Friday Randomness

Birthday, Part 2

Though my birthday was in December, tomorrow we are doing the things I wanted to do then, but couldn’t. After our vacation last summer in France, I was excited to see that one of our local art museums has an exhibit on Monet’s later years, a time when he was painting his garden, over and over again. Trouble was, the exhibit didn’t open until recently, so we couldn’t go in December. My stepmom, Julie, gave me money for my birthday, which I used to buy a membership to the fine arts museums in San Francisco, and I reserved tickets tomorrow to see the Monet exhibit. So excited!

Another thing I wanted to do for my birthday was to go to an Italian restaurant we saw on TV last autumn. I like to watch a show called Check, Please! Bay Area, which spotlights local restaurants. (The link is to the episode, which has 3 restaurants. If you’re interested, the review for Belotti is about 10 minutes in.) This restaurant, Belotti Ristorante, was featured, and the reviewers all agreed that it was the best Italian restaurant they had ever been to. But we couldn’t go for my birthday, because they were closed from Christmas until mid-January. Very sensible and family oriented of them, but a bummer for us. Finally, I was able to make reservations for tomorrow afternoon. They are a tiny little restaurant, and due to the rave reviews on Check, Please!, the only times available were 2:30 and 9:30, so we will be having a late lunch/early dinner at 2:30. I’m hopeful for a lovely day of art and pasta.

More Family Treasures

The picture above was taken one summer when we were down from Alaska, visiting family. My Great-Aunt Flo lived in a little condo on the beach in Capitola at the time, and this is taken at her house. On a recent visit to see Aunt Flo in Stockton, she sent me home with the vase above, and a matching incense burner. They belonged to my Great-great Aunt Julia, and were treasured by my mom, so I am glad to have them.

Ted came with me on this visit, and we took Aunt Flo to lunch at her favorite place, Red Lobster. She adores the cheese biscuits, and makes the rest of her lunch last at least 2 more meals. In addition to the vase and incense burner, we brought home a pair of brass (?) torchiere floor lamps that used to belong to my Grandma. Apparently they fell down 10 or 15 years ago and the glass shades broke, and they didn’t work anyway, but I still wanted them. There’s a lamp repair and lamp shade store in our town, so we dropped the lamps off there. The proprietor is a great old guy, and really knows his stuff. He was impressed by the lamps, said they don’t make them like that anymore, and that he could fix them. Sadly, he said that the lamp shades have gone way up in price. He wasn’t kidding. They needed new sockets, new lamb cords, etc. So it was expensive, and my ‘free’ hand-me-downs ended up costing a little over $1,000 (total) to get up and running. Ouch. Money well spent, and he said we could not have bought 1 of that quality for any price, let alone the amount we paid to repair them. We have one in our bedroom, and the other is in Maya’s room.

On an earlier trip, Aunt Flo sent me home with this trio of pictures, also Aunt Julia’s. I put them in the downstairs bathroom. I love them. I’ve decided they are France, though likely they are not. Notice the color on the wall, ‘San Francisco Fog’. I love that, too. We finally finished painting and clean up in December, after all of the plumbing drama. I really wanted to put a color on the walls in the bathroom, as they were the same boring off-white they have been for the last 20 years. I wanted gray or light blue, and found this color. Ted worried about going too dark, as it is a small space. We compromised, and I got the kind folks at Keller Williams to cut the paint 25%, so it is San Francisco Fog, but cut with white paint. Perhaps a foggy day with the sun breaking through?

My Poor Blog

My poor blog, so ignored and neglected. It turns out that not only is there a lack of content around here, WordPress has put in too many updates, and now I can’t figure out how to update my blogroll. There are a few blogs over there that aren’t active anymore, and I’d like to remove them. An old blog friend popped by awhile ago, and is maybe starting up her blog again, and I wanted to add her back to my blogroll. No can do. I looked online, and I can add new widgets, but I can’t figure out how to edit the one I have. Very frustrating, but not enough, I guess, to get me to figure it all out. I remember really liking her writing, go take a peek – Stop and Wander. At some point I suspect I will have to delete the entire blogroll and start over. The thing is, I don’t use a reader or anything, I just come to my blog, then click the links from my blogroll to see if you’ve written anything. Very 1999 of me, I suspect.

Changing Landscape

We live in a townhouse near a transit center, and the landscape is changing (slowly) from single family homes to a more urban feel. Back 40-something years ago, our area was little ranch houses, maybe some walnut orchards and horses and so on. Gradually, most of the older houses were replaced by townhouses, apartment buildings, and tract homes. The building above is going up in the location of an old BART parking lot. It was actually supposed to be constructed back before the market crashed, and due to the crashing housing prices at that time, the whole thing was put on hiatus. I think it’s gong to be 6 stories, and will probably have businesses on the first floor, housing above. There’s another building close by that was up and running before the crash, that now has a restaurant, a bar, a Starbucks, a couple of beauty salons, and kick-boxing place, and an up-scale corner store, which is sadly going out of business this weekend.

This is one of the few remaining empty lots, next door to our complex. When we first moved in, lo those 20 years ago, there were three houses along this road, with at least 2 more set further back. The first one was torn down quite a few years ago. Then a couple of years ago, there was a fire in the second house, and it was demolished. The house that was in this field, affectionately called the “Clampet” house by one of our neighbors (for the Beverley Hillbillies), was empty for awhile, until it became a fire hazard, and was being used by druggies as well. Then it was torn down. There is still a run down house in the back. I’m not sure why the owners of the remaining house haven’t sold, but rumor has it that another big building will go in here at some point. I’m torn about the whole thing. I mean, I like having a more urban feel in some ways, but of course the construction will be loud, and likely we will get mice from the empty field, and the traffic is going to get a lot more congested with all of the new people living here.

Family Update

And then there’s the family. Not a lot new with us. Aunt Flo decided she was going to move out of my Grandma’s house, where she has been living alone since my Grandma died in late 2016. I know she’s lonely. So she started packing up, deciding to move in with one of my cousins, but then got a little overwhelmed and decided to stay put. I’ll admit that I was worried about her living with that cousin, as she is a dishonest person who has been taking advantage of my Grandma and Great Aunt for decades. Also, another cousin and I will be in charge of selling the house once she does move, and I was not looking forward to that process. So we got a reprieve for the moment. Aunt Flo will be 95 in April, and is in the process of selling her car, so I can’t imagine she will want to live there alone a lot longer.

Maya spent some time interviewing for jobs last fall, but didn’t find anything, and went back to work at her old job at the elementary school she attended from 1st – 5th grade. She worked there for 2 years in college, doing after school care. Now she works in the office and helps out with child care as needed. She was fine with that over the holidays, but now is back on the job market, and has had a few interviews lately. She has 2 interviews on Monday, one with an employment agency for writers and editors and so on, one as an admin job for a law firm in San Francisco. Either would be a good place to start. Housing in San Francisco is so expensive, and not a lot better here, so I suspect she will be living with us for awhile longer, which is fine with us.

Mulder will be 4 in April. I can’t believe we’ve had him so long already. He is calming down, right on schedule, and is now much more the dog we wanted when we got him as a teenager. Poor thing has an ear infection, though we went to the vet on Tuesday, and he has his meds, so is on the mend.

That’s it for now. Sorry I’ve been away so long. I think about blogging, but then it doesn’t happen, and then I think of it less and less. Pathetic, really, but I don’t want to give it up entirely, either. I suspect most of you know exactly what I am talking about.