My Water Post For Today.
Yes, it is Bridgeport, but I found an old photo (2005) with some dramatic clouds in it and so I went with it.
The duck swimming in the water, adds a little something to the photo.
I hope you enjoy a winter view, in the heat of the summer...I know I do.
Another month has passed and so it was time to get my box of produce from Abundant Harvest Organics.
I was so looking forward to the artichokes from the last box, but maybe it was because I pre-cooked them a tiny bit and then finished them off another day, but they were not cooked enough. They also were not very "meaty", if you know what I mean. Very disappointed.
Without further ado, here is what came this time.
A basket of Cherry Tomatoes
4 ears of Corn
A bunch of Garlic Chives
A large bag of Green Beans
5 Tiny Hot Peppers
2 Pickling Cucumbers
1 large head of Romaine
7 Plums
3 long baby Summer Squash and 4 other round baby Summer Squash
3 Tomatoes
I also bought a 4 lb bag of oranges for $4 and they look good, so I think I am pretty happy with them.
I used up the 2 small baby summer squash and the 3 tomatoes in my sauce. I also added some of the garlic chives to it.
I will make a batch of pickles (yay)
Guess we will eat green beans this week and corn on the cob.
All in all, not a bad haul.
So the Non-Activist was at it again. This time for a good cause. I sent Thank You messages to the three brave Republicans who voted with the Democrats Thursday night, at almost 2AM.
The "Skinny Replace" has been shot down in the Senate and thus, it can not go back to the House (the Legislative Body that passed a Repeal and Replace bill, back in May).
So, according to what I heard on Friday, essentially the bill is dead and once again. The Affordable Care Act (Obamacare) is still the law of the land.
No 32 million, 26 million, or 16 million losing their health coverage.
I am pleased, since it means my son continues to have insurance.
We will see if the House and Senate can work on something together to prop up the Affordable Care Act, though I have my doubts.
Apologies that I was not able to get a better photograph, but I did want to bring up the fact that after at least 2 years, we have been getting water through the 1st and the 2nd Los Angeles Aqueduct.
I pass the two of them every day and it was very alarming that no water was sent down those 2 water courses for at least 2 years. It always felt like we were slowly being killed, because of lack of water.
This year, due to the fact that there is more than ample water in the Sierras, they are desperately sending it down to us to replenish our lakes and dams and even Silverlake Reservoir.
I am happy to see them send the water to Los Angeles, because sending it ALL out to the ocean, is a waste.
BTW, the 1st Los Angeles Aqueduct is right there on the left side bottom of the high water course of the 2nd Los Angeles Aqueduct. You just can't see it well.
I have taken this particular photo before.
As a matter of fact, I think I got a better sunset that evening, but no matter, it was still worthy of my time.
The storms down south make lots of humidity and so we get clouds.
Always a beautiful sunset, when that happens.
To add to the beauty, it reflects on our bay window. Nice to see.
This photo was taken 2 nights ago.
Not like that matters, but my Husband and I were totally confused as to why she decided to sit like that and stare at me.
It was not dinner time, it was after dinner.
Whatever it was, I was glad that she let me take a few photos of her, before she finally laid down and napped.
Always inscrutable, those cats.
My girlfriend who walked across Spain last year posted on Facebook that today is the feast day of St. James The Greater.
From Wikipedia: "James, son of Zebedee died 44 AD, was one of the Twelve Apostles of Jesus, and traditionally considered the first apostle to be martyred.
He was a son of Zebedee and Salome, and brother of John (the beloved) Apostle, who was the apostle who wrote the Gospel of John.
He is also called James the Greater or James the Great to distinguish him from James, son of Alphaeus and James the brother of Jesus (James the Just).
James the son of Zebedee is the patron saint of Spaniards, and as such is often identified as Santiago."
On this, his feast day, I send a quick prayer for all who travel, especially those who are walking the Camino, in his honor.
My Water Post For Today.
I heard about this "Man Made" island in Montenegro, from Rick Steves and it intrigued me.
From Wikipedia: "According to legend, the islet was made over the centuries by local seamen who kept an ancient oath after finding the icon of Madonna and Child on the rock in the sea on July 22, 1452. Upon returning from each successful voyage, they laid a rock in the Bay. Over time, the islet gradually emerged from the sea. The custom of throwing rocks into the sea is alive even nowadays. Every year on the sunset of July 22, an event called fašinada in the local dialect, when local residents take their boats and throw rocks into the sea, widening the surface of the island, takes place."
