that we never get the chance to do while working the long Con.

1.Stay at the Del Coronado.
Recession? What recession? I think these are the suites that J-lo stays in. Our room sorta kinda if you squint overlooked the ocean.

2.Bring the kids.
Meet Gigi of the Del. She kept everyone busy.

3.Go to the beach.
OK so maybe it wasn't warm enough to swim, but it may as well have been 90 degrees to us Montrealers!

4. Go to the zoo.


5. Enjoy a double double at the In-n-Out
which is nowhere close to downtown, and why we never get to go. still too scared to order off the secret menu.

6. Go to Pokez
oh wait, just joking. We go to Pokez pretty much every night at Comicon, just giving the crazy-rude-until-he-sees-you-tip-almost-fist-fought-a customer-while-we-were-there-punk-rock-waiter we always have a shout out.

7. Go to the library.
OK,here's where the trip gets interesting and sort of comics related. After Pokez, we were walking down the street and the little one had to use the facilities, we look around and lo and behold, right on the same street as Pokez is the Central San Diego Public Library which is AWESOME.
It's delightfully old school and hasn't been updated a bit, thankfully! (Do not tell the mayor of San Diego how much 60s library and office furniture goes for on the vintage market!)

The kids section was wonderful. I could have spent all night combing the old books, looking for wonderful illustrators and plan to do so this July. They had full sets of all of your favorite books back when covers to kids and young adult books were AWESOME. Yes, the fancy branch over in La Jolla where they have harpists play, probably has all of the Harry Potters, Stephenie Myers, and Wimpy Kids, but do they have:
The complete Judy Blume list with original covers. I simply love Judy Blume. Let's put it this way, Judy Blume is to me and my childhood what the Wolfman/Perez Teen Titans is to you. (wrong analogy I know)
The complete Moomin hardcover collection. Yes, a library in the US, in San Diego! Now there is simply no excuse as to why you haven't read these chapters book yet.

The Edward Gorey covers of the Joan Aiken books.

and the ultimate story of the pitfalls of growing up in the 70s: The Cat Ate My Gymsuit. Hopefully, the dismal economy and news of massive library closings left and right won't affect this wonderful place.

8. Be in bed by 7:00 PM.
Not by choice, mind you, but that's what happens with kids. See you in July!

Posted in: