’23 October

Super-fun Halloween pictures forthcoming.. from Angela since I didn’t take any at all!

Except Oliver!

Ingalill drove us to the pier, bought lunch at Maria Sol, and then replanted my succulents. Wow.

I met Nancy for breakfast this morning on the patio at John O’Groats, it was tasty and we had fun.

Rome and I had a tasty lunch at a Mexican place we’d not been to before, and then decaf coffee treats across the street.

Then we picked up Lilly after school for an outing to the mall so Lil could spend her birthday gift certificates. That’s me having got my hair curled in a department store demonstration.

After dinner Lilly and I went to her middle school’s band concert performed in the large and packed high school auditorium. Amazingly 25% of the students at Parras Middle School participate in the music program. They have seven(!) bands, one each period and one that comes in before school. The band director, wow, what a guy, Really impressive.

They got all seven bands on and off the stage in one minute transitions. There were huge groups that filled the stage and smaller ensembles too. Seriously, impressive.

(self-portrait)

Our handsome rebar trees were in good shape.

Thanks Alex and Carol for driving up. We’ve been having an interesting few months of never being at home at the same time and this might be our last chance to get together before next year, 2024.

In a little more than two months it’ll be 2024 and then less then 4 years after that it’ll be the LA Olympics. I remember so clearly back in 2017 when LA got the Olympics, I said many times then and a boring number of times since, how much I really REALLY hope to get to see the LA Olympics in 2028 since it was SO much fun in 1984.

This has been up for a while. It’s a little interesting but I’m not so into the pink curtain.

The Featured Exhibition is William Blake: Visionary, there until mid-January. Totally worth it.

From Carol, thank you!

Ronald, Celina, Steve, Jan, Joanne, Paul, David, Frankie

Ronald hosted a luncheon get-together on his balcony overlooking Silver Lake which was delightful. My only regret is that I didn’t take a picture of the newly painted house in the colors of mustard and ketchup. You absolutely canNot miss this house.

Thank You to Terry and Arlene who treated me and Burt and Char for a yummy dinner and delicious wine at the ooo-la-la Café Bizou in Agoura. Happy Birthday Terry! We have known each other soo long, sooo many birthdays, and Let’s Have More!

I got to have a tour of Rome’s school today and it was a BLAST. It’s so cool to be able to see the scene in my mind. The kids and the teachers were quite adorable, all greeting me with a smile and saying nice things about Rome.

The we did some shopping. I can’t believe all the Halloween headbands, the kind I like with springy decorations, are gone. Yes, we’re getting Christmas already, with a shelf of Thanksgiving and a rack of Halloween jewelry available.

We’ve got together a couple times since I’ve been back and it’s been good. Everyone has been gone off and on all summer and it seems the break did us good because we’re all back in the swing. Maybe we’ll finish book one some day, there are five more.

Judy, me, Susan, Hilda, Victoria

Since Sharon and I haven’t been able to go walking at the track at Pepperdine because of the parking situation, we haven’t been to Reel Inn, our usual lunch after Pepperdine. So we went today for old time’s sake and it was as fun as ever it was.

Since I got back I’ve a couple of Monday lunches with the valley gang, also had a meal with friends around here, catching up, but I don’t have any pictures to remind me…

I met Darryl, Angela, and Lilly in Culver City to enjoy the Culver City Art Walk and for even more fun, to walk through Coco Republic with Angela and get acquainted with her job. Go there on Thursday or Friday and you’ll get to learn about high-end bedding from Angela!

Coco Republic, as well as their own lines, has many vendors under their huge roof, one of them being Timothy Oulton, the source of these pictures. His stuff has such a strong point of view… definitely not the vibe of the rest of Coco Republic. And yes you can buy this spaceship. They are in the old HD Buttercup building in the Helms Bakery complex. I’m not 100% sure how they are related but the HD Buttercup sign is still on the building.

While Windy and I were in Italy Lona was in Switzerland and Bali with Trevor, Beth, and Christa. We met up for lunch at an Indonesian place to share hugs and stories.

Here they are. They climbed So Many Mountains! Lona had been wanting to have a Heidi vacation forEVER and what a time they had. Good job sister, you really did it. The Bali part of the vacation is another story, a surprise gift from one of Trevor’s clients. That was something too for sure!

Darryl decorated all the pictures in the house.

We also went to see Carter in the high school production of Sweeney Todd. They were great, and they did the entire production, all three hours. The work that went into this was something indeed. The leads, of whom Carter was one, had to learn so much dialog, so many songs, wow.

Marsha and I had our first Disney Concert Hall performance of the season and it was Sooo Gooood. Dudamel was his usual shining self and his direction of Firebird was as wonderful to watch as it was to hear. Oh my goodness he loved that piece. The cello soloist for the Shostakovitch Cello Concerto No 1 was a 24 year old UK super-star.

They did a surprise piece before the intermission with 8 cellos, 7 from the orchestra and the soloist. It was AWEsome, especially because it was a surprise. “For an encore, Sheku joined seven LA Phil cellists to play the Bachianas Brasilerias Suite no. 1, II. Preludio (Modinha) by Heitor Villa-Lobos.  It was scored for an “orchestra of cellos” and dedicated to cellist Pablo Casals.” I got the quote from a stageandcinema review. You can click on the link if you want to read it in full and a short bio of Sheku Kanneh-Mason.

Sheku Kanneh-Mason and Gustavo Dudamel

And then we ate Chinese food which is working out very well as our DCH Sunday afternoon post-concert repast.

It’s been a FABulous trip, thank you Windy for doing all you did to make it happen and for being such a delightful travel companion. Phewww, home! I should come back to me again in a week or so…