’22 November

Sunday, on the way back from Steve and Celina’s I stopped off to go to the movies with Marsha. We saw She Said and it was very good. Then we went back to their house where Tom had our cocktails ready on the counter. We each have a different preference of glass and the shape of our ice. It was so charming, and for dinner we ate Tom’s annual turkey soup that was the best EVER.

I don’t take a picture every day, I often go days without taking a picture, but this has been an especially fun-filled Thanksgiving season.

Wednesday I had some phone calls and otherwise did Nothing EXCEPT with these words I’m caught up!

Sam and Gideon

Every year for ages I’ve spent some part of Thanksgiving Weekend with Steve and Celina, often Gideon is around, and these days Gideon and his financée Sam come to enjoy Celina’s Thanksgiving leftovers feast too. It used to always be leftovers but these days Celina is cooking us fresh dishes too!

I didn’t take pictures of all the food, and this hors d’oeuvres plate wasn’t finished yet either. I slept over and got another gourmet treat for breakfast. Oh Celina!

Rome and I went to the Natural History Museum in Exposition Park especially to see the Spider Pavilion before it closes and while we were at it we looked around the Museum itself, ate at the cafe there, and admired the Rose Garden.

Another entirely recognizable part of the Natural History Museum although the displays are updated since my elementary school years oh so very very long ago.

Wow, what a fabulous Thanksgiving.

A Thanksgiving FEAST! Lilly made labels for everything with the name of the dish, the name of the cook, and if it was gluten free-vegetarian-vegan. We had it all and plenty for Everyone!

Vegetable salad, beet salad, and orange and fennel salad. Mac and Cheese. Green beans almandine, maple butternut squash, and baked Brussel sprouts. Mashed potatoes, mushroom gravy, and fried tofu. Sliced Honey Baked ham and turkey, and spiced crabapples. Cornbread stuffing in Delicata squash.

And THEN…

My thought was to get everyone to do a selfie but I obviously failed.

It was a beautiful time full of Thanksgiving and THANKS to be together.

For the day before Thanksgiving and the day of, and the day after and the day after that and the day after that, I do have some cute pictures but no time yet to choose them. I see a little free time coming up on Monday…

Happy Birthday Dear Sister, only two months and 10 days late but we all got to be there and have the delightful activity of Windy’s choice. We saw 9 to 5 put on by the Kentwood Players at the Westchester Playhouse. It’s a definite Community Theater production but since they have access to all the out-of-work Hollywood actors, the programs are very well done.

Jo Ann is part of this show, and a shining star I might add.

Rome and I went to the Manhattan Beach Pier this time for a change of pace and I liked it!

Before and After, under my kitchen sink.

“Oh this is all wrong, we’ll have to change everything.”

I spent some quality time this week with the appliance fixer-person and the (different) dripping pipe fixer-person – find someone, get them to show up… All is well now, but you know, it’s always something. (btw The washing machine works when you wedge some nail clippers in front of the start/stop button “just right”.)

The Skirball up on Mulholland, near the Getty Center, has a lovely patio where they offer delightful programs throughout the summer. It’s winter now and much to my surprise, they’ve brought the programs inside where they’ve set up a stage and a temporary supper club with round tables and electric candles and the very entertaining Guy Mintus Trio.

Thanks to Jim and Rick for getting tickets and inviting me to join them.

We had a full house today on our Persian Poetry zoom call.

And speaking of zoom calls, Roger, Sandy, Nancy, and I enjoyed an e-visit recently and it was so lovely to be able to get together.

Rome and I did this walk after lunch and it was great. There are so many more murals than in the pictures here.

Lona’s picture.

I spent a lot of the last several days keeping my sister Lona company while she was under observation at the ever so comfortable and right-down-the-street St John’s hospital. It turned out they could not find the source of the trouble but everything is fine now.

This is Lona’s friend Jennifer who one afternoon and evening did Lona a great service. No need for the gory details. You too have probably drunk that gallon of disgusting liquid…

There we are in the shadows..Ingalill got a new camera! And may I say “it’s about dang time.” She got an old hand-me-down camera years ago and that camera stopped performing well even before the pandemic. And now she has a wonderful new camera and we went to the Santa Monica Pier for sunset to test out some of her newly acquired features. I of course clicked away too, photophoto!

I snagged the Ferris Wheel idea off Lill. ClickClickClick.

Everyone was out on the street for a photo.

At Palisades Park

Trevor and Beth are in town and I popped over for a nice dinner and an excellent walk on the jetty.

All these pictures are from The Wizarding World of Harry Potter at Universal Studios. Oh my goodness, the ride, YIKES, Harry Potter and the Forbidden Journey. I screamed and laughed and howled the entire ride without a moment’s break. Lilly held my hand. I had no idea such a thing as this ‘ride’ was even possible.

We also enjoyed (I screamed non-stop..Lilly held my hand) the Simpsons ride. It was both gross and terrifying at the same exact time, a Virtual Reality roller coaster. It felt so realistic, not real, just realistic, that my body thought it was riding a crazy Crazy roller coaster.

We also did the Tram which has a few thrill ride components, not at all like the olden days! And we particularly enjoyed Jurassic World too.

It was all quite fabulous. Even the lines were good arriving as we did early on a Tuesday morning because Lilly’s school had an off-day. And when we did have some waiting to do Universal did a good job entertaining us while we waited.