In honor of the image, they eventually built a Catholic Church on the Islet and people have weddings there.
This is the closest water post day to July 22, so that is why I posted it today.
Enjoy a look at a really interesting part of the former Yugoslav Republic.
I talk quite often about the roses in my garden and how they are chosen for people in my life, etc.
While I was watching the program on Descanso Gardens, the other day, I found out about Tom Carruth. He has 9 winning roses in the AARS. I thought he worked for Descanso, but it seems he works for Weeks Roses.
Here are the 9 roses he has created over the years.
All-America Rose Selections winners
'Scentimental.' No two blooms are exactly alike, with petals randomly splashed with burgundy, red, cream, and white. Blossoms are fragrant as all get-out.
'Betty Boop.' Single-petaled and bicolored Floribunda with shades of red and white.
'Fourth of July.' Red and white climbing rose.
'Hot Cocoa.' Blossoms are notably fragrant, foliage is glossy green and plants are resistant to common rose ailments.
'Memorial Day.' Heavily petaled Hybrid Tea rose with strongly scented blossoms. An undisputed hit in areas with hotter-than-normal summers.
'About Face.' Gold and bronze, for which Hot Cocoa served as the parent.
'Julia Child.' Butter-yellow and fragrant Floribunda.
'Wild Blue Yonder.' Deeply fragrant Grandiflora with red-purple blossoms.
Top photo is Scentimental (the rose I planted for my parents).
Far right in the second photo is Wild Blue Yonder (purple rose) and next to it is Julia Child (yellow rose).
I own 1/3rd of his creative output. Want to see more about Tom? You can read a SF Chronicle article HERE.
BTW, Hot Chocolate, with its brown blossoms is looking attractive to me, at this moment. :-)
37 years ago last month we moved into our first home.
It was in a Mobile Home Park here in Santa Clarita, back before we became a city.
We were quite happy there, bicycling around the park, going to bingo and breakfast events and of course, using the pool and spa. It was all in the clubhouse right across the street from us (I am standing at the parking spaces right at the clubhouse, by the way).
We had friends, we belonged to organizations...in other words, we were involved in the life in our park.
There were two problems with it.
One, we could not have children.
Two, the rent in the park kept going up (as a matter of fact, our first raise came just 2 months after we moved in). After several fights with the owner of the park, regarding such things as him deciding to install individual meters at each home, for things like cable, water, gas and electric.
I did not mind paying individually, but it was originally part of the base rent and he gave no reduction in said base (His comment, "The base is the base"). In our opinion we were being taken advantage of and we decided that we had had enough.
We sold this house that you see. We lost something like $10,000 on the deal, but I was so ready to cut my losses and get out of that money pit.
I visited it just the other day, for the first time in at least a decade or so.
It looks very good for its age of 49.
It has lived through 2 major earthquakes, too. Those earthquake tie-downs really did their job. :-)
My Son brought it to my attention, that a friend of his uses the Duck Sauce to baste his barbecue chicken.
We were given 3 huge containers of Duck Sauce, last time we visited our favorite Chinese Restaurant, so I thought to myself - Why Not?
Just cook the chicken without anything and after it begins to get close to done, baste the pieces with the Duck Sauce.
Similar to what you do with Barbecue Sauce.
It came out crispy, and sweet and worth the effort to make.
A cheap way to dress up your chicken.
Many years ago, my Husband and I would visit the gardens around the Los Angeles area.
One of those gardens was Descanso Gardens in La Cañada Flintridge.
We visited several times and I distinctly remember their camellias, roses and lilacs. It is a stunning place to walk around.
We stopped going when our son was born. No idea why we didn't bring him to the gardens, but we didn't.
So when I heard that KCET and Descanso Gardens were making a Lost LA production together, I had to check it out.
As usual, I could not watch it at home, so I watched it in fits and starts, at my work computer with the captions on. Sigh...
I had already seen the promos that we have running on our air and criticized the slow motion camera work of the flowers...but hey.
Other than that one thing, I learned so much about the flowers, the history of the property and the reason why it is owned by Los Angeles.
