The season of Hearts and Flowers.
February 11
Click here for more Santa Barbara pictures from this trip and with a few pictures from many previous visits.
On the way from Santa Ynez back to Santa Barbara I swung through Solvang, the same as ever, Shop ‘Till You Drop.
Next stop, Ojai.
I arrived around sunset and headed right up to Meditation Mount. What they say: “Our Mission is to promote the building of an enlightened and compassionate world through the power of creative meditation, inspirational educational programs, and community-based events focused on the practical application of the following universal spiritual principles.”
It’s a wonderful setting and speaks to the whole sense of Ojai and perhaps what it is that Beatrice Wood found so inspiring.
February 28
Out for our walk we passed a gardner who was trimming a bougainvillea plant and he cleaned the thorns off these branches for the girls. Thank you Mr Gardner, we enjoyed them!
February 27
A lot of this and that lately but not much really, except for home sweet home.
27-I did some bits for my older sister for her business and then punked out on Monday Night in the Valley because of the rain that never really came.
26-an Oscar Night fete (thanks to Sharon and Nancy) and Sharon loaned me a novel by PD James ‘Death Comes to Pemberley’ which is so far great fun to read.
25-Housekeeping, trip planning, and a most un-entertaining list of chores. .and watching, consecutively, one after the other, all the episodes in the first two seasons of Breaking Bad…
February 24
Marsha had a ‘Tupperware Party’ tonight only they were selling Party Lite candles instead of Tupperware. Whatever happened to Tupperware parties anyway? The get-together was very fun, and tasty too, too tasty if my calorie counter is to be believed.
I snagged these pictures off Kelly’s facebook. Marsha and Tom, and Jordan. Oh Jordan, you are too cute.
kvv.
February 23
Tomorrow is Cynthia’s birthday (Happy HAPPY Birthday sweetie) and here is a picture Mike took last week of Kieran, on the far left, having just earned his green sash in Kung Fu. You go Kieran! and you go Cynthia and Mike!
mh.
February 22
Susie and I took today to visit UC Irvine, the site of Susie’s freshman and sophomore years in college during 1965-1967, the first two years of the school’s existence.
The inset shows how this site looked back then.
We had no expectations of what to see and what to do but by a series of happy circumstances we ended up at the research library where we were the only people plus the three librarians who wanted nothing more than to make us welcome.
They had old pictures from the beginning and the very first yearbook, when Susie was a freshman … in 1965. YES! There she is! What a treat.
I did this in black and white because all the pictures we were looking at were in black and white.
The yearbook looked mostly just like this except there were no trees. A university or a business park? I think it’s going to stand up better than we thought it might at the beginning.
Susie was there when the student body elected the anteater as their mascot, a bold and subversive move at the time.
Here’s Susie enjoying one of the many interactive installations at the on-campus Beall Center for Art and Technology.
February 21
A couple of shots from today’s walk.
Rome and Lilly’s favorite treat used to be a stop-off at Spoonit, their neighborhood yogurt place which went out of business recently and now the venue is going to open as a full-service cafe.
This is the mural on the outside wall.
February 20
YAY I get to stop thinking about the laundry set-up for awhile.
I had the new used craigslist dryer delivered today (the old one died) and the guy said keeping the machines like this was absolutely a-ok. He said washers and dryers are built like cars – leave ’em out, no problem.
February 19
Sharon and my turn-around point when we do The Big Walk. Walk for an hour, eat for an hour, walk for an hour back. Good and good for you!
Then I went over to D&A’s for a chance to say Happy Birthday to Gary. Here we have candles in the shape of a 6 and a 7. Lovin’ the smoke from alll those candles.
We talked about our choices for Medicare plans and Gary’s upcoming knee replacement surgery. Then we thanked our lucky stars for good health…and Medicare.
February 17
Even icanhascheezburger is in the game so today I have spent the day watching all the episodes in the first season of Downton Abbey. I’m moving on to season two right now.
It’s been an entertaining day not having watched much of it up until now I am happy to keep watching. What’s going to happen?!
February 16
What I’ve been doing the last couple of days (more like the last six weeks…)…going to restaurants, and trying to eat less. Less is not more. Less is not enough.
(internet pix)
February 14
My little valentine tableau for the grandgirls. Rome picked first. She chose the one with the Love Heart, and Lilly was totally happy with the other one, so yay.
This was Rome’s computer when she was Lilly’s age and here it is, still living strong after almost daily use for more than three years. Wow, that toy gets a solid 5 star review.
