Author: Judi Curry

For the last 2 years, I have been working on my third, and final cookbook.

How fitting it is to think that I finished it on the 5th anniversary of my husband’s death and received it today, his 87th birthday.

In between writing the book, I was also writing for the San Diego Free Press and the OB Rag; volunteering as a “Front Office Manager” for the Moxie Theatre of Performing Arts every now and then; critiquing restaurants; and seeking other diversions to keep my sanity after a 46 year marriage.

Many of you are aware that I also run and own my own “Jamming” business, making unusual jams with wines and champagne

Do We Want Neighbors Spying On Each Other?

Really, how many times did you flush the toilet today?

I remember reading Orwell’s “1984” many years ago, and laughing as I read page after page of things that I thought were impossible to occur during my lifetime. After all, who expected to have drones following your every move; computers able to pinpoint just where you were standing in the Universe. Well, another joke on me!

I have been accepting of most of the “1984” happenings, but I think the one thing happening now that really ticks me off is the offer of an “App” that you can use to report that your neighbor is using too much water.

Neighbors spying on each other?

Old Venice
2910 Canon Street
San Diego, CA 92106
619-222-5888

A friend and neighbor – Jim – called me a few days ago and wanted to take me out to dinner as a thank you for taking care of his house while he was away. He suggested a new restaurant in Ocean Beach, but when I looked at the menu, even during “restaurant week” I felt it was too expensive for what was being offered. I said I would go with him, but not to the restaurant he chose. He didn’t care where we went so I looked thought those listed that were under $35. The “Old Venice” restaurant was listed at $25 per person, and had a nice selection of items. It seems to me that I reviewed this restaurant before but it was at lunch time, so I felt this time would still be a review of a what was being offered.

Building a Historically Accurate Replica of Juan Rodriguez Cabrillo’s Flagship

By Judi Curry

There are not many times in life that you meet a person you don’t want to say goodbye to. This was not a romantic endeavor, but rather a person that is so genuine, so humble that you obtain energy just from being with him.

I recently met one of those extraordinary men – a Sicilian, who has worked in the boat business for 50-odd years, learning the trade as a teen in Sicily. He is a wonderful craftsmen and you can’t help but marvel at the finished product he creates.

Who is this man, you ask? A little background first. A while ago I did a story of the “Women volunteers of the San Salvador.” This is the ship that you can see being built just west of the airport on Harbor Drive. I was going to go back and do a story of the men volunteers but never got around to it.

Summary of Pt. Loma Democratic Club Meeting – Sunday, September 28, 2014

While the Chargers were beating the Jaguars, I was sitting in a meeting listening to three very interesting speakers talk about the election to come in November. They discussed their reasoning for taking the stand that they were taking, and how important it is for Democrats to vote in this election. I have heard it said many times since the Primary election in June that “Republican candidates didn’t win because they got the most votes; rather they won because Democrats stayed home and did not cast their ballot.”

The first speaker of the day was Ed Harris, our City Council Member.

Restaurant Review:
“Taika Sushi”
4953 Newport Ave.
Ocean Beach, CA 92107
619-221-1288
http://www.taikasushi.com/ menu-2

It is amazing to me that one block in Ocean Beach can support three Japanese restaurants. But that seems to be the case, with the newest, “Taika Sushi” filled to capacity Friday evening at 6:45pm. I had wanted to try the restaurant ever since it opened, and particularly after reading a review by [Reader writer] Mercy Baron but it just never happened. Until last night.

By Judi Curry

We in Ocean Beach are so fortunate to have Scott Stephens and Liquid Blue living in our community, for this Sunday, Sept. 21- “Earthdance” is returning to San Diego and Liquid Blue is hosting the event. It will happen here in OB and across the world.

It is the world’s biggest “Peace Party” with synchronized music and dance events being held in over 600 locations in 80 countries.

For those of you that are not familiar with “Liquid Blue” let me just tell you that they are an activist musical group that has performed in over 100 countries and are based here. The band headquarters is the “Hippie House” on Sunset Cliffs which was recently designated an “International World Peace Site”.

