Birthday Dinner

How to choose where to celebrate C's birthday dinner.

1. Ask C where she wants to go.

2. C says, "I'll tell you when I wake up in the morning."

3. Keep asking throughout the day. Still no decision.

4. Walk downtown.

5. Try to have hoppy hour at Eureka! Burger, but bar is full.

6. Walk back into the Village and head towards Back Abbey.

7. Find a nice table and enjoy dinner outside.

Gifts for Travel

Daughter L is visiting for the week for a bachelorette party, so she brought my birthday gift with her to keep the celebration going. Both daughters thought to give me something useful to take to Switzerland. C found this adorable purse for me and L brought at moleskine notebook - one that has all kinds of information about Zurich (including maps) as well as places to write. I feel as though I am ready to jump on a tram right now!

Beach Birthday

Second year in a row that my birthday fell on a weekend. A lovely June weekend. With temps promised in the low 100s (which never materialized), I thought that an escape to the beach would be the best way to relax with H, C and B. These days we tend to head toward Laguna and try out any beach where we can find parking.

While on the road, we decided to stop off at 85C for sea salt coffee and then yelped where we could find Mexican take-out in Laguna. Papa's Tacos came highly recommended, and that's where we ended up. The proprietor/chef/server was very friendly and when I told him it was my birthday, he threw in a bag of chips with some salsa. We took our food and ended up at Aliso Beach. The parking lot was full when we drove through, but I spotted a street space across the busy PCH which was still there after we rounded back. Luckily there is a tunnel under the highway for pedestrians.

We enjoyed people-watching while we ate our burritos, which we ranked very highly. Then we read a little, chatted and near the end of our stay we watched a pod of dolphins frolicking in the waves. That was certainly a highlight. 

Back home, after showers and a little phone chat with L, C treated us to a homemade peach and almond cake with vanilla ice cream. 

A most excellent way to celebrate.

Ordering at Papa's Tacos.

Birthday Trip to LACMA

Last year I joined LACMA for my birthday, especially to see the James Turrell retrospective. It was a deal to join since membership included free tickets to the special exhibit. Little did I know that I would return four more times to get my money's worth for the $110 "Dual Membership". If you are interested, here is a link to my year at LACMA. 

Yesterday we saw Van Gogh to Kandinsky which opens to the public tomorrow, but members got a special preview.  In this exhibit we were allowed to photograph a number of the works with a little sign next to the ones we were not allowed to shoot.

Paul Klee was a Swiss painter. Looking forward to seeing the Klee museum in Berne where he grew up.

I got in trouble for taking this photo. See the gentleman in black on the right side? He came over to me to explain the photographing rules. I just wanted to show the scope of the exhibit and how many people were there. It's a terrible photo, but I thought I'd post it anyway.

So, while I was pleased that our $110 membership had gone so far this year, we had to add an additional $58 to the total spent while going to LACMA this year. We parked on the street to save the $10 parking fee in the lot, and after 2 hours and 10 minutes in a 2 hour zone, we were awarded this lovely ticket from the City of LA. I guess that $168 is still a good deal for 5 trips to the museum for 2 people....

Cherry Birthday

Happy Birthday to my guy! I was looking through H's family photos today and found this one which I like for several reasons. First, I love his and his sister's intensity with the candle-blowing. Second, I like the cake pedestal that is a family heirloom that we now have in our kitchen. Third, I am reminded of the kind of cake that H always wanted back then - a white cake with whipped cream for frosting and then cherries poured over the top.

These days, H's favorite birthday treat is a cherry pie, and if he can have a piece after lunch and dinner, then he is a happy birthday boy. Last night we enjoyed dinner with C and B, and they brought over a homemade cherry pie for dessert, and today we still have some pieces left.

Homemade Gifts

Happy Birthday to my sister!

This year for my birthday, my sister gave me a copy of the book she had written. I am getting to the point where I particularly enjoy gifts that have been made by the giver, so I decided to reciprocate (a little) for her birthday. I have not published a book, but I thought I would give her a little trip down memory lane. When we were young, I had a record that we listened to so that we might learn a little French. A number of years ago I found the record in some sale, purchased it, and then eventually made mp3s of the songs.

Our favorite song was called Excuze moi! which had a great line about spilling soup on big sister's dress. I wanted to make a CD of this album for the birthday present, but it turns out that the quality of the mp3s was not particularly high. With a little internet digging, I not only found this photo of the record, but a whole website that has turned childhood records from the 50s and 60s into free downloadable mp3s for all.

If you go to this site, you can see all kinds of records, some of which you might even know, or might want to know - from Danny Kaye, to Will Rogers, and even Bob Keeshan (you know, Captain Kangaroo!). What a treasure!

