’08 June

June 20

I’m home, and the trip was Grand. You can click here for the big view of Sequoia-Sacramento-Yosemite.

Check out the story and you can see why this picture is so exciting!

June 15

We’re off! Tonight’s hotel might not have an internet connection but some others do.

The plan is night 1=LA-Three Rivers; 2=drive-though Sequoia to Sacramento; 3=Sandra Tsing Loh’s Rally in Support of Public Education; 4=drive-through Yosemite; 5=Bass Lake; 6=drive Home.

Oh goodie! Road trip! I’ll keep track of milage and gas, for the heck of it. (At least there are two of us this time…)

June 28

So I’ve kept up trying to learn some tunes on the ukulele like I said I would at the beginning of the year and it’s been a real ‘challange’. And so Slooo to remember from one day to the next. Six months in, two songs I can consistently remember. Pathetic! But I soldier on.

That’s Jumpin’ Jim Beloff, a real sweetheart who does a lot of ukulele books and cds. I saw him do a big show and actually bought my ukulele from him when he happened to be hanging out at McCabe’s one afternoon. The hula-girl makes me smile.

Lill’s huge summer solstice party and Roger’s excellent birthday dinner happened today too. I had to sleep in from all the fun.

June 27

Brigitte is FIFTY. Wow. Fifty. So young, so lovely. Happy Birthday Brigitte!

(Tai, Sharon, Brigitte, Lill, Hana, Evy, Knut)

June 26

Netflix. I’m stuck in a playnext-playnext-playnext rut. Not just stuck, in the grip of (5 years of Miami Vice to watch on streaming video!). At this rate I’ll be able to cancel in a month or two…and having done nothing else!

June 25

It’s Wednesday, and time for some Rome.

Can you stand it?

Such a sweetie pie girl.

June 24

This turning 61 is so much less dramatic than last year’s 60 which I just finished celebrating in February. Roger and Sandy took me out to dinner anyway and it was delightful.

June 23

It’s my Valley Girls! here in celebration of Ann’s 62nd birthday. Happy Birthday Ann! You can buy a Lifetime National Parks Pass for ten bucks. Lucky you!

Standing: Marsha, Ann, Lourdes, Marija, Becky, me
Sitting: Maxine, Maryanne, Ljubica, Alicia

Missing is our 90 year old Ruth, home recuperating from a fall. Get Well Soon Ruth!

June 22

We were going to the Theatricum Botanicum to see As You Like It at 3pm but the very thought of being outside in the baker’s oven that is our recent weather drove us instead into a movie theater where we saw Mongol, a blood and guts bio-pic, first in a proposed trilogy, about Genghis Khan.

We are apparently both flexible and eclectic in our entertainment choices.

(A kind stranger took this mostly blurry photo but I’m usin’ it anyway. Sharon-Nancy-me-Nancy-Sandy)

June 3

Owww, this is exciting! More later…

June 14

My little sister invited me to a party!

It was a ‘make a hat’ party…

…and look at all the folks who made a hat!

June 12

Wait a few decades and what was once unbearably silly and irrelevant becomes charming and sweet. Yup. I’m watching season one of Miami Vice on my computer. It is charming and sweet. (ps Our Hero smokes constantly everywhere and they type on typewriters(!).)

I also saw a couple episodes of Perry Mason with more to come. Yikes. I fear what I will fall for next.

Angela had one of those ‘do what you’ve done one thousand times before but this time throw out your back’ episodes on Wednesday. I was SO glad I could be there.

We went to the chiropractor. While Angela was having her treatment one of the things Rome and I talked about was the Dalai Lama (see his picture on the table there). ‘Da-lee-la-ma Da-lee-la-ma’. Then when we got home we looked at pictures of the Dalai Lama on the computer. ‘Da-lee-la-ma’ she would sing out.

It was a lot of fun. But today, the next day, I’ve been feeling weird all day re-realizing how easy it is to teach/warp young minds. Not because recognizing ‘Da-lee-la-ma’ is such a big deal, but because it was so easy to get her to say. Somehow it feels weirder than getting her to say the names of flowers.

Know what I mean?

June 11

It’s nap time now so I had to get these pictures done because they are Too Cute, demanding to get out of my camera Right Now. Just too cute.

We were at the frozen yogurt place and since there were no other guests we got to dance around like craaazy. We twirled and high stepped and clapped to the music. Fabulous fingers and Fun fun fun.

June 9

This was exciting…landlord home maintenance issues, which I couldn’t do myself but had to call upon the Real landlords in my family and get my big sister to do it.

June 8

I went on a long sweaty walk with ND today and since I took no pictures I’ve got a photo of her grandbabies sent by the fam up north. Hi Charlie! Hi Henry!

kd.

And while I’m at it…here’s a newly arrived photo from Lainee of Baby Jack Black in Texas, son of my little sister’s youngest son, and brother of Sweet Cali-May. Awww.

lb.

June 7

The Angeles Chorale, the UCLA Chorale, and the American Youth Symphony performing the Brahms A German Requiem in English. That’s about 200 voices and 75 players. Big! Marsha and Becky are in there somewhere.

NA and I wanted to go at intermission, which they didn’t have so we just went in around 9, and were treated to one big finish after another for 45 minutes. Wow.

I haven’t taken many pictures this week so I’m throwing in a nab from icanhascheezburger.com. I can’t help it. I lol.

Recently I’ve watched hours of Jon Stewart and Bill Maher bits on YouTube. Those two guys and Garrison Keillor are making up my media trinity these days.

June 6

This is a picture from my first-row seat at a play called Red Dog Howls. Hilda got the tickets. Hurray Hilda! It was a major 3 hankie drama about the Armenian genocide.

Here’s something from the internet: ‘…the horrific intricacies of Vartouhi’s silence are revealed, but not without leaving the audience collectively reduced to audible tears and exiting the theatre in shocked, zombie-like silence. Red Dog Howls is not for the faint of heart, but it’s a story that needs telling and a play that, in a fairer world, should become a significant piece of theatrical literature.’

June 4

Rome…Yum, lunch! We’ve been practicing the names of flowers. You can click here to see the flowers Rome knows.

It’s like the refrigerator door. Every now and then you’ve just got to clean off the refrigerator door and start over. But it’s so hard to say goodbye!

D&A’s wedding, Rome!, a perfect flying pig card from ND, pictures from DC, my mother’s funeral reception and a couple of her turtle magnets, a painted bookmark from Sandy, a great personal card from NA, the wonderful button we and everyone on the Queen Mary wore for my mother’s birthday, Cynthia with Rome and her 1,000 cranes, I love the dancing cranes.