Volume 13 – Baker’s Dozen
48 – Advent Begins
Sunday was the First of December and day one of the Advent for 2024. During Amazon Prime Days a couple of months ago, Daughter Kassi saw an Advent calendar on sale that she thought I just might appreciate. With Die Hard being my all-time favorite Christmas movie, she couldn’t have found a better representation of the season for me. I have had it assembled and sitting promenently on the bar for a couple of months just waiting for the big day. That day has arrived and Hans Gruber has begun the well-deserved fall to his death from the twenty-fourth floor of the Nakatomi Tower that will end with the celebration of the birth of Jesus. If this seems somewhat non-traditional in your view, I understand. If it seems hilarious, welcome to my sense of humor!
47 – Farewell to a Friend
Friday was a sad day. We had to say goodbye to a good friend. We didn’t hang out every weekend, but that didn’t matter. Pre-pandemic, he and I went to the shooting range fairly often and whenever we had a family and friends gathering, he and Ronda were always on the guest list and brightened up the room. Steve was the sort of guy that if he saw a need, he would do what he could to fill it, no matter if the one in need was family, a friend or a stranger. When Daughter Tara has to vacate her house after her divorce, Steve was there with a truck to help us. It was a two-way street and I never blinked when they asked me to photograph their son’s wedding. His time on Earth is over, but he will live forever in Heaven and in our hearts. Fare thee well, Steve.
46 – ‘Tis The Season
Everybody has heard a comment or two about when so and so puts up their Christmas decorations. Some are the commentators, and some are the subjects of the comments. This year, we only have to look in the mirror to find early decorators to mock. A Christmas season abbreviated by travel has forced our hand and we are decorating early. It is Kim’s favorite holiday, and to get her allotted span of enjoyment, we’re jumping the gun a bit this year. The tree is already up and running on a 5AM to 10PM automated schedule and the outside lights are next. Last year, Christmas decorating grew to include the redecorated patio and garden. As you can see in this week’s photo, Rusty and Longfellow are already joyfully sporting their dapper holiday apparel. Merry, merry!
45 – Goooooooaaaaaaalll
Sunday was another cold one at the rink. It was also the only outing that involved photography during a busy week of work and projects. We got there just in time for the warm-up and had to leave a bit early to head up the hill for church and to provide a bit of auto repair for Pastor Dan’s aging Jeep Cherokee. The game was better than last week where Matthew’s team faced off against a perennially undefeated team and lost 6-0. That sounds bad, but the other team usually scores in the mid-teens, making the loss less painful. This week saw a more even match and it was a good game with a lot of back-and-forth action that ended with a 6-2 win and before we had to leave, we got to see Matthew score one of the six from his defenseman position about a mile away.
44 – Oh. The Possibilities…
Over the years, the family has expressed curiosity as to why I have never gotten into 3D printing. Honestly, I have a couple of hobbies and enough DIY home projects to occupy my attention and while fascinating, it never really popped up on my radar. This changed a bit last Christmas when we bought our grandson a 3D-printed dragon that was fully articulated and had been printed that way in place. The ability of the printer to achieve that level of precision grabbed my inner engineering nerd’s attention. The final trigger was when Wonderful Wife stumbled upon an internet post where someone was showing off their custom mini rubber ducks they made to hide on cruise ships. She now has some ducks for the next cruise, and I have a brand-new hobby (and a dragon).
43 – Ice Princess
As alluded to last week, we spent an absolutely loverly Southern California day decked out in cold weather gear first at Matthew’s hockey game and immediately followed by Jackie’s skating competition across town. Matthew had a great game and Jackie’s performance was spectacular. This was the debut of her second two-minute routine and her Great Aunt’s latest costume creation. She came in third out of four in her group, skating against three teenagers including a capable young lady that will graduate high school before Jackie enters middle school. This week’s photo is titled “Ice Princess” not because she is cold and aloof, but because her performance was poised and showed a skill level and joy in competing that is unusual in an eight-year-old, to say the least.
42 – Hard Charge
Our usual four seasons here in SoCal are Spring, Summer, Still Summer and Fire. This year we have inserted a week or so of actual Fall with mild weather and sunshine. I don’t know how long it will last but I am taking advantage of it by restarting some outdoor projects stalled by months of death-heat. On the other hand, our recreation for the week involved nothing in the way of walking amongst the fall colors or maybe a picnic. Instead we spent Sunday morning sitting in a sub-40° climate watching Matthew’s team doing that hockey thing. Not complaining, mind you, the games are faster, more strategic and just plain exciting that in the past and Matthew has shown a real talent for the sport. I hope the lovely weather holds; his sister has a skating competition next week.