One of the little facts, is that they have had several award winning hybridized roses, created by the people who work there. Their current employee, Tom Carruth, mentioned that he did Julia Child, Wild Blue Yonder and Scentimental roses. All roses that I own. I found that fascinating.
I highly recommend watching the show, if you like a little Lost LA History with your flowers.
I was lucky.
Back in the 70's we would bicycle tapes from Public TV Station to Public TV Station.
Our tapes would move on to Guam, of all things. I heard the stories...
I came to KCET in 1980 and the infant Interconnection System was up and running. We had Westar (I think 1) up in the sky and the programs were fed on Transponders A, B, C, and D. The public, who had backyard dishes, could see our downlink, up until the point when we encrypted the signal. That was somewhere in the 90's, I think.
I could do research on all this, but I lived most of it. :-)
So, we get funding from the Federal Government to keep the Interconnection System healthy and upon occasion, improved upon. As a matter of fact, we are moving on to a system called sIX.
All that is in danger, if the House does not pass our Interconnection Appropriation today.
We have full funding for shows and our Community Service Grant, but not for the delivery method to get the shows to the stations across the Country.
If you care about such things and want to make your voice heard, there is a website called Protect My Public Media. You end up getting emails if you do sign up, but they don't seem to be too obtrusive.
No matter what, let your voice be heard, if you care about this issue.
We purchase programs from several different distributors. Miss Fisher's Murder Mysteries, comes from Acorn TV.
I have found the program to be stunning. Not only the first class acting, but the clothes of the day, (which in this case is the Roaring Twenties in Australia).
It is quite the thing, to see the outfits they put Miss Fisher in. From what I read, the costume maker designs each one from scratch.
We are currently in the second season and at the very end of this episode called "Dead Air", the two main characters, Phryne Fisher and Jack Robinson, end up singing a song together. Not something you normally see on this show and so after I watched it, I went looking on the Internet and I found the scene on Youtube.
The song is called "Let's Misbehave" and they did a beautiful job filming it and thought I would give my readers a chance to see what the show looks like.
I am not sure if you can see a recap of the entire episode, but KCET does stream them on its website, HERE.
Check it out, if you are so inclined.
My Water Post For Today.
I really intended to run over to Ventura, to cool off and get some chowder, but the day did not work out that way.
So I decided to find a photo that would be similar to the Ventura Area.
This desolate area is around Vandenberg, in the Point Conception area.
We visited it on the train ride home, last year.
I love the Pacific Ocean, even when the marine layer starts coming in to make the sky gray.
A special shout out to my friend, Gina, who lives somewhere close to this area.
I hope you enjoy.
Another month and another chance to make headway on my Icon of St. James the Greater.
The problem with only working on it a few hours a month is that I totally lose track of what colors I mixed and what I was going to do next.
Thankfully, my teacher came right over and checked out my progress and gave me ideas of how to proceed.
He basically said it was time to put the lights in the cloth and so he showed me how to feather the white to make the robe look like a robe.
If you look at the icon from last month, you can see how flat it is. Hopefully, the addition of the highlights will get rid of this problem.
Next month I will be adding more highlights, in smaller and smaller amounts and then floating the entire thing, to dull it a bit.
I made my second payment for the workshop in August and our teacher will actually be in the classroom during our normal Saturday lesson, to give advice to our current work and then we move on to the week at San Fernando Mission, on the following Monday.
It is going to be a busy month.
I have Blogged about her before.
My friend, Meredith LaVande, performs songs under the banner of Monkey Monkey Music.
The other day a conversation on her Facebook page discussed her song (or maybe her album) Macaroni.
It made me take another photo of her, from the screen at work.
Whatever, I am obsessed or totally bored at work and I happen to enjoy her song Macaroni.
There is a video promo on Youtube and you can click on it HERE, to get a general idea of what she does.
I am always so happy to see her doing well and teaching children (via songs) early learning skills.
By the way, you can see that over the years, the quality of her videos have improved. That is good to see.
Good luck always, my friend.
Have you been keeping up with the baby hippo who was born premature, back in January?
I have not, but some of my friends are and so I see the tales of baby Fiona, in my Facebook feed quite often.
She lives in the Cincinnati Zoo.
The other day, they introduced her to her Father, Henry. She has been hanging out with her mother, Bibi, but they were afraid to let her get in the main pool with her Dad, until her Mom was used to her and would watch over her.
