All the paint had peeled away.

Self-proclaimed “glutards” will skip the burrito and opt for a lettuce bowl with chicken or steak, black beans, fresh salsa and guacamole.

With only a few tree silhouettes, and both the freeways and El Camino Real miraculously silent, for just these moments Ralph Sr., appreciative of peace as anybody, could take another of what he'd come to think of as microvacations on an island of time fragile and precious as any Tahiti or one of them.

Her leg is infected. Still worse, she's developing a fever.