It's not my birthday. It feels like it though.   Today, the Husband and I drove over to Freedom to buy food for Molly the Cat. Our task was done quicker than we estimated, so we headed down the road to Watsonville to visit the art store and bookshop before lunch. I'd only planned to buy a couple of new colored pencils at Wild Rose's Artists' Supplies and Custom Framing , but you know how it goes. I checked out the shop's art paper. Marbled paper. Oooooh. Wavy, corrugated paper. Gotta have that. Small rectangle-shaped suede paper. 25 cents, sold! My plan is to make masks. Yup. At Crossroads Books , I bought a mystery called Shaking in Her Flip-Flops . Can't go wrong with a title like that.  Another neat thing about the book is that it's written by Joyce Oroz, an author who lives in nearby Aromas . The Husband and I also decided to purchase a copy of The 2016 Farmer's Almanac . That's always fun reading. To top off getting all this coo

Lately, I've been using a facial cream made up of tallow from grass-fed cows and organic extra-virgin olive oil. Every time I rub the stuff into my face, I think of fried steak. Yummmm. That's the smell of the cream. And, that's what my face smells like. The Husband has no sense of smell. Poor guy. He doesn't get to smell how deliciously like fried steak I am. Why am I using this yummy eau de fried steak ? I have a horrible case of facial eczema and experts say that tallow fat mimics human skin, has minerals that help heal and protect the skin, and has natural cleansing and anti-inflammatory properties. It's too early to say if eau de fried steak is working. No. I haven't been eating a lot of fried steak lately. But, I do think about it each time I apply eau de fried steak on my face. P.S. Tilda-Hilda and I did a quick pedal around the neighborhood this morning. I totally got myself out of breath. Maybe, I'll talk myself—and the Husband—into

The last several days have been wonderful for the Husband and me. Yup.  Lots of activity—walking, talking, being with great friends, talking, enjoying relatives, talking, eating yummy food, talking, discovering new places, talking, meeting new people, talking, seeing a high school play, laughing, talking, and much, much more. I'm pooped.

Friends Jenn and Moose and the Husband and I took part in a paint party at the San Benito Olive Festival last Saturday. Altogether, there were 18 participants. Hmmm, I think the Husband and Moose were the only guys. What's up with that? Is getting guys to paint the same as getting them out on the dance floor? The Husband and Moose have no problem shaking their booties.  We did a lot of that at the festival, too. Our teacher-host was Artist/Sculptor Paul Loughridge. His robot and metal sculptures are especially trés cool. Check some of them out at his website .  Okay, back to the paint party. Being that it was at an olive festival, Paul guided us through a painting of olive branches. Having not painted since grammar school, I was hesitant about whether I could recreate his painting. Several other participants articulated how I felt. He reassured us. We were not to worry. We would be creating our own original paintings. And, so we began. He told us which brush to use, what co

My Alphabe Thursday theme: Places I've Been Vegas as in Las Vegas. The fertile lowlands of a city that's in southern Nevada. Yes, fertile lowlands is the English translation of the Spanish plural las vegas . Hmmm, could that be why you can find quite a lot of golf courses is Vegas? Some might say that the fertile lowlands refer to something other than terrain. But, I'm not going there. I've been to Vegas four times. The first time was in 1975 when I went cross-country with a college friend. The Strip wasn't a big deal yet and Downtown Vegas was so-so, but then I was still 20 so what was the use of being there. The second time was another quick stop as the first, late dear Husband and I were driving back from our first big camping trip together. Again, yawwwwn. We had after all spent a week down in a canyon by the Colorado River. In the late 1990s, the Husband and I spent a few days in Vegas and by then the Strip was a very big surreal deal. The p

The Husband and his Sun Flame rode with Tilda-Hilda and me today. Hurrah! That's always fun. We pedaled nearly six miles on as flat of a route as we could find. There were a couple of hairy spots with inattentive drivers. Silly people. The lighting was strange this morning because of a fire about 20 miles away to the south of town. It's very dry out there; unfortunately, the fire has spread over 300 acres, the last I heard. Hopefully, the firefighters can contain it today. Talk about being brave. Those men and women are the best examples of courage. See you tomorrow with Jane Austen, Action Doll. Update: The fire has now spread to 600 acres, eating up hillsides and mountainsides. More than 200 fire fire fighters, including firefighting pilots, are working on the blaze. According to afternoon news reports, only 10 percent of the fire was contained by mid-afternoon.

