San Diego Postcard Portents

About ten years ago, my neighbors and I were having a winter solstice bonfire on a hill near Bath, in the Southwest of England. Someone suggested that we put things in the fire to symbolize things we wanted to get rid of, let go of, finish. I had just received the renewal of my UK permanent resident's permit, so I knew I could stay there, and I wouldn't be going back to live in San Diego again. This time was for real - I'd left San Diego several times before, thinking it was permanent, but this time was it - finito! I happened to have a postcard of San Diego in my pocket - a night scene of that nice curve of city along the bay with the string of lights on the Coronado Bridge arcing above the bay, reflecting a string of pearls of light. Pretty. I tossed it in the fire with a few words about letting go of San Diego as a place to ever live again. The gods must have a lot of fun listening to us.
The wind caught the card, and it blew back out. I picked it up and tossed it into the heart of the fire, a little more carefully this time. The wind caught it again and tossed it out. You must understand that there hardly was any wind, so these two well-timed and well-directed gusts got everyone's attention.
I picked it up again and with a certain dramatic flair, thrust it deep into the fire between two pieces of vigorously burning wood, saying something like, "Go!" There was a loud crack, sparks flew everywhere, and the card shot out of the fire and hit me in the chest. This evoked indignation from me and after a bit of a pause, nervous laughter from my neighbors.
So, now, here I am, no longer in the most blest lands of the north, among the heather-covered hills of the West of Scotland, but in the high hills in Guatay. Guatay, because it�s as high and as far as you can get from San Diego and still be able to get there in a reasonable time when you need to work. I think of Dirk Gently (The Long Dark Tea Time of the Soul by Douglas Adams) shaking his fists at the heavens and shouting, "Stop it! Stop it!" until the neighbors complain.