41 – Taste Test
Saturday at the shoreside park near Tara’s home was about as perfect as you could ask for. 70°, sunny with a gentle onshore breeze. A whole bunch of family and friends showed up to celebrate Kai’s third birthday and we all had fun watching the younger cousins frolic and catching up with family that only gathers for events like this. It’s hard to believe that our youngest grandchild is three already. Yikes! Somebody must have hit the fast-forward button. Kai is a typical All-American kid with the obsession with dinosaurs that seems to form at about this age and lasts until they find out what a paleontologist’s annual salary is. The dino-themed (Three-Rex) party was a success with the cake easily passing the taste test by the distinguished guest of honor.
40 – Necessary Evil
You know those chores you just keep putting off because they seem like they’ll be hard? Careful study over decades has proven they were, 100% of the time. This week’s picture is a tiny vignette of where my spare time went for the last two weeks. It represents the re-org and cleanup of my photos dating from my conversion to digital back in 2001. 4,287 images were moved off of the phone, culled and categorized. That made 210,544 images in my “PHOTOS” master folder. While nowhere near done removing duplicates, blurries and “why did I take that?” shots, the total is now 193,154 and finding a particular photo is easier than ever. It also justifies my new habit of culling and keywording new images. Necessary evil or labor of love? Either way, it’s a major chore.
39 – A Rarer Treat
Back in the good ol’ days before the Covid Dark Age, we used to visit our favorite source of authentic Mexican food almost weekly. The two of us could have our favorite meal and one of their unmatched house margaritas for around $30. When the hammer came down and restaurants were declared anathema by “Science”, the management reacted quickly and switched to an all-takeout model almost overnight. Their handling of the distancing rules when you picked up your order was epic with a “beer fort” made of stacked cases of Corona in front of the counter. Unlike many, they made it through the lockdown and have been thriving. Sadly, the frequency of our visits has taken a hit with the price our usual meal more than doubling. Still our favorite, though.
38 – Signs
After 5+ decades of being a photographer, I tend to see things somewhat differently than someone who hasn’t spent innumerable hours looking through a viewfinder. Years ago one Picture-A-Week photo was of a plastic fork I came across in a parking lot. It was stepped on with three of the four tines broken off. The fork with the remaining tine resembled a hand displaying the gesture sometimes referred to as “the bird”. The story was a question asking whether it was just an amusing happenstance or if God was subtly expressing disappointment in me. Here it is again. Is this God pranking me by pointing the wrong way to our car, or just someone angry after not reading the product dimensions more carefully before ordering a “Team Support Foam Finger” from Temu?
37 – Shawiiinggg!
After a brief break from ice-related activities, the hockey season officially began last week. Instead of driving forty miles northeast to attend church, we drove 40 miles southwest to attend hockey. It was colder and the seats weren’t as comfortable but there was a lot more action during the service. The games are getting pretty exciting with a lot more obvious strategy and the players are getting faster. Matthew has developed a significant working knowledge of the game and plays well and aggressively (without being a PITA about it). The hockey season involves some significant travel for away games since there aren’t a lot of ice rinks in Southern California, but we have developed a fondness for sitting in the cold and cheering for Matthew.
36 – Cactus Apple
Our cactus is a Peruvian Apple Cactus. I know this because Google Lens used a picture of it to search the web and identify it. It is not an uncommon cactus, but it has become a sort of family heirloom. The in-laws planted it in the early ‘00s. It flourished and we took a cutting and started a new chapter in its life as a travelling cactus. Its story and blossoms have been the subject of previous Picture-A-Week photos. The short-lived flowers it produces are lovely and are very shy of the sun, opening after sunset and closing up the next morning. If a flower is lucky enough to be pollinated, it will grow into the fruit pictured here. We get very few in a given year, so they are a rare treat. Tough and weathered on the outside, soft and sweet inside. I can relate.