"And that's how our generation does it!" exclaimed one of the rocking band members, who was in his early to mid-60s. "Whoooo-hoooo!" shouted the Husband and I, clapping wildly on the dance floor. We'd been dancing our hearts, souls, and bodies out for the past three hours to soul, funk, and good old rock 'n roll. That last dance—Johhny B. Goode. Whooo-hooo! Most of the evening, we shared the dance floor with a few other old fogeys and one younger couple who had sweet technical dance moves. During the last hour, young men and women of the reunion Class of 2005 streamed into the lounge. But, it was not until the last two songs that they had enough liquid courage to get out on the dance floor, and finally get into the music of their grandparents generation.  What a fun night! The band even dedicated a song to me— Cinnamon Girl . First time, ever. 

Three days later, I'm ready to brag about my county fair ribbons. For some of them, I don't know if I would've won if there had been a lot more competition. Don't get me wrong, I'm happy for all of them—four blue and one red ribbon in flower arrangements, one blue and one yellow ribbon in photography, and a white ribbon in wearable art. Whooo-hooo! My most unbelievable win was the blue ribbon for my dry floral arrangement in the Country Road Treasure class. You had to use objects found along the road as containers or accessories. I found a broken piece of PVC pipe with jagged edges along the road while the Husband and I were walking home. It was perfect. When friend Kathy saw my arrangement, she described it as modern minimalism. I was told that the arrangement received a lot of comments. Good or bad, I didn't ask.  You saw my Eiffel Tower martini glass arrangement already. If you haven't, click here .  These were my other flower arrangement entries.

My Alphabe Thursday theme: Places I've Been The Husband and I drove over to the coast this afternoon to buy food for Molly the Cat. It was something neither of us wanted to do, but Molly ate her last can of food this morning. Yes, we have a very particular cat. She would rather go hungry then eat something that doesn't taste or smell good to her. But, Molly the Cat is not the story today. The clouds are the story. They were swimming, running, tumbling, dancing, and singing across the perfect blue sky. You see, it rained last night. Hallelujah! It rained throughout the night. Whooo-hooo! And it rained some this morning. Yippee!   All that wonderful rain left us with clear blue skies and whipped-cream like clouds. And, because the Husband was driving, I took photos. I was good at first, sitting primly (I heard that snort of a laugh) in my seat shooting photos through the passenger window and the windshield.  Before I knew it, I was leaning out the window.

My Alphabe Thursday theme: Places I've Been September 23 was the first day of Autumn. It was also the Husband's and my 19th wedding anniversary. And, yes, it doesn't seem like it was that long ago we turned right at the xerox machine to get married. (For that story, head over here , if you like.) Our day began with breakfast at our favorite coffee shop in San Juan Bautista— Vertigo Coffee . That's one of the few places I'll allow myself to drink coffee. The Husband had himself a mocha latte, which is an occasion in itself. Until yesterday, he hadn't drunk coffee in over two years. We also ate BLT with soft scrambled egg panini sandwiches. Yummm! Using coffee stirrers as chopsticks to pick up the eggs that kept falling out of our sandwiches made the meal even more fun and special. We drove over to the coast and headed north on Highway One. Roadwork was going on, but that didn't bother us. We were after all in no big hurry to get anywhere. We

My Alphabe Thursday theme: Places I've Been A couple months ago I had a hankering to be by the ocean and the Husband wanted to be in a forest, so we drove to Rancho del Oso , the western portion of Big Basin Redwoods State Park in Santa Cruz County.  The entry point is across from Waddell Beach on State Highway 1, where you can see surfers and kiteboarders having fun. It was our first time to visit Rancho del Oso, which translates to Bear Ranch. Once upon a time, the Grizzly Bear roamed the area. Thankfully, we did not meet any bears, but we did come across jack rabbits, squirrels, butterflies, lizards, and an occasional human. We hiked over a couple of miles, the first half going up and along a mountain side and the trip back on a nice flat fire road. Unfortunately, my left knee flamed up on the way back, so it took us longer to get back to the car. On a positive note: We got to enjoy being under the redwoods longer. It's the letter R at A

This afternoon, I shut the car door while I kinda stood between it and the car. The edge of the door jarred my jaw on its way to its destination. Kinda made the nerves in my skull sizzle. I'm very talented. Fortunately, nothing other than a tiny bit of pain in the jaw for a few minutes. "I don't like it," I said to the Husband as we drove to the produce stand. "You wouldn't like being a boxer then," he said. DAYS 47 to 60 with TILDA-HILDA Did you wonder if Tilda-Hilda and I had stopped riding for the year? Not at all. We're been doing things a bit differently. Three Saturdays ago was the the last time Tilda-Hilda and I went out on the back roads.  Since then, we've been sticking to our neighborhood and an occasional ride to downtown, as my left knee recuperates. Most of our riding had been pedaling three blocks back and forth to Godmother Pat, once or twice a day. She had a horrible accident in July that resulted in the loss of t