Birthday at LACMA

Yay for a birthday that falls on a weekend! On my Kansas trip I read a few articles about the James Turrell Retrospective at LACMA and knew that's how I wanted to celebrate my birthday. I had also been wanting to see the Levitated Mass, so that was a bonus.

I have no photos of the Turrell exhibit since they are not allowed, but let me say that I am glad we saw it. I think if I was not familiar with his Skyspace at Pomona College, I may not have enjoyed the show as much, mostly because his work is very subtle and takes time to enjoy. 

When we arrived at the museum just before it opened, the skies were still holding on to June gloom, so the light was soft, but the skies uninteresting. If I lived closer to the museum, I would watch the skies and take opportunities to photograph this rock. The bolder is actually smaller than I had envisioned, but, nonetheless fun to see.

Of course I enjoyed much of the art that we saw (mostly modern), I was particularly enamored of Metropolis II - a model city with trains and cars that zip around like crazy. The kids watching the cars were clearly thrilled with the excitement, as evidenced by their chatter and occasional shrieks.

We capped the evening off with a trip to the Pomona Skyspace.

Happy Birthday

Today is my mom's birthday - Happy Birthday, Mom!

10 years ago, when my folks lived in Upland, they had a joint birthday party in February, about halfway between their birthdays (Dad's is in January). I don't think they had a party this year, but I think they should have!

Here is a past blog post about birthday parties in my family...

Taking Time to Play

For his birthday last month, I gave H a Star Wars Lego set. He knew that he would have time to put it together over Winter Break, so here we are, and the building has begun this afternoon. I think we need to take more time to just play.

Lesson Learned?

As noted in my previous post, it was a busy weekend. I know how we all say how busy we are, and we are. However, this weekend was over the top for me, and I think that I have learned my lesson. Either I have to plan better about scheduling, or I just have to say no to something. Even when all the events are good and fun, I am getting too old to leave the house at 8 a.m. and not get back until 9:30 p.m. 

The bulk of my day was spent at a fabulous Orff-Schulwerk workshop about teaching improvisation to elementary school children. I blogged about that in my music blog this morning. That was well worth the time and effort since I can use that knowledge in the rest of my teaching life.

The easy part of the day was to attend a surprise birthday party for my dear friend, who, as you can see, was in the party mode. Since I did not have to plan this event, it did not require too much effort, and it was well worth the time since it was fun!

The third and final event from Saturday was working the silent auction at CUCC's annual fundraiser, Fiesta de la Luna. This is a great event which takes months of planning. The food, atmosphere and company are fabulous, even in the heat. You might guess that gathering donations from everywhere, organizing the set-up (with signs and bid sheets for each item with starting bids) is a huge undertaking, and it is. You might now know that getting the items grouped by buyer and added up is a huge undertaking that must happen in an hour. Fortunately, this year we had 8 people working behind the scenes on the day, and despite some mix-ups, it went pretty quickly. Well worth the effort since the church benefits.

Hopefully next year some of these events will be spread out over a few weeks!

Labor Day

Twenty seven years ago, I was in labor. How fitting. Happy birthday to my firstborn, L! Since we were unable to help her celebrate in Oregon this year (having recently celebrated her marriage there), we decided to celebrate her here at home. This is what we did.

After getting breakfast burritos at Alberto's and coffee, we took off down the 57 towards Costa Mesa with bikes on the rack. See how light the traffic was on this holiday morning?

Knowing a bit about where we had biked last June, we could make better plans for our trip. First we parked in a little park near Estancia High School and rode our bikes over to the Santa Ana River toward the ocean and Huntington Beach. The good thing about this plan is that the parking is free. The other good thing about this plan (and this is the really good thing) is that the first part of the ride is against the ocean breezes, and the return trip is with the breeze.  Again, we rode 22 miles, and this way was much better.

We stopped for a bit and watched the waves, the surfers and the beautiful blue sky.

Here are two kites that look like parasailers.

Part of the bike ride involved trying to find this park that has a big cement dome made to look moon-like. We could not get to the park on bikes because I was way too tired at that point, and my little tushy was complaining. However, we did manage to find the park with the GPS after we got back to the car so that I could see the wonder of the moon. Here it is, in all its glory. It's something, huh?

All in all, it was a great way to celebrate the day I first became a mom.

Birthday Cupcakes

Happy Birthday to my 24-year-old daughter!  How well I remember that night 24 years ago when we drove to Pomona Valley Hospital at 8 in the evening, and by 10 we had our newest bundle of joy.

Because C lives in the neighborhood, we get to celebrate with her, although we started the party a few days early on Sunday. Lunch at Eureka! Burger followed by cupcakes from Some Crust before coming home for presents.

Thanks for giving us an excuse to celebrate, darling daughter!

