Volume 13 – Baker’s Dozen
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.