35 – Tip ‘o the Hat
I may have misspoken about my choice of subject matter for this week’s Picture-A-Week entry. I know I said I would avoid ice-related subjects, and I really meant it. But another week of final processing on the 862 ice show images selected from the 7,000 or so originals ate my spare time like a newbie cruiser at the welcome-aboard buffet. It was also an exercise in self-analysis when I found that I struggle with objective journalism when covering a skating event that Jackie is a part of. While I didn’t approach the 60%+ Jackie to Others ratio of the photos taken by her mother, it was well into the double digits. Do I feel bad about it? Don’t be silly! Look at this week’s photo and tell me that any other skater on the ice could possibly be that cute!
34 – A Chorus Line
Another busy week. Between processing the group shots from last week, making the event poster, and catching up on some yard work, there was precious little time to take photos. Until Sunday. This week was the show, so I spent several hours shooting action shots during the two performances. Kassi helped out this year by shooting from the sidelines and fell in love with the 10 frame-per-second capability of the camera I lent her. I filled 120GB worth of storage and we ended up with around 7K images. Culling the duplicates took a while and processing the keepers will take a bit more time, but that’s one of the things that a grandfather with a camera gets used to. Next week, I promise to take pictures that don’t include ice. Unless there’s hockey…
33 – Before & After
It’s that time again. Granddaughter Jackie has her skating venue’s summer show fundraiser coming up and her mother “volunteered” me to take the photos for the second year in a row. This isn’t Jackie’s group, but I used this shot for this week’s photo to illustrate my nod to what AI has brought to photography. My Photoshop skills were helped by AI object selection to eliminate the tragic background (not perfect yet, but a great first step) and the inserted image of the Emerald City was made from a typed request presented to the Grok AI. It only took about eight seconds to generate a finished image ready for download. It was still work to stack it all together, but hours were saved and it will only get better as time passes. Welcome to the future.
32 – Timeless Oranges
In the late spring of 2023, our blood orange tree was covered in blossoms as it has been every spring since 2019. Those blossoms morphed into little green orbs that grew into a huge crop of oranges. There were far too many for us to use and we got tired of picking them to give away. Life got busy with travel and projects, and we sort of ignored the tree. Last March, I noticed there were still oranges on the tree. Hmmm. More busy times until May when I noticed there were no blossoms this year, just year-old oranges. Picking and peeling one found it to be ripe and still good. As of last week, nothing has changed. If they last until next year, I am going to start sleeping under the tree to see if I can stop aging like our seemingly immortal oranges.
31 – Smokin’!!!
Spring 2024 brought repeated bouts of torrential rain, which is not the norm for an area that averages less than 12″ per year. The only casualty was our smoker. It was on the patio where the waterfall from the roof was able to splash up under the cover, around the pellet purge door seal and soak the pellets all the way down the feed tube to the firebox. Two weeks later, an attempt to fire it up was foiled by the pellet auger being rusted solid in the feed tube. Short version: dead smoker. Two weeks ago, I got tired of putting off tearing it apart for repair and Kim convinced me to just order a shiny new one. We chose our favorite quickie smoker meal to christen it, and the six-hour Tri-tip made me kick myself for not doing this five months ago.
30 – Amazingly Graceful
From Friday through Sunday, we left summer behind and sat in an artificial winter watching the ISI World Ice Skating Championships in San Jose, CA. I got the impression that anyone could sign up, pay the fee and compete, so it was more of a structured competition with many levels and competitors from as far away as Indonesia. Jackie was entered in four events including two individual and two group competitions. Again, I will mention that at her level, there is no set age range. She just turned 8 and regularly competes against skaters 4-7 years older. This trip netted her a 1st place, a 2nd place and two 3rd place medals. This week’s photo was from her 2nd place finish against seven 11–13-year-olds. She continues to amaze me.
29 – Sunburned
It’s summer in Southern California. As usual, that means the thermometer uses that third column in the display fairly often. We broke 100° a couple of times last week, and despite automatic watering and only two or three hours of direct sunlight daily, Kim’s Fragrant Roselillies are showing their frailty with the tips of their petals browned and crisped by the heat. We live in a 10a or 10b hardiness zone, so we are on the very upper edge of their survivability range. (Come to think of it, we’re pretty close to the upper edge of my personal survivability range without good A/C.) Despite the heat and some early problems with the bulbs being unearthed repeatedly by nocturnal raiders, they sprouted, and grew into prolific flower factories.
