La Paloma

For 28 years we have driven by La Paloma Mexican Food on Foothill and have never gone in. Perhaps it was because of the bars on the windows, but really, I think it was because it reminds me (on the outside) of a Mexican restaurant I worked in one summer that I did not like. 

Then I talked to one of my friends and she told me how much she really, really liked the food there, and so I put it on my list to try. Last weekend after we made our massive Goodwill drop-off, we started heading towards Mauricio's in Glendora, but we passed La Paloma and decided to give it a go.

It was very dark inside, but our eyes adjusted quickly. The service was friendly and timely and I decided on the chicken mole. H chose the baja fish tacos. The portions are large and we took home half and finished it off for dinner. The mole was very good with just the right amount of beans and rice. Apparently the fish tacos, though large in portion, lacked much flavor (although H did not add the bland tartar sauce that accompanied it). 

I will remember to ask my friend what it is she enjoys so much there, and we will give it a second look.

Clutter Cleanse

After the summer I rather petered out on my "get rid of one item a day" binge, but over the weekend I think we made up for several months' worth of items. Besides donating our second tv (it was in the bedroom and we hardly watched it) we had about 6 bags worth of clothing and a some miscellaneous stuff, including two very old digital point-and-shoot cameras. 

Veteran's Day

In honor of Veteran's Day, here's a salute to a CHS grad, brother of one of our daughter's good friends and softball teammate, Phil Grouf, who serves in the Coast Guard.

The Lowland

Some day I may choose The Lowland as my book club selection. I finished it yesterday, reading the last 150 pages because I wanted to just enjoy the story and immerse myself in the book. Lahiri writes beautifully without drawing attention to her prose. You know how some writers appear to work very hard at writing beautiful droplets of phrases and metaphors which scream, "see how clever a writer I am?" She does not need this kind of self-promotion in her writing since the characters propel the story along. 

I particularly enjoy epic stories which take place over several generations. This one starts with young brothers in Calcutta and reaches back into their parents' generation a bit before moving through 70 years and new generations and into America. Character motivations are revealed little by little, and though I would not have made some of the same choices as some characters, I did learn to understand their motivations.

Return to Sycamore Canyon

We should know better than to try to find a parking spot at the Claremont Wilderness Trail, especially on the weekend, so after looking at the crowds, we drove over to the Thompson Creek Trail parking lot on Indian Hill this morning to hike Sycamore Canyon. I blogged in August that I had not really found a map online, but there is one at the parking lot. I was pretty sure I could get us to the trailhead, but was not totally sure how to get back to the car, so I asked H to bring along his GPS. Turns out the GPS wasn't totally necessary since we found the Thompson Creek Trail at the end of the hike by the Girl Scout place, but the information that the little box gave us was informative and fun.

Official Map at the parking lot

Topo map

View along the way - a little hazy today

Uploaded from the GPS, this is our route including a slight little wrong turn that lead to a dead end.

Information about our hike, including the 5 minutes of non-moving time.

On the End of Daylight Savings

Although I like the fact that California uses daylight savings (and now it's lighter in the morning, so it's easier to get up, and I like the longer evening daylight in the summers), I have come to realize that the shift of an hour one way or the other is not so simple for me anymore. I must now give myself a week to adjust to the time change. On Monday I found that by 4:30 I was starting to get hungry, and it took me a minute to realize why. Various friends have made comments about being tired, or being out of sorts, and I think it can be attributed to going off of Daylight Savings. 

So, if this is Friday, I should be about back to whatever normal is in a day or two.

Another Specialty Shop

Some days I think I'm just going to stop using Facebook because I have to wade through lots of stuff that I don't particularly need to see, but then I find out information I might not otherwise know about. Today I found out that Claremont has a new little specialty grocery store called Vom Fass.  Their website shows that there are about 15 of these stores which sell olive oils, vinegars and spirits across the country, including Fort Collins, CO and Des Moines, IA. I'm not sure I need anything there right now, but at least now I know it's there.

Student Musician

A new second grader has come to Vista, and after his first music class, he appeared in the music room after school with his mother and her friend in tow. I asked him if he left something in the room (someone is always forgetting something). Nope. He just wanted his mom to meet me.

His mom said that he loves music, picks out tunes on the piano, etc. He said he wants to learn to play violin, and I told him that he could take lessons in school in 4th grade. I said that we do lots of pre-music notation activities and she said, "J said that you did a little bit of theory, that's great!" Wow, a parent who knows to say music theory...

Sunnylands

We have arrived home, once again, from a weekend retreat with the HMC trustees in Palm Springs. Every year we have a choice of activities on Saturday afternoon when meetings are not in session, and this year we signed up to take a tour of Sunnylands in nearby Rancho Mirage. I must live in a cave, because I have never heard of this estate, the winter home of Walter and Leonore Annenberg. It turns out that the Annenbergs' grandson is an alum and trustee of HMC, and I'm sure he arranged our visit to the estate. One can get tickets to tour the house (beyond the Visitor Center and tour of the gardens), but they are extremely limited and hard to come by, although our guide gave us tips on how to best get them.

Sunnylands is known as the West Coast Camp David where world leaders have come to meet in this idyllic setting to communicate and come up with solutions to problems. I seem to remember that President Obama was out in Palm Springs this June, and this was actually where he met with China's President Xi. 

We saw many, many photographs of the dignitaries who have spent time at this place since it was built in the mid-1960s, from presidents, actors, and Queen Elizabeth. We were not allowed to photograph inside the house (you can look up photos online), but for its immense size, it also feels very comfortable.

Looking toward the house via one of the many man-made ponds

View from the Visitor Center with one of the lava rock walls

Entrance to the house

View of the mountains from the golf course

Levels of Life

The first thing about this book you should know is that it's non-fiction. Well, I think most of it is. I think maybe the middle level is fictionalized history.

Anyway, the first two sections of this slim volume peruse hot air ballooning, photography, love, and the last section, the longest, is a meditation on Barnes' experience of being a widower. I'm sure that my book club could probably explain how it all ties together, although the NPR review isn't sure that it does hang together. The third part is a very intense and could stand on its own as a brief autobiographical novella, or whatever noun might work here. I preferred Barnes' The Sense of an Ending.