They Would Be As Many As The Stars In The Sky

I will make your descendants as numerous as the stars in the sky and will give them all these lands, and through your offspring all nations on earth will be blessed.

This is a line from Genesis and it is God's promise to Abraham, that his descents will be as numerous as the stars in the sky or the sands on the beach.

Why do I care about this?

Well, along with visiting Venice and other places in Italy, Rick Steves (who I met the other day) takes us into the former Jewish Ghetto in Trastevere, Rome. He has a wonderful tour guide for this journey and she explains many things and puts them into context, for the viewer. I knew nothing of any of this, but after seeing the program many times, I am quite well versed in the history.

There is a Temple, known as The Great Synagogue, in Trastevere. The Synagogue was built by Christian builders and yet, the Jewish population managed to bring their religion into the building. There is a rainbow, to symbolize God's promise to never flood the world again. Then there is this photo, which shows off a part of the ceiling of this Temple and it is the symbolic reference to the line in Genesis.

Roman Jews are neither Ashkenazic or Sephardic, since they left the Holy Land before the destruction of the Temple in 70 AD. The Jewish population are known as Roman Jews.

If you have time, I highly recommend digging into the history of this time and this place. It is indeed, fascinating.

Van Pool Update

It has been almost a month since I joined the Disney Van Pool.

How is it going, you might ask. Very well, for the most part.

This cutie is the only part of the van that gives away the fact that it is driven by all Disney Employees (well, minus me of course). They tell me that they try to keep things on the down low, so that the van does not get broken into on the weekend. In other words, they keep their swag to a minimum.

I still don't feel totally comfortable with them, but I am better at their names and their habits, then I was at the beginning.

I did actually have to make out my check to Disney, which I thought was funny. My money goes to the Mouse House. :-)

Due to coming back from San Diego, I had to wait for the bus on Wednesday evening and I must say, I don't miss the smell of pot at North Hollywood Station, at all. I smelled it as I was passing about 6 Metro cops. I guess they are pretty fearless druggies.

Yep, I will take the van.

Rick Steves & Me?

When you go to something like the APT Fall Marketplace, you expect to see people who star in PTV programs.

We happen to air Rick Steves' Europe almost every other day, in our early afternoon pledge spot. I could probably quote the subject matter, chapter and verse. Ask me about the Jewish section of Rome...go ahead, I know it all. :-)

Anyway, before the current show, we used 3 regular Rick Steves' Europe shows and he came to our studios and recorded breaks for us. That trio of shows, contained one show that was a "behind the scenes" show. I watched it upwards of 50 times (or at least it felt like that many times) and never tired of watching how Rick and his crew of two, made television.

Well, obviously this first shot is me and Rick Steves. I was invited to a newcomers meet and greet with the man and I was happy to get to spend a few seconds with him. But the big thrill, for me, was also getting to meet his producer, Simon.

Simon is a very quiet man and I think he was blown away that I knew not only who he was, but that I did indeed quote chapter and verse from the "Making of" show. How he carries lots of the equipment, because there are only 3 of them and how they are always running from this place to that place.

I think I made his day on Monday and then we sat down the next day (after Rick had to fly out to tape Pledge Breaks) to talk on Tuesday afternoon. I just was kidding him that he was finally on his own and he could take a breather and he totally agreed with me, that Rick does run him hard.

They are a great team and they have been shooting programs for the past 24 years.

May they continue to educate us about Europe and other places, like the Middle East.

Hanging In The Gaslamp Quarter

The Historic Gaslamp Quarter in San Diego, was not always the retro, hip place that it is now. As a matter of fact, it was outright seedy, when my Husband and I visited together, for the first time. Over the decades, it has been renovated and now shines as the Downtown area's place to play.

I have never been here before, but the conference I signed up for is holding the event at the Hard Rock Hotel, which you can see, over on the far right of the photo. An unexpected bonus...I get to experience a bit of the flavor of the Gaslamp Quarter.

You can check out some of the history of the area, HERE.

Lots going on at the conference and I will tell some of my stories, at a later date.

Fallen Warriors On Veteran's Day

It is Veteran's Day today and I thought I would honor, not just all veteran's, but especially these veteran's who gave their lives, to keep us free during the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. All are from the Santa Clarita Valley.

Richard Slocum 2004
Cole Larson 2004
Jose Flores Mejia 2004
Dennis Sellen 2007
Stephen Colley 2007
John Conant 2008
Ian Timothy Gelig 2010
Jake Suter 2010
Rudy Acosta 2011

My son attended 2 ceremonies, during his days in the JROTC. Cole Larson and Jose Flores Mejia.