Thoughts on Birthday Week

I really like the idea of celebrating my birthday for a week.  Not a straight week of party with cake and balloons, but doing things that I truly enjoy.  This is how my birthday week has played out this year.

Monday - got a massage.  Oh, yes.
Tuesday - played duets with Lynn.  Always enjoyable.
Wednesday - enjoyed sitting under the Turrell at Pomona College at the end of a lovely walk
Thursday - yoga
Friday - BIRTHDAY Day: hanging with my daughter for a few hours, going to a party (a dear friend's retirement party), going out to Bangkok Blue for dinner with my honey.

So, yes, many of these things I do on a regular or occasional basis, but when I think about it as doing something special each day to celebrate another trip around the sun, it makes these events a little more special.

Busy Weekend

It's been a busy weekend with little time to blog, so here is a brief rundown.

Saturday was given to a music teacher's workshop in Redlands for much of the day, followed by a 60th birthday party for a long-time friend for most of the evening.  A little Costco shopping in the middle rounded out the full day.

This morning at CUCC we voted overwhelmingly to call our new associate minister, Eileen Gebbie who will start "very soon."  The sanctuary was filled this morning to hear Eileen preach and to have the vote.

The service was filled with all kinds of music today (see my post in my music blog) from a multigenerational rendition of the 150th Psalm, to the newly formed youth choir, to the adult choir and the gospel piano playing during communion (and vote-counting).

Now for the Super Bowl and getting ready to start another week.

Birthday Celebration

Tide Pools at Crystal Cove State Park

Black Friday? Not for us.  To honor H's birthday, we did not get up at any ungodly hour to wait in line.  Instead, we slept in, ate breakfast burritos from Alberto's then headed for the ocean.  With six of us now, we can no longer all fit in our Camry, so we borrowed our friends' Suburban.

It had been a while since we had taken the Balboa Island Ferry (prices have certainly gone up recently - it used to be around a quarter for each passenger, but now it is $1 a head, plus $1 per car), so we enjoyed that little ride and took the chance to look at the breakers at the end of the peninsula there.

The breakfast burritos were still holding us, so we headed for Crystal Cove State Park to walk the tidepools, breathe in the fresh ocean breezes, and renew our attachment to the Pacific.  After a cool week before, we enjoyed the warm, sunny weather.

No trip to OC is complete without a stop at 85C, but this time we only waited in line for the iced sea salt coffees.  The pastry line was too long.

We topped off the evening with great Thanksgiving leftovers, and the delicious homemade cherry pie by C in honor of her dad's birthday.

Happy Birthday, C!

Today is C's first birthday as a college graduate! Kelsey joined us for a celebratory lunch at Bangkok Blue in LaVerne. We tried to go to Hayato Sushi, but it is not open for lunch on Sundays.

We really enjoy this Thai food which is some kind of fusion. For example, we've never had salmon at another Thai place, but Joyce (the owner and chef) makes a great dish with salmon.

A Birthday Today

Happy Birthday to my little sister!

Claire's Birthday

Today is the day that Claire turns 21! She has her new driver's license which shows that she is now legal. Her friend, Shawn, is visiting, and we went to see The Brothers Bloom at the Laemmle this afternoon. For dinner, we went to Bua Thai with Bert and Rocky's ice cream for dessert.

Now we are waiting for Hal to come home from umpiring to open presents.....

A Lovely Day

A lovely way to celebrate my birthday today:

• Working out at the gym with Hal (well, it was lovely when it was over!)
• Having Claire take me to breakfast at Starbucks and Some Crust
• Eating Claire's wonderful vegan quesadillas for lunch
• Shopping with Claire
• Seeing the new Pixar movie, Up, with Hal and Claire at the local Laemmle
• Eating dinner at the Delhi Palace Express
• Talking to Liesl on the phone

Sunday, Sunday

This morning I spent a leisurely few hours reading full articles in the Sunday NY Times. I read about the Tuscan Shore (I want to go!), how some doctors are trying to reform health care by spending more time with patients in prevention, spending habits at discount stores during the recession, a compare/contrast article on Sonia Sotomayor and Clarence Thomas, speculation on the recent plane crash, arranged marriages (I told Hal that I arranged our marriage...), and people who give up on their blogs.

Realizing that tomorrow is my birthday, Hal speculated on what he might get me. I really don't want more stuff, and I can't imagine what I need/want right now. Then I hit upon an idea. I asked him to give me his time today to rearrange my study. I knew it would take his help, what with the spaghetti of cords behind my desk and heavy items to shove around. Not only did he do that, but then he took down the old metal valence above the window, spackled the holes, sanded and painted the trim and hung a different curtain rod (left over from our bedroom when we changed window treatments last summer). Thanks, Hal!

I spent several more hours clearing out the old, rearranging, dusting, and now I feel fresh and new!