It has been raining on and off for a month or so and I took a quick look out my window on Monday and saw the daffodils blooming.
They are the most consistent flower bulb that appears in my garden, year after year.
I also see a few freesia's making the presence felt, too.
Next up will hopefully be my iris flowers.
It's not much, but it is mine.
I normally do not watch Huell on TV, since I have so much work to do.
On Friday I glanced up and Huell is in a very nice blue jacket and a contrasting magenta shirt underneath.
It caught my attention, immediately.
My thought is that he must be in Northern California and as I found out later, he was about 45 minutes north of Sacramento, in Marysville.
The Chinese workers who built the Transcontinental Railroad settled here, making Marysville the location of the 3rd largest population of Chinese American's in the United States.
The temple that Huell visited, is called the Bok Kai Temple and dates back from the 1880's.
Pretty cool information, for a glance at a blue jacket. :-)
California is a pretty cool state and I totally enjoyed riding the section of the Transcontinental Railroad, that these workers built.
My friend Gina, from Belgium decided to send me some presents.
I believe she went to Amsterdam a week or so ago and so the other day, I received 3 presents.
One is a very adorable box that normally holds mints in it, but due to our ongoing problems with customs, she decided to take the mints out.
To utilize the box, she put a lovely map necklace in it. A bonus.
The other present is a grocery bag that has a cute street in Amsterdam depicted on it, along with a bike.
I truly did not expect this and thank her so much for her kindness.
My Water Post For Today.
It's the middle of winter, snow, rain and gloom...we are tired of it!
To brighten up our day, I give you a different view of Northport Bay from the Vanderbilt Museum.
Once again, courtesy of my Brother-In-Law.
The very blue of the water and sky, contrasting with the very white fence, just brings me such happiness.
No gloom in sight.
I hope you enjoy.
This was another of the photos we took from our friend's loft, just south of Downtown L.A.
What drew us upstairs to the roof of their building, was this unusual rainbow that appeared right at sunset.
We also got the sunset itself, over to the west of this photo, which I showed off HERE.
The neighborhood has gotten a little bit better then it used to be, but even with the spectacular view, I would not choose to live there.
Nice to visit though.
We haven't been by the U.S. Bank Tower since it lost its title of tallest building west of the Mississippi.
Now days, that title belongs to the Wilshire Grand Center. By the way, the Wilshire Grand used to be a hotel that my brother-in-law stayed in, back in the 80's...The Los Angeles Hilton.
Back to the U.S. Bank Tower. One of the reasons it is so tall, is the fact that it is right across the street from the L.A. Central Library. The Library sold the air rights above their building, to the developers of the building.
It was first called the First Interstate Bank building, but when they were merged with Wells Fargo Bank, the name reverted to Library Tower (due to this combined entities situation). Now days it is owned by OUE, a company in Singapore.
Though definitely it has a different look on the ground floor, it is the most recognizable part of the Los Angeles skyline.
It was good to see it again.
I had 2 meetings on Tuesday.
One was with the COO of the new Public Media Group Of Southern California.
I officially resigned (retired) whatever, from KCET.
Being my job is so complex and that my boss is also leaving this year, I figured I would give them plenty of time to reorganize our Traffic and Ops area.
So the date I am leaving is December 20th of this year.
I will use this year's vacation to cover the month of January and I hope to have a few days to cover the week between Christmas and New Year's.
I am excited about this and can't wait.
The second meeting we had on Tuesday was a celebration of birthdays for the months of January and February.
Portos cakes and people singing to us.
It was very nice.
One of the staff took a few photos of us and I am glad they did.
All in all, it was a good day.
On Sunday afternoon, we got together with several people who worked at KCET during the 90's.
The location was a loft in the Toy District of L.A.
As you can see, the view from the roof of the building is totally spectacular.
Downtown all laid out for you to admire...and admire it, we did.
There was also a rainbow off to the far right, that did not get into this photo.
Not to be outdone, even the almost full moon made an appearance.
Good friends, good food and spectacular scenery.
You couldn't ask for a better reunion.
First off, I want to acknowledge the fact that today is the late Walter Becker's Birthday.
Walter, you are missed by this fan.
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Onward to today's post subject.
Our delivery of wine came this week.
That makes 4 years of us supporting Tom Seaver and his wife, Nancy.
