’24 December

Betsy, Windy, Jeff, Lucas, Anya, Xander

Lucas, Betsy, Xander, and Anya came to Windy’s and brought the whole raclette setup and ingredients. I went to a raclette restaurant in Switzerland where they did it a little differently, but L&B got it from when they were living in Germany.

Then we did poppers, raced penguins, played games, and a grand time was had by all.

Carl’s big bash birthday party, a traditional bookend to the year I look forward to as the holiday season draws to a close. How many times does something have to happen before it becomes a tradition? Not very many I think, and this party has happened almost every year from before I can remember. I have a picture from 2006.

And I took not one photo! This is from Carl’s facebook, from a hike in November.

Carl told his Woo story and here’s his picture, for the sake of a walk down memory lane.

Carol fixed up Red Sky for the holiday season. Before retiring all those years ago to full-time sailing, they lived in and fully decorated a 4,000 sq foot house in Belmont (Heights? Park? Shore? I don’t remember). This year Carol went through all those decorations and pared down to live-aboard size.

We had a remarkably inexpensive and very tasty Japanese meal followed by a great walk along the Naples canal still all a glow-glow from the holiday.

And then the next morning we had our yummy brunch out on the shielded and heated patio. Red Sky’s second bedroom is really comfortable, A&C invite me to stay over, and I like to spend the night so I can enjoy the evening and not have to drive home late. At one point, all of a sudden, Alex and Carol, at the same moment, heard the ice maker drop ice – it had come back to life! and their reaction of joy was entirely genuine. (ok I did make them do it again for the photo..)

I went to Tony and Ingalill’s Christmas Eve Extravaganza that always includes glögg and a viewing of Kalle Anka och hans vänner önskar God Jul (Donald Duck and His Friends Wish You a Merry Christmas. You can click on the link to read all about it.

Super-cool space-saving Christmas tree, and the marvelous cozy all-year dining room T&L created in their back patio.

First course = Five(!) kinds of herring (YUMM), sliced ham, sliced sausage, eggs and cucumber, gravlax, tomatoes, sour cream and dill, cheese, Swedish flat breads, bread that Tony made. Second course = Slow cooked short ribs with wine sauce, scalloped potatoes, boiled potatoes, meatballs, linked sausages, Brussels sprouts. (Lill’s photos above and below.)

I left early to continue the day’s events at D&A’s, before the evening postprandial walk and before dessert (although I helped myself to some of Jim’s cookies) and before the boys finished off the glögg and the aquavit.

It’s Christmas, the New Year, and Ken’s birthday all within 2 weeks so I always look forward to having a nice catch-up brunch so we know what the other has been up to and we can start the year fresh! This time we met at the Robin Hood British Pub in Sherman Oaks, halfway between us. Ken told me “I’m a lucky guy, the luckiest guy you know” and I think that is lovely. Happy birthday Ken, and here’s to another fabulously lucky year!

I caught one of the last seats at the last matinee of Waiting for Godot at the Geffen Theater. I was in the back row of the balcony, and although it’s a smallish theater unfortunately I couldn’t see the expressions, and that was a loss. Fortunately no one was sitting in front of me so yay for that.

It was a fantastic version of such a renowned work, all the words just the same, but somehow deeply funny. Many times the whole audience just laughed out loud. A common interpretation is “Through its absurdist and nihilistic tone, Waiting for Godot prompts audiences to question the meaning of life and their own existence” which seems a trick to make it so funny. Rainn Wilson and Aasif Mandvi starred, and they were perfect. I’m thinking a lot of the credit would go to the director Judy Hegarty Lovett. If you know the play, you know the set – a twiggy bare tree, a rock to crouch on, and that’s it.

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On Thursday Lilly and I went to see Wicked and wow, the extravagance of the staging was totally eye-poppingly remarkable and it was relentless with the songs and sound effects and action. SO different, I’m glad I saw them both.

The Petersen is having a feature display of Best in Low: Lowrider Icons of the Street and Show and it was amazing. Here come a few pictures and notice how the most elaborate cars are sitting above mirrors so you can see the undercarriage too.

There’s a game setup there at the museum that you are welcome to play, and for free no less. We all had fun!

I’m feeling it for this sentiment stenciled on a pillar.

There were dozens of these well-known works of art ‘re-imagined’.

And here are a few more cars from the semi-permanent collection. Everyone likes to find their first car! There is also a floor of concept cars and the most elegant hand-made on-offs too.

Just up Fairfax from the Peterson we find Little Ethiopia, home to so many Ethiopian restaurants. We ate at Lalibela, B&B’s favorite.

Eating at an Ethiopian restaurant.

Nancy and I took Sharon out to lunch for her birthday. She has such lovely holiday decorations.

Sharon in the picture I’ll use to remember where we parked.

I sat at Lilly’s desk and twirled around to take a few pictures while she studiously did homework on the floor.

The faucet stopped working and I fixed it, slowly, and with much moaning and sighs.

On Tuesday my hip/leg situation was worse again. Muriel came over for dinner and showed me some aligning tricks. I went to Physical Therapy on Wednesday where the therapist said I was doing the exercises ‘perfectly’ and I should just be careful not to push it. Now I’m thinking I need a new chair.

And then in the distance from my back door the neighborhood cat was checking out Olivia’s plants…

…enjoying a snack.

me, Ljibi, Alicia, Ann, Maxine, Becky, Marsha, Marija

It’s Lona and Hartley’s anniversary and each December 8th since Hartley past in July 2019, Lona and Windy and I have had a meal together in their honor. We go to Nichol’s, Hartley’s favorite restaurant. We ask ourselves if we should have his favorite meal, a plain hamburger on a plain bun with nothing, and decide that just remembering is enough, we don’t actually have to eat it.

I just looked, I don’t have pictures of each year.. maybe we didn’t do it each year.. but we almost missed having a picture this time except Lona remembered as we were dropping her off.

That’s Joanne at the piano. It was so nice!

I love their house too, a Glendale classic built in 1940. Below is their recently installed David Hockney inspired swimming pool.

Oh my what a feast. Joanne cooked an entire Thanksgiving meal and people brought yummy side dishes and desserts and many bottles of wine. Yes!

And some of the guests follow.

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Google’s view of the street.

Rome drove us to lunch today! It was so cool!!

Then we went to opening night of the Redondo Union High School Theatre Arts group’s The Play That Goes Wrong. Lilly was on Tech for this show and an usher/House for the performances. It was a very small cast of mostly seniors and wonderfully acted. The whole room was laughing out loud.

So my hips have been bugging for many months now, predominantly the left but also the right. Arthritis? IT Band? Favoring from my ankle injury? Excessive weight? Something else entirely? My GP sent me for xrays, gave me a PT referral, and offered many other referrals as a diagnosis develops. Here’s what the xray tech said, exactly the same words for the left and right, copy-paste, which seems odd because the symptoms are quite different in intensity.

“Subchondral sclerosis of the acetabulum.  Mild joint space narrowing.  Few subchondral cysts.  There is a tiny osteophyte involving the head of the femur.  The bones of the pelvis are intact.  There is a surgical clip in the pelvis.” From this I read Mild, Few, Tiny…

The PT people did a really interesting scan indicating some points of stress where targeted exercise could help, so Step 1, underway.