My Husband and I stood on the street for at least one of the most recent warriors.

The final warrior who lost his life, was a more personal loss. That is Stephen Colley. Son of my son's commander in the JROTC. My Husband and my son attended the memorial service, for Stephen. A very, very sad day for the JROTC and for Stephen's parents.

I pay tribute to them today.

Living In San Diego...At Least For A Few Days

My Water Post For Today.

With luck, I will be attending a Conference in San Diego this week.

Since I am traveling there on Sunday, I thought I would post a photo from Mission Bay, to put me in the mood.

I love the (probably fake) white sand and the oh so blue sky. It may be partially man-made, but Mission Bay is beautiful.

I hope you enjoy.

A 50 Years DVD

Kind of a cool present, came my way.

This is one of the DVD copies that KCET is sending people, to celebrate the 50th Anniversary.

Since I was in the show, the producer presented a copy to me, as a thank you gift.

I was totally impressed.

Don't forget, you can stream the entire 1 hour show on KCET's webpage.

Once again, here is the link. KCET50. The video is embedded in the 50th Anniversary page. You might want to scroll down just a little bit, to see that fact. It is an image of our original location, at 1313 Vine Street. Hit play and you are set.

Spending Time With The Dwarfs

Now that I am officially the "Plus 1" occasional rider on a Disney Van Pool, my life has become intertwined with those wacky 7 Dwarfs.

What is a "Plus 1" you might ask?

It means that Metro, the entity that owns the 10 person van, gets upset when the van itself does not contain at least 7 of the 10 passengers. So what our van is doing, is gaming the system. We now have 11 regular riders and most days, we hit that 70% mark.

Being that I can just jump onto the bus, if the van is full, it works out perfect for the 11 of us.

Back to those 7 Dwarfs...

We meet the van at the main Disney gate, so every evening I need to walk a few blocks, to the shuttle stop in front of the gate. There, we assemble and wait for our ride home.

While waiting, I stand there trying to figure out who is who, on this building and this is my current best guess.
Top: Dopey
Bottom: Sleepy, Happy, Grumpy, Doc, Sneezy, Bashful.

In case you care, this is the Corporate Building and at a point in time, they named it the Eisner Building. I am not sure if it still carries Michael Eisner's name. It is also referred to as the Dwarf Building. The reason they are holding up the building, is the fact that Walt Disney used his profits from Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, to buy this lot in Burbank.

A cool story and a thrill to stand there waiting in the shadow of all this Disney stuff.

Selling Churos

On one of the last days that I stood at North Hollywood Station waiting for my bus, I managed to get a photo of the two ladies who stand where the commuter path between NOHO Red Line Station and the Orange Line Bus Station is.

About every 10 minutes, people go charging from one, to the other and many of them see the ladies and stop and grab a snack for $1. I think they get 3 mini churos. I get the feeling that these women buy them and then resell them...but what do I know. I just found them interesting.

The one lady goes for the people heading for the Red Line Station and the other for the Orange Line passengers.

"American" ingenuity, at its best.

My Mosaic Pointe

99 percent of the time, my building is either all blue or all grey.

According to if it is sunny or rainy.

Once in a while, we get partly cloudy and those little bits of breaks in the clouds make my building look like a mosaic.

Truly, it is my favorite time and I always stop to admire it.

I used to have a building that reflected the clouds in the windows, but this is much better.

Do you like it?

Sunset At Home

I thought we could use something calming today, after yesterday's Election Day hoopla.

I don't see these anymore...well, I guess I do on the weekend, if I run out at 5PM.

This photo was taken about 2 weeks ago and I saved it for after the time change.

It is that time of the year when darkness almost overwhelms us and we can use anything that cheers us up.

I hope you enjoy it.

Collard Greens

Abundant Harvest Organics strikes again. In my box, I got a bunch of Collard Greens. I have no idea what to do, so I turn to the trusty Internet, once again.

I found several recipes that used the crock pot and that ended up being the way I went, rather than cooking them on my stove.