Rome made me this valentine at school and it is SO adorable. Rome and Angela brought me flowers too which was SO sweet.
D&A went out for a date so Rome made us a schedule for the evening: 1) Calre 2) Play 3) TV 4) Dinr 5) Cards 6) Favrit Part ov the Day 7) Good Nit.
#6, Favorite Part of the Day is when, after dinner-bath-play-snack-teeth-story and just before Good Night everyone tells about their favorite part of the day. It’s a lovely way to lead into Sweet Dreams.
February 12
I poured directly and entirely on to the keyboard of my running computer a totally full cup of sticky steamy hot Indian tea With milk And sugar, and within three seconds I heard the sizzle and pop of the computer’s death rattle.
The fix-it guys kept the computer for 2+ weeks before stating it would cost $2000 to fix.
I’m into the fourth week of using my ancient ThinkPad x30 unearthed from the garage, still doing everything that needs to get done, but the screen is quite small with not-so-great resolution and it has dimmed over time…and it operates Ohhhh Soooo Sloooowly.
So I’m having to buy a new computer which means shopping which means I am very bad at it.
I should add that the hard drive is completely fine so recovery should be relatively straight-forward. Lucky you say the fix-it guys, the drive had its own isolated case.
(internet pix)
Back in town now to go with Michi to the harbor to watch her ukulele group play. It was fun, and an inspiration!
Michi is always trying to get folks to say ukulele as you would in Hawaiian…oo-(as in moose)-coo-leh-leh. She’s about as successful as I am pronouncing karaoke as you would in Japanese…kah-rah-oh-ke. It’s just not going to take with the folks. How karaoke turned into care-ree-oh-key looks to me like a nice topic for a term paper.
…Ojai.
I arrived around sunset and headed right up to Meditation Mount. What they say: “Our Mission is to promote the building of an enlightened and compassionate world through the power of creative meditation, inspirational educational programs, and community-based events focused on the practical application of the following universal spiritual principles.”
It’s a wonderful setting and speaks to the whole sense of Ojai and perhaps what it is Beatrice Wood found so inspiring.
February 10
I’m making a new chapter for all these Santa Barbara pictures but here are the highlights.
Nancy and Michi on our walk in the Botanic Garden. What a gorgeous day.
Los Olivos, yikes, it’s turned into a ‘town’ of a thousand wine tasting establishments.
…at a very cool guest house in the foothills of the Santa Ynez Valley where I failed to catch any pictures of the many extremely colorful and extremely entertaining residents and guests.
Santa Ynez is predominately a wine making area (think Sideways). It got so cold and so windy that by sunset I was already snug in my room at the guest house and didn’t emerge until morning.
February 9
Angela was doing chores all day today so after Lilly’s nap Lilly and I walked over to Rome’s school to meet up at the Wednesday Fruit Stand where a few moms sell fruit donated by Whole Foods.
It’s a nice fund raiser, sets a good example for the children, and they like it…not as much as they like the Tuesday-Thursday pizza…but I saw plenty of cheerful kids buy fruit and not moan for pizza.
Jen, Stephanie, Angela
Angela had such a busy day today, all day and into the night, so I thought to take the kids out for dinner. Mel’s! Everyone Loves Mel’s!
February 7
I want to remember to look for those Japanese style rain spouts. (I just looked them up – they are called rain chains and easily acquired.)
February 5
Thanks Carl! for your generous hospitality, delicious food, and honkin’ 64″ Superbowl worthy mega-TV. And many thanks Bob for the afternoon walk and post game concert. Tooo fun.
Carl, (CPA) Bob, (Bobby Z) Bob
February 4
Wow, I haven’t been to the Shrine Auditorium in decades. I went with Sharon to see…
…whooo. Mahler’s 8th, with 800+ singers and 200+ instrumentalists as the largest extravaganza in The Mahler Project where within a few short weeks, in honor of the 100th anniversary of Mahler’s death, our Dudamel will have conducted all of Mahler’s symphonies.
I didn’t get a picture of (sigh…) our Dudamel (sigh…) but you can find plenty on the internet, adorable as he is.
(And you can find Marsha in the top row about 12 or so in from the left, adorable as she is.)
The music was a gasper and the venue was very cool, worth a look, but mostly what the Shrine reminded me of was how aMazing the acoustics are at Disney Hall.
February 3
I saved this picture Angela took in January for a time when I was thin on photos. Awwwww.
ak.
This is the view from Merlyn’s window at Saint Johns hospital were he’s spending the night after a bit of cutting and pasting. All is well.