28 – Class Act
Hailee graduated from Cal Poly and Savannah graduated from High School back in May. We had a wonderful family party to celebrate those milestones, then in June we went with them on their graduation cruise. That was that and we didn’t really think about it again until our friend Ron showed up with this nice Belgian Quad last week. I thought the “Class of ‘24” label was pretty cool since we had just celebrated a couple of its members, but the cool factor got turned up to 11 when I realized that it was brewed by Innovation Brew Works. The brewery is on the Cal Poly campus and serves as a learn-by-doing lab to teach brewing and retail management. They even use barley from the school’s agriculture department. A class (of ‘24) act!
27 – Early to Hive, Early to Rise
Every year about this time, our night-blooming cactus opens its seasonal business. Anywhere from a few to a couple dozen hand-sized blossoms open up just after dark and stay open until shortly after the sun rises. First light starts the second act of the show with a steady stream of workers arriving to harvest the abundance of pollen. The cactus has provided steady employment for thirty years or so since my in-laws planted it their back yard. It flourished there, growing to nearly ten feet tall with many branches. About ten years ago, I took a cutting and opened a branch office (pun intended) in our back yard. Business has been good, and we recently expanded the franchise, moving to a more permanent ground-based location.
26 – Not a Europinon
First of all, this is not an opinion piece on the financial state of the EU. It is actually a funny story about a souvenir. Our friend Ron wanted us the bring him back an Italian Euro with the Vitruvian Man design. I looked it up to see what it looked like and saw one for sale for $300. I misread the translated article and thought the mint 2002 coin pictured was the last year it was minted rather than the first. Thinking the design had changed, we didn’t try to find one while in Venice. Two days later, we were touring Santorini and Kim asked for money to use the restroom before we got back onto the bus. I gave her a €5 bill and imagine my surprise when the change she received included an Italian €1coin. I made a commemorative display for it.
25 – Origin Story
I grew up in an unusual environment. We had an actual encyclopedia and a world globe. I used to spin the globe, pick a spot and look it up in the encyclopedia to see if it was worth travelling to. At some point in my early teens, this led to me hanging a Santorini travel poster on my bedroom wall to go with the “Earthrise” poster. These represented my desire to travel and see more of the world than I could reach on my bike. The poster also inspired me to buy my first SLR at 15 so I could record all that future travel. This week, one of those travel goals come true when we visited Oia Village on Santorini, and I took this week’s photo from the exact perspective shown in my travel poster. It was a bit of a moment for me, 54 years in the making.
24 – Not Venice
Friday morning, we woke up in metropolitan Venice. That was a first for both of us. We flew in a couple of days early for our Greek Isles cruise and we had all of Friday to visit Venice (island). We got off the tram and went to one of the ticket kiosks to see what was available. The first tour we saw was a boat tour that went to Murano and Burano. Kim has been a fan of Murano glass forever, so there we went. The glass place was pretty cool and Kim got a nice necklace from the souce as a souvenir. The highlight of the day was the little shopping area on the island of Burano. Quaint and colorful, it was not as crowded as Venice on a Friday and prices were a bit less astronomical. We wandered about and enjoyed an hour of quiet sightseeing.
23 – High Five
We spent Friday afternoon battling LA traffic, limited parking and surprisingly hot weather to watch Savannah walk the walk at the end of her high school career. Since her sister is four years older, this is the second graduation we have attended in the last few weeks and while we are enormously proud of the Granddaughters and their academic success, we have had enough crowds, speechifying and butt-numbing seating to hold us for a while. While waiting for the ceremony, I did that thing where you look up the student’s name and found a little symbol and an asterisk next to Savanna’s. I found that they meant she earned the Golden State Merit Award and had a weighted GPA of 4.0 or above. I did say “enormously proud”, didn’t I?
22 – One From Each
Saturday was a party day. Hailee and Savannah are four years apart, so the party was to celebrate them graduating from college and high school respectively. They requested a fiesta, so we had carne asada, chicken fajitas, enchiladas and fiesta-themed beverages for those on either side of 21 years old. It was a larger than average gathering but the kids chipped in and spared Kim from a lot of the work. As I was wandering from group to group making sure everyone has what they needed, I noticed each of the three sitting on the swing was a child of a different one of our three children. I love numbers and patterns but what compelled me to take this week’s photo was the fact that they were just so darned cute sitting there being cousins.
21 – Blast From the Past
I have been working on scanning our collection of pre-digital photographs off and on for about ten years. Sadly, it has been significantly more off than on and only includes about 1,800 images of varying quality. There are thousands more, so before I spend my spare time over the next year scanning them, I want to see where the low bar should be set where the quality won’t be salvageable. Over the past few weeks, I have been using the latest tools from Topaz AI and Photoshop to repair photos with a wide range of quality issues. Color fading with or without slight to not so slight focus issues seems to be the dominant challenge. This shot of a happy couple at their prom from 51 years ago came out very well. We were so very, very pretty!
