TAC No More

Back on October 6th I posted that I had been named Chair of the PBS Traffic Advisory Committee (TAC). You can read my innocent post-election enthusiasm HERE.

The very next day my world fell apart, at least in all that concerns PBS and unfortunately, this position was caught in that crossfire. My station is leaving PBS at the end of this month.
We are leaving and I am good with that, but they decided to make a clean break, moving into our future and that means they don't want me to serve on the Committee anymore. A Committee I have served on for the past almost 2 1/2 years. Yesterday was our monthly meeting and the first order of business was that I had to formally resign.

To say the least, I am upset and I am going to miss some really wonderful colleagues...but life goes on and so will I.

The only good thing I take away from this is that my plate is plenty full at this moment, so one less thing is on it now and in that regard, I do feel relief.

Thanks to the TAC for making me much more then I was before I joined. I have learned so much from them and I feel more confident, moving forward in my life. I will never forget you.

Yes, you can teach an older dog, new tricks. :-)

Meteors And Me

I was driving home from work last night and as I came down into Santa Clarita, I thought I saw a meteor...but then I immediately decided that it must have been a reflections from the truck passing me on the right. I continue my drive about another minute or so and then see another flash of light and this time, no one is around me. I then figured out that there must be a meteor shower going on and lo and behold, on the news is a story about a meteor shower. WIN!

I thought it was particularly cool that without even looking for them, they were all over the sky.

You can read more about it, HERE.

Pond At St. Andrew's Abbey

My Water Post For Today.

This pond is found at St. Andrew's Abbey and it is one of my favorite reasons to visit. It is in the back of the property and brings serenity and quiet to the area. It is a place where you can indeed get in touch with your inner self. Asking those questions you never have the time to ask, as you go about your busy life.

The monks at the Abbey decided that they could no longer support having a festival, so this photo is from 2007. They did not have the festival last year and my husband and I had hoped they would bring it back this year. That is not to happen.

In honor of it's serenity and it's loss in my life, I post it today.

Pond Eye View

I guess this could be a water post, but with all the bubbles, it gets delegated to Sunday.

I was shooting some sunset shots the other day and for some weird reason, I took a couple from the back side of my pond. In other words, the view you would have, if you were sitting with the fish in my pond.

Minus the bubbles and the pail over the supports for our non-existent deck cover...don't ask...it looks pretty cool.

We always wanted a spa over in that area, nice to know it would have been great.

Christmas Tree At Union Station 2010

We had police action at North Hollywood Station on Friday night. They closed the station right at rush hour and so I decided I just did not want to deal with all that and instead I took the train home again. Remember I was there just 2 weeks ago, on Thanksgiving eve.
Well, in those two weeks, look what turned up in the front of Union...the Christmas Tree is up and what a beautiful one it is.

All silver, with white lights and yellow ribbon, it is truly stunning. One of their best, IMHO.

I particularly love the reflection of the tree in the beautiful floor. It just blends in with that Art Deco look of the station.

I miss this so much.

North Hollywood just doesn't have the same feel of the season. :-)

Tree Decorations 2010

The Tree is finally done!

Yes, here is what it looks like in my Living Room.

Pretty much what I had last year, which was totally white lights on my tree and an angel on the top. I held back on lots of the ornaments, because one, the cat can reach at least the last 1/3rd of the tree and two, it is plenty crowded on there without the rest.



I found these cute candy lights and put them around the old entertainment shelves that are in our bay window. I thought they came out cute. Sorry you don't see them too well, but they are the red and white circular peppermint ones.

Icicles have been on our fireplace for decades and always look fabulous.

That's it this year.

Pet Collage - Or Why We Love Our Pets!

My TV Station decided to combine a Nature episode called "Why We Love Our Cats and Dogs" and a shelter anti kill documentary that we aired earlier this year, called No-Kill. We had people live in the studio along with the ASPCA (I believe). Each talent had an animal on their lap, but the coolest thing was that behind them was a collage of our staff pets, including my cat, Makenna.

They made enough money pledging the show, that we will be repeating it both on Saturday and Sunday. Money goes not only to us, but to the shelter organization. Win Win!

Click on the photo and you can see Makenna. She is about the 3rd row down toward the right center of the photo. It is the photo of her laying under our Christmas tree last year. :-)

Foggy Morning

Monday morning, after a storm passed through overnight.

Fog is not something that we get very often, but when we do, it is always impressive, due to the hills, mountains and river (don't ask why, but many times the fog congregates right in the river bed where not a speck of water is to be found).

I loved how it looked out my front window and grabbed my camera. A nice misty morning with the glow of headlights and the fall colors.






Here's my backyard, not quite as impressive, but a nice contrast to the front.


My chimes are there in the corner of my kitchen.


They let me know when it is windy. :-)

Pearl Harbor Day - Union Station In The 1940's Revisted

If you are a regular reader of this blog, you may remember that last year I posted a photo of some people hanging out at Union Station, Los Angeles in period costumes. I had no idea why this was, but I took a photo of them. Well, here it is a year later and what do I see online?
An article about Pearl Harbor Day and that every year they celebrate the Anniversary by having a special train from that era, with people dressed in period costumes!

