Bon Voyage Lucas and Betsy! Bon Voyage Alex and Carol! Rome(! surprised?), Berkely dinner, Amit, and More.
November 19
I asked Darryl if when I’m really old and just rocking back and forth and crying for who knows what reason and unable to assemble a coherent sentence would he please play the guitar for me too. Sure, he said. Pheww. That’ll be nice!
November 17
I still get to go to the yearly Berkley Blast-o-rama. What a Blessing!
Every few years we go back to Valentino because it is so utterly grand. It’s a real feed-me place. Omakase for Italians.
You can click here to read about Piero’s empire. He is a five foot giant.
Going to Valentino always drives Dale deep into his wine cellar and this time the results were breathtaking. Gaspingly delicious.
Piero chose an Italian white for the first few courses. ‘Very rare. No one has even heard of the maker.’ That was true enough.
It was quite lovely I think but the minute the waiter opened the next bottle I forgot entirely about that white. A 1988 Le Roy Chambertin. You could live on the smell alone.
We finished off, a few hours later, with a 1978 Hermitge. It’s the stuff of dreams.
They’re really doing it. They’re moving to Germany. Oh no. Grandma is putting up a brave face but she is going to miss those grandbabies SOOO bad.
At midnight, closing up the last of the boxes. But wait! What about This and what about This. OK, so it wasn’t really the last box.
What you don’t see here are the piles of trash bags and Goodwill items and souvenir coffee mugs and a full refrigerator and so very much stuff. And Lucas and Betsy have been up literally for the last two days trying to finish. No way. But no problem. Loving relatives can manage the last of it.
Ready Set GO!
Windy rented one of those vaguely immoral mega-vehicles. The kind that ride up with the buses and you can’t see through them and you can’t see around them and they get 8 mpg.
Everything fit though, and they made their flight and now all we have to think about is when, exactly, will be my turn to visit.
November 14
Amit has come for a visit!
When I was growing up my mother and father loved to serve as American parents to many young USC graduate students. They were mostly couples and mostly from India. They came for dinner, celebrated the holidays, and my mother was there for the birth of every child.
Many of these families are still entirely devoted to her and here is one of the children she helped attend to all those years ago.
November 13
Last weekend I got to have my own Bon Voyage party – today everyone else got to come too.
Bon Voyage! We Love You!! We’ll Miss You!!! I’ve got dibs on Costa Rica. Others have also ‘pre-booked’. I don’t think Alex and Carol will find themselves lonesome.
November 12
Rosie had a house warming party. Her place is perfect. These two were guests – I don’t know who they are and this is my only picture. They’re so cute my camera refused its place in the bag and insisted on this shot.
Bath Time! Rome just Looves bath time. And check out that bath tub. It has places to hold the bathing implements and a cool back rest for the baby.
And a rubber ducky! He makes bath time lots of fun.
Oooo, look at those amazing fingers…
And the best most dear pair of Mom and Dad you could ever hope to know. Lucky lucky Rome.
November 8
Me. From Nancy. I think I look uncharacteristically calm in this picture. I also look like I’ve had just a little mini-stroke. But I’m used to that by now. One drooping eye and the opposite drooping mouth. But I’m used to that by now…
nd.
November 7
Sandy’s picture of Roger and baby Lucas. Man-Oh-Manischewitz. We should have to pay to see this picture!
sc.
November 6
Here they are, Team Lopi, off next week to position Nepenthe in Mexico, the first leg of Alex and Carol’s new life as sea-going vagabonders. A dream of many, attained by so few.
Merlyn is joining for a couple of weeks assigned to fisherman duty, Hilda joins in Cabo, and then Merlyn and Hilda leave and Karyn and Paul finish up in La Paz. Chapter One.
Today we futzed around in Long Beach harbor mostly as a treat for me because I will miss them A Lot when they’re gone.
My how big you’ve grown. Here’s the back-end of the Carnival Pride butt up against the Queen Mary. Remember when the Queen Mary was big?
Whoo, what in the world is That? The consensus guess was that it is a ship sailed from China bringing those already assembled dock yard cranes ready for delivery here in Long Beach.
This thing crossed the Pacific Ocean?! I can hardly imagine the economics that would make such a voyage a good idea.
Another sunset. Check out the link below for yesterday’s sunset at the Getty. Wow, two in a row.
November 5
A fall trip to the Getty with Nancy dressed in her perfect colors of fall.
You can click on this Visits to the Getty where all the pictures are now just sitting there and the whole mess has turned into a muddle. I’m going to need to rework this thing.
Every visit is just so entirely different that trying to tell one consistent story is looking weird. But isn’t that among the most amazing features of the Getty – you are guaranteed to have a fresh and engaging experience every time.
October 4
Following are a few pictures from Angela of Rome’s first Halloween. The Fam!
a.
Is this not the absolute cutest little Halloween pumpkin you ever ever saw? It is, I’m sure.
a.
November 3
A visit with Rome. Yeah Yeah Yeah! I don’t remember we had fantasmic toys like this one when our kids were babies. All that stuff makes noise too. Very entertaining for everyone.
Oh baby. What a face.
And speaking of entertaining, I can barely wait to sit with a great kid and watch Sesame Street again. I just loved watching Sesame Street with D and C, maybe I loved it more even than they did… Oh man, I hope it’s still good. I know I know. I don’t have a tv. But you do.
I’m leaving December 8 for six weeks in SE Asia and I’ve been driving around in cars for ages now. Must stop. Must walk.
But today I almost had a seizure. I am still shivering with despair and fury. The MTA is now subjecting us to COMERCIALS. This is EVIL. As if the cell phones weren’t bad enough.