20 – Brave New World
Well, that’s officially that. We spent a chilly Sunday evening at Cal Poly Pomona, watching our oldest Granddaughter officially finish four years of hard work with a walk across the stage for her diploma. It has been four years since her last diploma walk and the world is a much different place. High school ended with masked students walking past masked teachers as we drove slowly past a makeshift podium. That was then, this is now, and the crowd was huge and noisy as we all celebrated the effort and dedication that the graduates put into developing the skills needed to succeed in big, scary world they just stepped into. Congratulations, Hailee! You are bright and beautiful and maybe, just maybe you can make the world a little more like you.
19 – Dan the Baptist
Mother’s Day 2024 was a two-day celebration. The family gathered on Saturday for food and general hanging around at the family entertainment compound (our back yard). There was brunch food, Bellinis and much laughter. However, Sunday morning was the main event. Our family and friends went up the hill to Pastor Dan’s church and attended one of his very informational sermons for Mother’s Day. You’re wondering why the whole family tagged along? It wasn’t just because it was Mother’s Day and Kim is arguably the best ever. It was because she wanted the two of us to be baptized on Mother’s Day and how could I deny the Love of My Life? Not sure if loud cheering and clapping is proper at a baptism, but that’s how our family rolls.
18 – Robot Chicken
It was a dreary drive up the hill on Sunday morning with a low, heavy overcast and a light drizzle for most of the trip. That was a shame because this is the time of year that the mountain pass which the freeway runs through is very green and quite scenic for a few months until the summer burns the color out of it. The overcast persisted as we started down into the valley and stayed with us until we pulled into the parking lot of our favorite little High Desert café. We immediately noticed something new. On top of the roof were two large, brightly colored metal roosters. We are both fans of whimsical decorations (as our six-foot-long metal garden dinosaur will attest to) and they made us smile as they stood there lit by the first sunlight of the day.
17 – Cutting Edge
Saturday was a skating day. Jackie had her first major competition of the year and got herself another page in this year’s Picture-A-Week book. It seems like just four years ago (it was) that she was tottering across the ice and spending considerable time on her butt. She fell a lot at first but always got up and tried again and again. He first competitions were “Awww…” moments and terribly cute. The “Awww…” days gradually went away as she progressed, and the last year has had a lot of “Wow…” moments. Competing against girls twice her age is part of the deal when you start early and get good, but that hasn’t fazed her at all. She pulled off a Third and a First and earned every point with a grace that seems more effortless every day.
16 – A Matter of Perspective
Where did I find a martini in such a cool glass you ask? I found it in a regular everyday martini glass and took a photo of it from an unusual point of view. Composition “rules” should be called something other than “rules”. Basic guidelines like keeping the horizon straight or The Rule (Guideline?) of Thirds can help one get past taking snapshots but calling them “rules” can be stifling. Personal vision doesn’t always play by the rules. Inspiration for this shot came from realizing that I had access to an ultrawide lens on a very thin camera (ok, phone) able to get low enough to exploit the distortion and wide depth of field that these lenses are blessed and cursed with. The answer to your unasked question is yes, alcohol may have been involved.
15 – Breakfast of Champions
I am an avid fan of burgers. While a long-held aversion to personal hugeness limits my consumption of them to a reasonable level, I will choose a burger from a menu more than any other meal (except maybe tacos). The Carl’s Jr. Breakfast Burger has been an occasional weekend treat for a long time but over the last couple of years, a non-combo price tag of over $7 has inspired me to build my own. My penchant for DIY has led to a long list of things that have given us far more bang-for-the-buck than “store-bought” could ever provide. The burger pictured here is no exception. Even with a quality Angus beef patty and extra sharp white cheddar, it cost less than $3.50 to produce. Best of all, there was no glamorous menu photo vs. reality slap in the face.
14 – Just Peachy
Spring has arrived, though the springy warmth we are used to isn’t due until later this week. The unusually chilly weather hasn’t seemed to have much affect on the plant-based residents of our neighborhood with blossoms popping out everywhere. Our tiny tangerine tree is covered with them as is the Blood Orange tree. Our drive towards a low-water, low-maintenance yard is in a transitional state with most of the traditional sources of blossoms following the avocado tree and Phoenix palm into plant heaven. Our neighbor is ahead of us in the landscaping department and already has some established plants, including the peach tree that is close enough to our wall to become the subject of this week’s 1st Annual Pretty in Pink Peach Blossom Festival photo.
