’24 February

Above, one of Kathleen’s three cats, and she has a dog. Another cat is living there now too, Cheyenne’s cat. Kathleen’s is a neighborhood hub because she’s always so welcoming but now everyone is stopping by constantly, including me, since she Fell Off a Ladder and broke her arm and wrenched out her elbow. Kathleen is my age. Noooo, no ladders! No Falling!

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More cats, this one the cat that is now Marija’s cat. Marija says, I don’t have a cat, I just feed her! Marija, I think you have a cat.

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The Persian Poetry group. We’re still meeting almost every week.

Speaking of which, Persian Poetry and Stoicism while we’re at it, here’s one of those quotable quotes from imgur.com:

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The moon from Marsha’s driveway. We’ve seen all the Oscar shorts now, and most of the movies we want to see before the Oscars. I don’t remember now what’s left (and I’m not going to see Killers of the Flower Moon because I don’t want to).

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Rome and I went for a nice walk after lunch and check this out, attach the legs to the bodies. It’s funny!

Lilja, Capri, Arya, Lilly, Sophie, Coco, Audrey, Amandine

These are all Lil’s pictures. I’ll get the names soon! 8th graders btw, heading into high school…

Everyone made a frame – you can see them laid out on the table. That Thursday I went with Rome and Lilly to buy supplies for the party, all Lil’s ideas. We don’t even have all the decorations in these pictures. What an excellent event!

It’s a cross between Chuck E. Cheese and Vegas baby.

So many shoot ’em ups.

Lilly made us a selfie – Rome me, Lil

And I made a selfie too.

Just by looking you can hear the sounds, loud bass-beating music and a slots parlor in Vegas ringing out the wins. There are no tickets and no coins, you use a prepaid card and your winnings are recorded on the card too. We had fun picking out trinkets and one of the floor managers gave us a very interesting walk-about run-down on how to choose the machines where “you can win every time”.

My current plan for the first three weeks in May! Five nights in Yerevan, the capital of Armenia, 10 nights tour from Yerevan to Tblisi, the capital of Georgia, and then 5 nights in Tblisi, and 2 nights taken up with getting there and back. Merlyn and Hilda are going to join me in Yerevan and for the tour.

Yes. Armenia and Georgia. Everyone asks… “WHY?” I especially love visiting capital cities. Hilda is Armenian although born and raised in Iran. Georgia has a raging reputation for food and wine. The scenery is gorgeous. The architecture is notable. And at the moment they are not a war zone.

The tour is operated by Intrepid with a maximum 12 participants. We also have some tours and activities planned in and around Yerevan. Everyone is contributing ideas and it’s going to be great!

Anybody know anybody in Armenia or Georgia?!

To Ljubica, Alicia, and Marija. You light up our Mondays!

I enjoyed a rain-free couple of days with Alex and Carol settled into the Long Beach harbor. Alex had recently sewn up these winter-time isinglass shades for the ‘back patio’ and they work great to create a delightful cozy room for lounging, for morning coffee, and afternoon lunch, and Happy Hour.

We had an interesting tequila tasting whereby I discovered I like cheap tequila. The first one on the left had a noticeable vanilla aftertaste, the middle one was very sweet, and the last one was sharp and tasted like tequila. You can get that last one at Ralphs.

I brought some grocery store cookie dough because I wanted to try their new 4-way microwave-convection oven-broiler-air fryer. It made cookies! And while we are at it, here’s a picture of the newly furnished living room. So Cozy!

We strolled, ate at a lovely Thai place, and came back for sweet dreams. There was a gigantic music festival going on IN the marina, you could see the fencing from the boat, but they pulled the plug at 9:58pm on the nose and all was quiet by 10. The next day we had a lazy morning, went to the movies, ate a late lunch, and I was home before dark. Nice!

There were two cars interupting this picture, it is a parking lot, and I got them out in less than 60 seconds with the new photoshop AI. It used to take me forever and look not-that-great to get a car out of a picture and now, boom, done. What a world.

So then I thought let me try the “Magic Eraser” feature on my phone, and omg it did it almost as well. Yes, anybody, generative AI, have some fun, believe nothing you see.

That’s JoAnn and Muriel. We are ladies who lunch!

