’20 January

January 30

What does this mean?! Why are they all turning purple?!! The landscape designer saw it start to happen a couple weeks ago and said it was normal but the internet offered no such assurance.

I saw Bombshell with Kathleen and a few of her friends, with mixed feelings from me but they all loved it.

Best movie-director-actor-actress that I have not seen. SOO many, and the show is a month earlier than usual. I’ve got little more than a week to see what I want to see. One a day could do it:

1917
Ford v. Ferrari
JoJo Rabbit
Little Women
Pain and Glory
Harriet
Judy

January 29

I bought a tv! I plugged it in and it worked. You can’t ask for more than that.

internet.

January 28

Kathleen and I are watching Joker on a screener at her house, averting our eyes.

January 27

I like the new Doctor, so YAY for that!

internet.

January 26

Ken and I went to see a matinee of Cirque Éloize Hotel at CSUN. It was charming and funny.

My favorite part was how all the kids in the audience were so delighted, fully of belly laughs and giggles.

internet.

January 25

I thought I could join this, a Spanish conversation Meet-Up in Santa Monica where they welcome beginners, to listen to some Spanish that I wouldn’t be able to understand. I signed up and went, and left in 15 minutes because from what I could tell no one else showed up. I did approach one group speaking Spanish and they looked at me like I was nuts. Turns out they were just people, speaking Spanish…

So I went over to Windy’s where we ate snacks and had a cocktail. That was fun!

internet.

January 24

And didn’t we always know it…The Getty Center. It’s THE GOOD PLACE!

(Don’t miss this week’s episode if you’ve been following the show.)

tv screen shot.

January 21

Sharon and Nancy were over for a late lunch and something made me look up. Oh fun, the setting sun sent my flying pig from the middle of the dining table onto this wall!

January 19

Lona’s view, always awesome..

..and sisters, enjoying said view. Only with my sisters am I the tall one.

Windy, Lona, me

January 18

Thinking about a side table for my guest chair. These colors go. Too much orange with the orange chair though, much as I like this orange. The dark one goes well too but now I’m used to the one I’ve got with the thin black legs and the thin marble top which I find especially pleasing.

January 16

A few pictures from the front yard. What do I think? I don’t know what I think!

I wanted a Fuyu persimmon tree and a kumquat tree and irrigation so I would never have to think about maintenance. For that I tore up the whole front yard, spent a gazillion dollars, and think about maintenance every day.

This is the persimmon, a nice sized stick today but I’m lovin’ on those buds.

This is the kumquat tree. It has fruit from the beginning.

There’s going to be fancy thyme feathering around the flagstones and Santa Barbara daisies will fill in the open spaces.

I had to take out the two old wisteria if I wanted blooms again because the termite tenting a couple years ago totally killed one and ruined the other.

You can see the new planting over by the window and the close up shows buds so fingers crossed big time.

What Was I Thinking?!?! WHY did I let all these Floribunda-type roses go in? If you don’t constantly keep them tidy with dead-heading you get that messy flying around of petals. They do bloom profusely though.

Everything looks small and a little silly now, at one point they will be perfect, and then they’ll be too big. I see why people just go for a lawn.

All these guys are low-water plants once they get rooted, or so I believe.

I wanted a 2-3 foot piece of fence back a foot or so from the sidewalk so that pretty things could grow on it and create a barrier for pooping dogs.

I ended up with a 4 foot fence that feels weird, and I considered taking it out, but I’m going to give it a chance, for the vine to grow in and the lantana to take over.

Here’s a little patch that I don’t think is going to make it. They have been saying they are going to come back with mulch but mulch is yet to be seen.

January 17

Lill made us a nice spread of Swedish Christmas in January because it’s made up of all things I like so well – pickled herring of many flavors, boiled potatoes with sour cream, perfect bread and just the right crackers, butter and cheese and sausage .. more too that isn’t coming to me right now. Oh YEA.

I took a couple pictures of her front garden..

..In The Dark. Oh how fun it is to mess around with Night Sight, when you can’t see a thing but oh boy, the camera can.

January 16

Hilda treated several of her friends to a Sound Bath here at Salvaje Malibu just across the road from Calamigos Ranch. They have other activities under different names, a wine safari, yoga classes, a running group.

That’s Turtle Mountain and the Sound Bath area is up in that direction. You can see us getting settled in.

It was very cold so they got out all the extra blankets and I was quite comfortable.

Arsineh, Debbie, Hilda, me, Mahzad.

Mostly we lay on ground and let these amazing sounds wash over us, hence the name, Sound Bath. It was a very very cool experience.

Then we went over to Malibu Café at Calamigos and shared some tasty treats and a visit.

Thank you Hilda!

Hilda, Debbie, Arsineh, Mahzad.

January 14

Usually it’s a rainbow forest in my kitchen but a freebee cardboard reflector that came as a prize in another gift I bought produces this. Oh my goodness.