13 – Happy Eastermas
Our family gathering for Eastermas 2024 was on Saturday since Pastor Dan had to work on Sunday. We watched the weather forecast for the previous 10 days with every day adding to the certainty that there would be heavy rain all day. The plans for the egg hunt were abandoned and the family event planners came up with a Christmas-like opening of Easter gifts packed in boxes. Why “Eastermas”? Kim’s big heart and serial gifting has turned Easter into a springtime Christmas. As a result, I have been calling it Eastermas for years with an uncharacteristic lack of sarcasm. As for the rain, it quit about two hours before the gathering and while it was too wet for an egg hunt, nobody had to walk between the raindrops to get their food. It was a great day.
12 – Almost There
After more than a week of spending all my free time on the latest addition to the back yard, the new gazebo is pretty much done. I still need to add a few bolts anchoring it to the deck but since there have been no tornado alerts for a while, I may wait until tomorrow. We are nearing the end of the project that we started back in mid-2020 when panic outpaced reason and everything was shut down. We decided to make a place where family and friends could gather when all other options were taken away. It has been a great success, having hosted many a happy gathering. Next up is more decking. This will not only serve to expand non-temporary seating but will advance our other agenda. We are winning our war on dirt…one square foot at a time.
11 – Work in Progress
Busy week. Again. In recent years, our family gatherings have been sheltered under our current 12′ x 16′ gazebo and a large 10′ x 20′ “party tent”. We set up the tent, moved the tables and chairs and strung the lights enough times that it seemed prudent to switch to something requiring a bit less pre-party preparation. We decided to simplify. Last week, Costco delivered a thousand pounds of adult Legos for us to play with. The five boxes contained at least a tree worth of wood, hundreds of square feet of sheet metal, a bucket of brackets, and I swear, 30 lbs. of screws and bolts. It will be pretty, but I figure we will break even on the effort required to assemble this attractive shelter versus putting up the tent for every party sometime around Easter 2030.
10 – Flower Girl
Early Sunday morning, we went to the local ice rink to watch an in-house competition where Jackie would be performing her first long routine. Her flowery outfit was dreamed up by her mom and made real by her great aunt. I debated a bit about the title, with things like “Wood Nymph” and “1960s Hippie Without the Drugs” being some of the possibilities. I finally decided on “Flower Girl”. Simple and descriptive. Watching the routine through the viewfinder, I almost wished I could have just watched it like normal people do. Jackie has become quite the performer with her jumps gaining altitude and spins starting to speed up and last longer. That wish evaporated when I downloaded the photos. She deserves her hard work to be documented.
09 – Tasteful Surprise
Week 09 – Monday 2/26 to Sunday 3/3
A very slow week for photos. We’re having a tree taken out and there is some prep work needed. Between that and many days of rain, there was precious little to photograph and what there was, wasn’t. The only half decent image this week was a fortuitous find Son Dan made while on a birthday trip to Vegas. He is a huge fan of Gordon Ramsay and while dining at one of his locations, he had a Browned Butter Old Fashioned. He was impressed enough to message me a photo and the name of the main ingredient. That ingredient (pictured here) was immediately searched and the only location west of the Mississippi was a Total Wine store in, you guessed it…Las Vegas. He picked up a couple of bottles on the way home and I must say, it was worth the trouble.
08 – National Margarita Day
We were half-watching the news on Thursday afternoon when fate stepped in and decided the age-old, yet daily “what’s for dinner” dilemma for us. The news person was babbling on about a bunch of inconsequential stuff when we heard the words “today is National Margarita Day”. The first question that popped into my head was why haven’t we seen any commercials or flyers handed out in parking lots or planes towing banners announcing the parade? How could an event this culturally significant be relegated to a brief “and in other news” mention just before a commercial break? Despite the failure of the Powers That Be to inform us properly, we managed to round up friends, head to the home of the best house margaritas ever and honor the day.