That is exactly what happened, the three of them interacted and if Henry got too rambunctious, Bibi would nip him, to let him know to back off.
You can watch their interaction HERE.
I found it of interest and I hope my readers do, too.
Yes, it is our Anniversary week, here at the Angel House. We have 2 of them. The other anniversary is tomorrow and that is our 27th. That means that my Sister was both my Maid of Honor and my Matron of Honor. Thanks Sis.
Yesterday was our first one, the 37th and I decided to take the day off. In our gym class that morning, our teacher had the entire class sing Happy Anniversary to us. ACK! :-)
We decided to go out to dinner and since we got a Red Lobster coupon in the mail, that made my choice easy.
We went over around 5:30P and managed to miss the crowd. We were very thankful for that.
I wanted lobster and so I decided to get something called a Bar Harbor Lobster Bake. It had 3 half lobster tails, 3 scallops, about 6 mussels and lots of shrimp. I ended up eating half of it, but I would recommend getting some cheese, because the sauce on the linguine was a bit bland. When I asked for some cheese, they brought me some grated Parmesan cheese in large strips. That added just a bit of bite to the dish.
All in all a good mid-week day off.
We found out a little secret that our cat has been hiding from us.
When she finishes the dry cat food in the center of the bowl, she begins to take her paw and swipe inside the bowl. She does this to get a few pieces of kibble, to fall onto the rug by the bowl.
She then eats them from the floor.
I have no idea why she is doing this or any idea of how long this might have been going on, but it is quite fun to watch.
Cats, endlessly fascinating.
A few stats.
We are 7 1/2 games in front of the closest competition and we are the team with the most wins of anyone in MLB.
Adding to that, we sent 6 players to the All Star Game (though only 5 can play, since Clayton Kershaw pitched on Sunday).
I don't want to jinx it, but it has been a year already.
Please keep it going in the second half of the season.
Too bad I can't watch the games. :-(
My Water Post For Today.
Actually, that is not all water. Some of it is clouds at sunset. But I liked it enough to share.
It is another of my Son's Big Sur photos.
How I wish I could have gone up there. Such beautiful country.
California is just full of places of beauty and I am glad my Son takes advantage of that fact.
I hope you enjoy.
It happened 3 hours before midnight here on the West Coast. The Full Buck Moon appeared.
From Farmer's Almanac: July is the month of the Full Buck Moon. At this time, a buck’s antlers are in full growth mode. This Full Moon was also known as the Thunder Moon because thunderstorms are so frequent during this month.
I took this photo late on Friday evening, so it is about 1 day early.
Pretty though, since it was just at sunset.
My Husband and I are more into full moons, because another of our aqua fit teachers gives us a quiz each month. lol
We both flunked the test. Sigh...
Enjoy it.
I rarely have my camera in the gym.
On Thursday I forgot to leave my purse in the car, so I actually had it with me and decided to take a photo, for once.
That is Joyce swimming in the background (don't tell her I got a photo of her) :-)
Our Saturday class is the hardest one of the aqua fit classes. We do about 10 minutes of cardio, 10 minutes of muscle and then 6 minutes of cardio with jumping, another 5 of muscle, using water weights and then the final 6 minutes of cardio again using those water weights. We do some upper body work and then stretch. That is our class.
To say the least, the jumping starts to get to my knees, but I persevere and usually am happy when I get through another class.
I am glad that I have had this opportunity to exercise a few times a week and a special Thank You to Sandra, for keeping it real and never backing down.
She pushes us every class.
I have been mentioning the huge project of cleaning the desk in the den.
Since it is clean, I decided to take a photo of it.
Now think of it piled high with 6 months worth of bills. Yeah, it was pretty grim.
My son has his server in that room (which you can see to the far right) and he actually has to use the keyboard, upon occasion.
It is never easy for him.
I am hoping to keep the desk clean...we will see how long that will last.
A post 4th of July look at our house.
Being my son had a party with something like 11 people in attendance, the cat beat feet to the bedroom.
She decided under the bed worked better for her and so when I felt bad for her, I went to her level and talked to her for a few.
Not like she wanted me to, but I took a few photos of her.
I am sure she will go back tonight, when the fireworks start in earnest.
Never a good day for animals.
On Monday I decided that I HAD to file the bills from the last 6 months.