I immediately knew who those people were, from that photo last year.

Check out the article for this years ride, HERE.

I love when I figure something out. :-)

Oregon Coast

My Water Post For Today.

Oregon, home of sneaker waves. Those rogue waves that come along out of nowhere and crash over your head and suck you out to the sea.
When you are on the water in Oregon, you give the beach a wide berth. We learned that fun fact when we stayed at a lovely B and B in Yahats. There were signs posted all over the beach and yes, we heeded the warning.

Here is a lovely photo of normal waves...but trust me, don't turn your back on them. :-)

I hope you enjoy.

The Beauty Of Stained Glass Cats

I fell in love with this stained glass.

I didn't even ask a price, but I decided that I wanted to have it with me always and so I took a photo.

I saw it hanging in a store at Knott's Berry Farm the other day.

Number 1, what would I do with it? I have nowhere to put it.

Number 2, it is probably very fragile and I would never get it into my car, or get it home, for that matter.

So the bottom line is that I left it at Knott's and will let it's beauty grace my blog, via this photo.

I hope you enjoy it.

Cookies Lost And Found

I have been dubbing hundreds of tapes for our new life as a non PBS Station. What that means is I deal with many cooking shows, that come from a distributer called APT. I received 24 tapes in a 25 episode series. Episode #23 was missing. Being the curious person that I am, I checked to see what the subject matter was...and here is what I found.


Episode #1123
Italy 23: St. Joseph’s Day Altars

Not only did the Italians bring a tremendous work ethic to Louisiana, they came with a love of family and an incredible faith. The St. Joseph Day altars are a true testament to their strong beliefs. Margo Battaglia Clement and Margaret Teeter introduce audiences to this continuing Sicilian and South Louisiana tradition. Chef Folse visits with Sandra Scalise Juneau as she prepares a fresh batch of her fabulous cuccidatta, or fig-filled cookies. Bobby Lonero and the New Orleans Express entertain the audience with traditional Italian favorites.

My Dad's family are from Bari, but this episode description seems to indicate that the recipe for a cookie my Aunt used to make at Christmas Time, called Cuccidatta, was Sicilian and not Baresi in origin. I don't believe she used figs, but instead used prunes. Similar digestive result occurs, if you eat figs or prunes, so maybe it was a local difference. :-)
Her cookies had a farina concoction in the middle of the dough and then the entire thing was covered with prune juice that was cooked until it was thick and syrupy. For some reason I enjoyed it.
That got me thinking about another cookie she would make and as the day progressed, I came up with a term for them: Lemon Drop Cookies. I queried that title and two blog posts caught my attention. You can see them with their recipes for these cookies, HERE and HERE. I never heard an Italian name for the cookies, but the information I was seeing says that they are called Anginette. The photo I used for this post, is exactly what I remember the cookie looking like.
I also remember a wreath shaped hard cookie. I don't know if she used the same recipe, or a similar one to make this and she did not put the icing on them. I liked that the best. Good for dunking. :-)

I don't know if I will have time, but if I do, I am definitely going to try to make the Lemon Drop Cookies.

My heritage calls me.

Knott's

Just a few photos of Knott's Berry Farm at the Holiday Season.

Here is the main entrance on Beach Blvd in Buena Park. The original entrance to Cordelia Knott's Chicken Dinner Restaurant and a few shops. That area still exists and is now called Marketplace. The line up for Chicken Dinner was long, even at 3PM, when we passed it.






You enter the park and they have a beautiful tree set up. Not the only one that they have, but a beautiful place to take a photo.


When you get further inside, you find that 1/2 of the park is transformed into a Holiday Bazaar, with outdoor booths and indoor displays of Holiday crafts.

Our friends and my Husband and I love walking around the area. Carolers singing and an old time feel, greets each guest to this part of the park.




Though you can see the rides over on the other side of the park, it isn't TOO intrusive...well, minus the yelling when the people on the Sky Tower plummet down to earth.

I hope you enjoyed a little walk into the world of Knott's. Sorry I can't send you a jar of jelly. :-)

Fall Leaves And Roses

OK, a show of hands.
How many of you have fall foliage and roses blooming at the same time?

My Husband asked me to take a photo of this tree in our neighbor's back yard. When I went to the back fence, I saw this rosebush with lots of blooms on it.

I don't know about you, but I find it amazing.

That is Double Delight, by the way. Planted in honor of my Mom's sister. It has a wonderful fragrance, on top of a lovely color and it is probably my favorite rose, due to the frangrance.

Welcome to some Fall and Spring, all at the same time. :-)

Happy Chanukkah 2010

Happy Chanukkah to those who celebrate.

This photo comes from 2006. It is amazing how little the table I have set up currently, has changed over the years. These are my decorations and I use them each year.

Tradition! :-)

This year, being that it is mid week, we plan to have a roast, matzoh ball soup (I made the matzoh balls last night) and some potato pancakes. I think the guys will get something going and maybe by a miracle (as the oil lasted 8 days) I will make it home at a decent hour (HA!).

Enjoy that which is the celebration of Chanukkah.

Blessed art thou oh Lord our God, King of the Universe who has sanctified us by thy precepts and has commended us to kindle the Hanukkah lights.