07 – Peace at Last
Saturday was Hockey Day. We drove 50 miles to the venue and sat in the cold for an hour watching Matthew’s team dissect their opponents. They played well and deserved the impromptu pizza party afterwards. It was just the kids and their Mom at the party since their Dad had to head off to work right after the game. The ride home was typical for any weekend afternoon in LA with the freeways moving at a blistering 10-30 MPH. This gave the kids plenty of time to engage in those popular sibling games of “She’s/He’s Bothering Me” and “Shut Up (fill in the name)” as well as a heated dispute over the use of Jackie’s Corgi-shaped pillow. This went on for about thirty minutes until bellies full of pizza brought a peaceful solution to the pillow dispute.
06 – High Desert
Last year I documented both sides of the San Gabriel range after a record snowfall and while we haven’t set any records so far, a recent atmospheric river has left its mark. On the way to a Super Sunday party with family and friends, I pulled off the road to take in the view. This part of the High Desert has had a 10% increase in population just since 2020 but the Mojave Desert isn’t in any danger of filling up soon and views like this can still be easily found. This photo was taken from an elevation of around 3,200 ft. and the horizon cuts off the view of the mountains at almost exactly the current snow line. Stopping to “smell the roses” (Joshua Trees?) and appreciate nature’s beauty on the way to a very human-centric event was surprisingly refreshing.
05 – Longfellow
The day after returning from Kim’s birthday cruise, our daughters insisted on coming over to watch the 49er’s game. Needless to say, having a gaggle of folks over for a gathering the day after a 14-hour travel marathon was the last thing on our list of activities for a post-cruise Sunday afternoon. As it turns out, it was all an excuse to present Kim’s with the birthday gift they had gone together on and were too excited about to wait another week to deliver. Our Chloe has been gone for a decade, but they know we still have a serious soft spot for wiener dogs. Somehow, they figured that affection for the breed would extend to a five-foot long bench in the shape of one. Turns out it does. We now have a wiener dog bench named Longfellow.
04 – Close Enough
Week four found us still enjoying the Birthday cruise on the fantastic Celebrity Apex. After an enjoyable tour in Key West on Sunday, skipping Belize on Tuesday (after checking the State Dept. site to confirm that the note we got about being alert due to “issues” was a good reason to skip), we decided that the heat and humidity that poured into our room when we opened the infinity balcony to see how it worked was enough of a reason to skip Cozumel as well. Instead, we wandered the ship, caught up on news and such on our tablets and generally spent the day doing not a darned thing. Before starting our Wednesday of Rest tour, I snapped this photo of hot, muggy, Cozumel with its strikingly blue waters and three million or so tourist-filled bars.
03 – We Were Impressed
For Kim’s birthday this year, we booked a cruise on the Celebrity Apex. The itinerary was a typical Caribbean tour visiting places we’ve seen before, but that was ok as the ship was our actual destination. We have never sailed on the Edge-class ships and we were intrigued by all the talk of them being marvels of technology and elegance. Long story short, the talk wasn’t hype. The Apex impressed from the moment we walked up the gangway until we were forced to leave a week later. The layout, decor, artwork, and all the other aspects of the ship were simply classy. We liked the ship so much that we skipped getting off her in three of the four ports. The Apex is beautiful, and we would say that even if we hadn’t had the drink package.
02 – Worth the Wait
Patience is a virtue, or so I am told. Patience didn’t really play into this little drama since we weren’t exactly sitting around wringing our hands in anticipation. Our casual patience paid off Sunday morning with our late-blooming Amaryllis finally letting loose with a half-dozen magnificent blossoms. When it was just a bulb, it was planted in a tiny six-inch pot with a little potting mix in the bottom. It is still sitting precariously in the same pot even though it is now 2½ feet tall and over a foot across the six blooms. We are still hoping that it is a metaphor for the new year. If it is, 2024 will have a slow start but finish up in a spectacular fashion. I should clarify that as spectacular in a good way. Armageddon could also be described as spectacular.
01 – A Fresh Start
Well, here we are. Nearly a quarter-century since the millennium and I don’t own a flying car. 2023 is over and won’t be missed. Optimism for the new year is sparse with a lot of it simply made up to distract us from food prices and other painful reminders that the fundamental transformation we were promised without any real details wasn’t quite what we were expecting. For the last week in 2023, I featured this Christmas Amaryllis still completely closed more than a week after it was expected to bloom. This week saw it peeking out and starting to spread into what I hope will be a beautiful metaphor for renewal in 2024. I just hope the metaphorical bloom doesn’t look around and suck back into the bud. That would be a bad sign.