THIS recipe, is what I used. I thank Sue Lau for being in the ballpark on amounts, because the first one I found (on Chow) was for 6 bunches and that just felt wrong, on so many levels. :-)

Collard Greens

Ingredients:

1-2 bunches of fresh collard greens (about 8 cups prepared) or also can use kale, mustard or turnip greens
4-8 ounces smoked seasoning meat (I used 1 large Ham Hock)
1 onion, chopped
4-5 cloves garlic, chopped
1 cup vegetable or chicken broth, or water
salt, pepper, and red pepper flakes to taste (I used salsa that I had in the house)
couple splashes vinegar (maybe 1/4 cup) (I used Cider Vinegar)
couple splashes hot sauce (if you like it really spicy)

Method:

Fill the sink basin with cold water and submerge the untied greens and swish them around a bit, and even let them soak 5-10 minutes.
(why? they can have mud on them, or worse, especially if they are organic).

Rinse and repeat until the drain water is perfectly clear; drain.

Fold each leaf in half at the center and slice out the thick stem.

Stack the leaves as you finish them, then roll them up in a stack like a cigar, and slice crosswise about 1 inch apart.

Take the curls and toss them then place in the crock with the other ingredients.

Cover and cook on low for about 8 hours, turning occasionally as the leaves shrink down, until greens are tender.

____________________________________________________

This is angel and my feelings about the whole thing.

I have had two meals of the collard greens and I am not impressed with it at all, but if you are used to the taste and texture, I say, give it a try.

Metrolink Waterfall

My Water Post For Today.

Since I now pick up and drop off back at the Metrolink Station, I get to see this waterfall, once again.

Many years ago, it was a planter. It didn't do well with plants and so they turned it into this waterfall.

Well, the waterfall didn't work so well, for a lot of years. Now days though, it seems much better and the water comes down forcefully.

I know the birds love it and so do I.

I hope you enjoy.

A Post Birthday Celebration, At Jerry's Soda Shoppe

I have WRITTEN about this place before.

The power of Facebook brought the 5 of us together Saturday. I am "Friends" with Desoto Pharmacy and Soda Shoppe and all summer, in the midst of the heat, they keep showing off incredible ice creams. Well the final straw came about a month before my son's birthday and the three of us decided to make the trek down to Desoto and get an ice cream sundae.

As soon as we decided to go for his birthday, we send a Facebook message to the man who taught my son how to fly, back in 2008. The two of them had not seen each other since the time when my son decided not to finish getting his pilot's license. It has been 6 years, since that long ago time.

Well, his teacher goes to Jerry's Soda Shoppe at least 3 or 4 times a year and so we felt it was perfect, to meet at the counter and share a sundae. We set up the date and time and the meet up was scheduled for the day after his birthday...November 1st.

We had a wonderful time, catching up and letting his old teacher talk about a whole range of subjects. He and I have much in common (he went to Ithaca, which is south of Oswego) so when he got his first jobs after school, some of them were in Syracuse. Thus, many friends of mine, worked with him over the years. My son, being on sort of equal footing now days, could talk of his being Project Manager on EcoCar3 and his plans for the next 4 years.

It was a nice time talking to him and his husband. I hope we did not bore him too much, though I am sure the ice cream helped. :-)

What To Do With 9 Persimmons?

The story began when I received not 2 or 3 persimmons in my box...but 9. Honestly, I had never had reason to touch a persimmon before. So I am a total newbee.

My work friend sent me a recipe for Persimmon Cookies and with some adjusting to make them to my taste, I have now eaten a persimmon cookie.

My one comment, is that persimmons seem to be not very overpowering, so basically the cookies taste like the spices that you add in.

No problem, in my book, they taste GREAT!

Persimmon Cookies

Dry ingredients:
1 cup all-purpose flour
1 cup whole wheat flour (if you like), otherwise increase the all-purpose flour to 2 cups.
2 teaspoons baking soda
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon cinnamon
1/2 teaspoon ginger
1/2 teaspoon nutmeg
1/4 teaspoon cloves

Wet ingredients:
1/2 cup unsalted butter, at room temperature (very important that the butter be at room temperature)
1/2 cup granulated sugar
1/2 cup brown sugar
1 cup persimmon pulp (from 2-3 persimmons)
1 large egg
1 1/2 teaspoons vanilla extract
1 cup chopped walnuts
1 cup raisins

Orange glaze:
2 cups confectioners' sugar
1/4 cup fresh orange juice
1 teaspoon orange zest

Mix together the dry ingredients in one bowl and the wet into the other. When the wet ingredients are well combined, slowly add in the dry ingredients and mix well.

Preheat oven to 350 degrees and place the cookies on a cookie sheet covered with parchment paper.

Bake for approx 15 minutes.

Note: they do not spread, so make sure you don't pile them up too high.

When they are done, dip the cookies into the orange glaze. Yum.