Before the musical festivities at Winston’s, there are two additional events happening that will begin the day.
…. COME INSIDE FOR MORE

Note: After visiting the cemetery on Saturday, August 9th, 2014, we three widow’s were sorely disappointed in what we saw – or didn’t see, two years later. I sent this article to Doug Ledbetter, the Director of the Ft. Rosecrans and Miramar Cemeteries so that he would be aware of what I was going to write. He called me this morning – Monday, August 11th, and we discussed the conditions I have mentioned in this article. His comments to me are in italics and indented next to our concerns:

Two years ago – August 21, 2012 – I wrote my first article about the deplorable conditions of Ft. Rosecrans Cemetery. The cemetery has special meaning to me because my husband is interred there, and it will be my “home” when I leave my Pt. Loma home. Over the past two years I have written several follow-up articles about the grounds and have complimented the “new” director, Doug Ledbetter on returning the cemetery to its “pre-2012” standards.

I don’t know if it was “karma” but yesterday I received a call from Doug asking me if I had been up to the cemetery lately. I had not, but told Doug that today three of us were going to visit our husbands on Saturday because it has been a long time since we have been there.

I told him that we were looking forward to the improvements we expected to see, and I would let him know our thoughts the first part of the week.

Delta Airlines

For the past ten years I have not flown anywhere. I think flying everyday when my husband was in training for Ma Bell in Los Angeles and my working in San Diego – good old PSA – took its toll on me. When I was transferred to Maine I found that I was still doing a lot of flying, and, quite frankly, didn’t like the small commuter planes I had to take from Maine to Boston for various conferences, conventions, etc. When we returned to California and finally San Diego, I could not fathom flying anymore and decided to either take trains or drive.

My daughter lived in North Park at the time of the PSA airplane crash and for years I had nightmares about not being able to find her for 6 hours after the crash. (She was attending classes at SDSU and didn’t even know about the crash. Obviously there were no cell phones then!)

And one trip that the entire family took to the Yucatan, Mexico City and Guadalajara was a real nightmare in that we took off from Tijuana and in our return found out that due to a bad storm the instrument landing that would have been used was not operable. After attempting to land 3 times we finally landed in San Diego and, to make a long story short, returned to TJ to get our car by bus. There had not been any reason to leave San Diego for the past ten years and I was content to stay home.

“No money would exchange hands, but it would be a win-win for both of us…”

By Judi Curry

I have always thought of myself as a compassionate person. I frequently do things because I feel it is the right thing to do without ever thinking of any compensation – mentally, emotionally or monetarily. So let’s take a trip down the road to “I’ll scratch your back if you scratch mine.” Let’s get into the time tunnel and go back approximately nine months.

I was walking my Golden Retriever Buddy around the block when I came across a woman I knew exercising her dog in front of her house. She was having some work done on her house and I stopped and talked to her. Her name is Patty, and it turned out that she was also in the field of education and I enjoyed talking to her.

Move-on sponsored movie “Koch Brothers Exposed: 2014 Edition” shown in households all over the nation.

By Judi Curry

Senator Bernie Sanders sent out an email telling Move-on members that “ . . . our great nation must not be hijacked by right-wing billionaires like Charles and David Koch. For the sake of our children and our grandchildren, we must fight back, and we must do it now in advance of November’s elections.”

I had heard of the Koch brothers for months; I was somewhat aware of the dastardly deeds they were doing throughout our country, and decided to attend the showing of this documentary at “The Hippie House” recently with approximately twenty of our Pt. Loma/Ocean Beach neighbors.

By Judi Curry

Weeks ago I said that I was going to stop my on-line dating sites. To a certain degree that was true; those sites that cost money I have now eliminated; those that are free I have kept. About 3-4 months ago I began corresponding with “Cowboy.” When he told me he lived in North Dakota – near Fargo – no less – I knew that there was no purpose in continuing our relationship, but it just seemed to continue, sometimes talking or texting 20-30 times a day.

After only a short period of time – maybe 3 weeks, he told me that we had texted over 2000 times! What in the world did we talk about? I don’t know, really, but our conversations went on and on, and pretty soon we were talking on the phone. For an honest-to-goodness cowboy I was impressed with his knowledge and truly enjoyed our conversations.