Rome and I had a plan to meet Lola and Pauli for a late lunch in Palos Verdes so we looked on the map and found some trails nearby the restaurant and decided to take a little walk before the meet-up. It was so fun!

We came to many forks in the road.

Aww, city wildlife.

Some things we ran across, top two are mine, bottom two are Rome’s. My Clicking Companion!

Rome took this one too. It’s a legless lizard! We ran across a herpetologist from India who was showing his daughter. You never know what’s going to happen when you take a walk in the woods.

And then it was time to meet up with Lola and Pauli for a delightful lunch at the Yellow Vase Bakery, Cafe, and Flowers.

Downtown city view big telephoto from The Grove’s parking garage. (All real, just a sandwich, nothing too fancy…)

Sharon and I had an outing, to eat some food and wander around the Farmers Market and The Grove. It was a gorgeous day and coincidentally it was time for Mardi Gras season and Lunar New Year followed a few days later by Shrove Tuesday, Ash Wednesday, and Valentines Day. Holidays Galore.

The Farmers Market has been around since 1934 while The Grove wasn’t built until 2002. There are cool pictures here in this History of the Farmers Market.

A flash from the past, the same as ever it was, from well before I was born. This is now, and it looks just like then.

A little hit of Mardi Gras in front of the ‘Foods of New Orleans’ stand.

And welcoming Lunar New Year.

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Let’s have some internet history from near the beginning.

Jeremie, Amy, Nick, Callie, Keira, Brad, Chantel

Sooo Windy and I have the same mother and father. Lona is our mother’s daughter from a previous marriage and Phyllis, much older, is our father’s daughter from a previous marriage. When we were living in San Francisco, when I was born, all of us lived together, me, my parents, Lona, and Phyllis, and her husband Don.

At the time Phyllis was pregnant with her first child, Tim, and my mother was pregnant with me. We, Tim and I, were born within a month or two of each other and auntie-Penny and nephew-Tim had our first baths together. There’s a picture! but I don’t know where it is now.

Phyllis had four children, Tim who has passed, Jenny who has lived in a group care home all her adult life, then later came the next two, Erika (my mother named her Riki Tik), and James Michael. These pictures are all from Riki and show us her family. I’m going to ask James for some pictures to fill out the story.

Erika and her husband Mike have three children, Amy, Nicholas, and Bradley, and two grandchildren, Keira and Calllie.

James, Carolynne, Amy, husband-Jeremie, Erika, Mike

Amy, Jeremie, Brynn (Jeremie’s daughter) and Noah (Brynn’s sweetie)

Nicholas and Chantel

Keira and Callie

Callie, Mike, Keira, Erika

So much music has passed me by. For a while I played all the videos nominated for best song at the Grammys which was good fun, and I was pleased with myself, and I remembered most of them at least until the show. All gone now.

For years, when I drive Rome or Lilly around we play music but I never remember what I’ve heard so here are three from the last couple weeks including one Darryl brought forward. Maybe I won’t forget these guys… I guess it’s no coincidence that the kids would pick artists they think I would like, and then I do. You can tell just by looking that there is a similarity and their ages are 33-32-33.

Photos all from the internet obvi. You can find the music on youtube or spotify. Maybe you’ll like them too?

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Our phones are buzzing often with these alerts only changing the time.

What the storm’s Atmospheric River is doing to the usually quiet, usually just a bit moist, Los Angeles River. (Internet photos)

I’ve been following the Jackie and Shadow webcam for a couple years now and it is a delight. So many people are so into it, it makes me smile. You can click on this “Jackie and Shadow Facebook Page” to join in.

And here’s the “Jackie and Shadow Youtube Webcam“.  The eggs are in the nest and now we watch and wait! So much fun😊

Sprinkles Cupcakes

(Picture from their website.) You might want to check the calories before you, like I did, eat Two of them.

After lunch we opened gifts and then played a few rounds of Bananagrams and another game too whose name escapes me. Lilly’s boyfriend Cameron came by as I was getting ready to leave. He’s wearing his sweatshirt, often borrowed by Lilly, with the logo for The Parras Middle School Panthers. I like it. Cameron is a cutie too.

Gary’s health has improved so much it’s Wonderful, he got around the whole day with only a cane!