They had been sitting on our desk in the den for that long, but there had been nowhere to put them.
After filing away our bills from last year and finally boxing them up into their "shoe box" location for the next 7 years, we had room for the new ones.
Yay team.
So I had just sat down and began the organizing, when my cell phone rang.
It was my Husband, who had just gone to the corner to pick up our mail.
He wanted to alert me to the fact that he was guarding a dog who had fallen down into our sewer.
I asked if he had called the police and he told me that he had actually called the fire department.
That works for me.
So I decide to walk down to the corner and check this out for myself.
It was actually not even the sewer I thought it was, and my Husband was not even close to the poor dog.
I decide that the dog was panting and probably needed some water, though he was just into the shade, so it didn't seem too bad.
I came back with a paper bowl and a bottle of water.
That is when I saw that he kept slipping down and was terrified.
I tried the water thing, but he did not get the hint to drink, so I started to hold him to keep him from fearing that he would slip further in.
There was a bar, so that was not going to happen, but the dog did not know that.
So there I am holding onto a dog, waiting for the fire department. Great...
Did I ever tell you that I am not fond of strange dogs? Well, I am not.
I did what I had to do and 2 young people drove by and asked if we needed help...yeah, I think so. You can see their gray car coming down the street, in the photo.
So they came over and the girl started to pull on the dog, while I tried to see what was stuck in the sewer.
It ended up that there was nothing holding the dog in the sewer. What the heck?
So the young girl, who owns a dog of her own, started holding it and that was when the fire department came to help.
The first thing they did was bring more bottled water and lots of ice. (Yay, I did the right thing).
I decided that I was no longer of use and went back to my home, leaving 3 firemen, my Husband and the two strangers (the girl and a younger boy), with the dog.
A few moments later, my Husband came into the house and said that the young people were going to bring the dog to their vet, to see if it had an embedded tag in its neck.
It did have a collar, so I believe it might belong to someone.
Poor doggie, I hope it all works out for you.
Happy 4th of July!
If you remember earlier this year, we visited the Skirball Cultural Center and while there, viewed this replica of the Statue of Liberty's Torch.
It was quite meaningful to me, the grandchild of immigrants.
They crossed the Atlantic Ocean in steerage, on overcrowded ships. What a horrid way to travel.
This Country of ours is the only one I know and I love it, right or wrong.
On this, our most important holiday that celebrates the birth of our nation, I give thanks to the United States of America.
They welcomed my family to its shores and I would like to think that we and the Country, are better for it. (Seriously, what would I have done in Italy?)
Stay safe and enjoy the holiday.
My Water Post For Today.
Last weekend my Son and his friends went camping to Nacimiento Campground, right near Big Sur.
Just a few miles from Hwy 1, but you feel like you are far away.
This is a stream that is full of water this year, but was totally dry last year.
My son said that having running water by their campground was much better than dirt.
I hope you enjoy.
I have a friend whose Mother had something called a Printer's Box, which is a wooden box with different sized spaces for objects.
I fell in love with it and when I arrived in Los Angeles, I found something that would work in the same way and so I began my collection of things that were and are important, to me.
My ID from Camp Edie, my first credit card from JC Penney, my baby bracelet, the cigar that we gave out for the birth of my son. Things that you will always remember.
It came to the point where I had no more room and so I bought another one. It has mostly pins and things we picked up on our vacations, but there are other, personal things, too.
They both hang in my living room and bring me pleasure.
I have no idea what will happen to them someday, but for now, they are a peek into our lives together.
Our 37th Anniversary happens in just 11 days. :-)
First off, apologies for the smeared windshield on our Disney Van.
What I am trying to show off, is a car pool lane that they built a few years ago, but refuse to open to the cars.
By leaving this lane unused, they have backed up traffic through the only direct route from Los Angeles, to the San Joaquin Valley and San Francisco.
We go through it every work day and without an alternate, we get stuck in traffic, a good part of the time.
You may ask, why did they spend the money to build it, but not use it?
Good question and if I am not mistaken, it was built to be a pay lane and since there is not yet enough traffic to warrant people paying to use it, they leave it empty and unavailable to us.
They expect that when the Newhall Ranch development (off of CA 126) is opened, there will be much more traffic and those people will be willing to pay to get through that area of the Newhall Pass.
In the meantime...