It was Muriel day today as we made a good dent in Marie Kondo-izing her accumulations of paper. Every pile with a tag made me so happy.

January 13

Sharon and I walked at Palisades Park today, our first walk in more than a month.

Then in the evening Ann hosted Monday Night Potluck and for the first time two people brought chicken, two different kinds, so I had to have one of each, and Marija brought her scrumptious cornbread with homemade honey from Croatia, there were two kinds of salad, two kinds of vegetable, pasta, and pizza. I had to try everything Of Course. Ann made Key Lime Pie, I ate that, and also Alicia brought some leftover desserts from a party and I ate that TOO.

Ahhh so cozy to be full.

January 12

I had a nice afternoon with Kathleen. We walked down Wilshire and did chores along the way. We had some coffee and bagels and fruit and looked at pictures from Kathleen’s last trip in Italy.

Kathleen is a real estate agent so she visited some properties while she was there on the request of one of her colleagues. Look what happens when you buy a broken-down farm house in Tuscany.

Caleb sent this picture from his room in Oxford. He said it is much easier to catch a sunrise when it looks like this at 9am.

cb.

January 11

I had lunch with Jo Ann and David today, Thank You! See that donut, the Getty Museum has one, and I have a version too, hanging right over my coffee machine. Coffee and a (ooow sexxy) donut. I love it!

Book covers and donut from the internet.

January 10

I’m thinking about this trip, with all the transportation arranged by a tour operator, to pass through many of the countries of the old silk road.

The least expensive flights are with Turkish Airlines including a connection in Istanbul, a city I love, but the second least expensive flights are with Emirates that connect through Dubai. Maybe I could manage a day or two in Dubai, snuggled as it is between Iran and Saudi Arabia.

I’m thinking to go in September, and these days, September is a very long time from now.

January 9

I didn’t take pictures of our fun today so here are a couple of pictures from Angela’s Instagram of their recent trip to Mammoth. Everyone had such a splendid time.

ak.  Rome, Lilly, Oliver

January 8

I look at these things that will be coming to my door tomorrow and imagine how many stores I would have fished through to find them.

Oranges from my tree, the low hanging fruit, I’ll have to get a new picker since the one I have is too hard to use, and Ann’s grapefruit and lemons.

Now I’m going to juice-up these babies and freeze some for future delights. I do have a couple hundred more oranges if I can just get at them.

January 7

Sharon, Nancy, and I went to a show called Tokyo Pop Underground at the Jeffrey Deitch gallery.

I liked it, especially this one.

More from the exhibit.

Then we had lunch at the Formosa Café. It’s super-nicely toned up. It seems all the buildings featured in Once Upon a Time in Hollywood got a fancy Hollywood makeover.

internet.

January 5

In the center front, my last nice picture of Maryanne, from 2018. After a long struggle with Parkinson’s, Maryanne passed last week. I made it back from Santa Barbara to attend the after-funeral reception for which I was very glad.

I’m sorry I missed all the stories shared at the funeral. Maryanne ran a travel agency for a long time so she could hop on those fam trips. My contribution… “Maryanne: She’s been there.”

January 4

Nancy and Michi and I met for lunch at Michi’s favorite place and then Nancy took me to the tire place to pick up my car after which we decided to…

…visit the Santa Barbara Mission.

We both had so much fun finding those scenes that call our name.

More.

We got the magic hour for lighting.

nd.

Lights!

And of course, exit through the gift shop.

I slept over at Nancy’s place and left on the early side the next morning to get to Maryanne’s funeral reception. It was mostly over but I’m glad to have made it there.

January 3

Driving up to Santa Barbara today…PSSSSsssss, I got a five second flat tire. Fortunately there was an easy access shoulder and two hours later I was on my way again.

I blame all this construction with throwing out some kaka that ripped up my tire.

Michi Michi! I spent the night with Michi and she give me several things I’ve always admired at her house. This is her second to last pack-up session before her final move to Mexico.

She’s leaving in a few days and when she comes back in mid-April, that’ll be bon voyage Santa Barbara, bienvenido a México.

January 2

No school today so Rome and Lilly and I went out to lunch and then we went to a toy store in the Del Amo Mall where you can pay $5 to rent a table and as many people as you want can play all the open games on these shelves. We had FUN!

((I’m going to Santa Barbara for a few nights…more later!))

January 1

I went with Marsha to the Malibu Lagoon Bird Sanctuary yesterday so we could have a good walk in the fresh air as a happy time to bid farewell to 2019 and to hope for some peace and quiet for the body politic in 2020. Fat chance, right?!

Just down the beach from the Lagoon is the Adamson House, home of the long gone but not forgotten Malibu Potteries.

All the amazing tile at the Adamson House are originals from Malibu Potteries.

We ate a prime rib dinner, drank some delicious wine, and I stayed overnight. For the first time in so very many years I had a cat for most of the night. She lay across my legs, behind my back, under my arm, over my head, it was delightful!