As a matter of fact, this year we were offered a bottle of NLS Wine. Which is named after Nancy Lynn Seaver.
It was slightly less than the normal bottle of GTS wine.
We will probably check hers out, this year, or next year.
It makes my Husband so happy to support a long ago friend, who in his old age, decided to follow a career that many in Fresno have done in the past.
Things have indeed calmed down over by my Michigan Son.
GM survived the layoffs and now things are getting back to normal.
He says there is still no measurable snow going on in his area of the world.
Though my Husband still reports to me that he should have lots of snow.
Who is lying? Probably the weather man. :-)
Glad to hear he is doing well and I think I will stop reporting on him, unless something important comes up.
Happy President's Day! Enjoy a cherry pie. :-)
My Water Post For Today.
This photo is taken out behind our favorite restaurant, The Saugus Cafe.
There is a small river in the back, called the South Fork Santa Clara River.
It can, on seriously bad winters, do some extreme damage. Right now is is flowing, but pretty calm.
You can walk along this river utilizing the South Fork Trail, which is what I did.
It was so nice to hear running water!
I can't tell you how exciting that is for us.
I hope you enjoy.
My Church had a Italian Dinner on Saturday and we decided to go, since it is only a half mile from our house and it sounded like something fun to do.
My Husband saw several people who he goes to Aquafit with, so he did not feel alone.
I knew several people, including David, who taught my Son audio, back in the day.
The dinner was good and my Husband put us into the raffle, which we lost, of course.
Our table mates were interesting long time residents of the SCV and they came from places like Ohio, Michigan and Buffalo.
Definitely things that we had in common, to talk about.
As we left the event, I mentioned to my Husband that this was good training for our upcoming cruise.
The Last time I wrote about the Millennium Biltmore Hotel, was 2013.
We passed by the side of the hotel, as we walked down 5th Street in Downtown LA, on Sunday.
I managed to get just one photo of the incredible interior of the hotel and thought I would share it with you.
Here is what Wikipedia says about the interior.
The interiors of the Biltmore Hotel are decorated with: frescos and murals; carved marble fountains and columns; massive wood-beamed ceilings; travertine and oak paneled walls; lead crystal chandeliers; cast bronze stairwells and doorways; fine artisan marquetry and mill work; and heavily embroidered imported tapestries and draperies.
Most notable are the frescoed mural ceilings in the main Galleria and the Crystal Ballroom, which were hand painted in 1922 by Italian artist Giovanni Smeraldi, known for his work in the Vatican and the White House. Smeraldi and his team famously painted the ballroom's colorful, seamless fresco over a period of seven months, decorating it with figures of Greek and Roman gods, angels, cupids and other mythological creatures. It was meticulously restored in the 1980s by Smeraldi's apprentice, Anthony Heinsbergen. The imported Austrian crystal chandeliers that adorn it are 12 feet (3.7 m) in diameter.
When I pass it by, I still can't believe my Husband and I spent the night there one December evening. The company he worked for at the time, The Union Rescue Mission, had their Christmas Party at the Biltmore.
It was an unforgettable experience.
Wednesday, I spent most of the day visiting my Doctor (yearly check up) and other appointments. Adding to the madness, my husband made a late afternoon appointment with our travel agent, finalizing our cruise.
This did not give us much time to make dinner. So I decided to make a pizza with the extra dough I bought for Superbowl Sunday.
I got 2 packages from Trader Joe's and had part of the first package left to use, on top of the second one.
This gave me more of a deep dish type crust.
We got some nice Italian sausage (in bulk) from Stater Brothers and some shredded mozzarella cheese from the same place. A bottle of sauce and we were set.
The pizza came out fantastic and felt like we bought it from a store.
It went together in a few minutes and cooked for about 20 minutes.
Dinner in a decent time. What more could I ask.
If you couldn't figure it out, these are the leftovers.
Check out my pizza screen, which I posted about back in 2008, HERE.
Back in the 80's, when we were first married, we would send our Valentine's Day cards off to Loveland, Colorado.
There, they would get a stamp, similar to this one and it would get sent back to you, or to someone else.
I haven't thought of it in decades but a reporter I follow, took a trip to Loveland the other day.
So there on his Facebook account...was the stamp for this year.
It definitely brings back memories.
Happy Valentine's Day!
