Well, he didn’t quite come to visit – he flew into our sliding glass patio door (like so many birds have done) and was stunned for a short while. Isn’t he a pretty little bird?
Mike put him in the garden room to recover and a minute later he was winging his way back to his family and friends. Surprised that we didn’t keep him? The thought DID cross my mind!
You have to love a place where it’s 79 degrees on March 1st.
I spent quite a while outside soaking up some vitamin D, watching the birds that inhabit our back yard flitting about (if you look very hard, you can see a few birds in the rose bushes below) and enjoying our whirlygig sprinkler as it sparkled and danced in the sun.
Kono got to go out, too, for some warm, fresh air and conversations with his friends.
We’ve got a few more days like this one ahead and we’ll be out there enjoying them all.
We ushered 2012 out with a spontaneous trip to the beautiful Colorado Street Bridge in Pasadena on December 30.
When we arrived in Pasadena we were met with preparations for the Rose Parade.
I hadn’t even thought about the bridge being so close to the parade route, so it was an exciting bonus to see the grandstands being erected.
Media booths were ready for the big day.
And old cars were arriving to tour the area.
2012 was going out in style.
Then! 2013 began with a big shock for me. I was laid off from my job of 12 years! I didn’t see that one coming. Fortunately, I was planning on retiring in April anyway, so being unemployed isn’t a bad thing at all, just started a little sooner than I intended. I’m taking this opportunity to look for another job, though. I don’t mind starting to work on my Things To Do When I Retire list a few months earlier than planned, but new jobs can be fun – and our plan included at least three more months of income from work – so I’ll see what I can find.
The brightest spot in all this is that I got to have a great laid-off-in-lieu-of-retirement luncheon with my family (not that we need an excuse, but it makes it more special than just lunch):
Posted in family, February 2013
Tagged Colorado Street Bridge, family, Pasadena, Rose Parade
More photos from our trip to Hawaii ~
Medal of Honor Recipient Herbert K. Pilila’au:
Locals enjoying a picnic at the beach:
While out and about doing errands after voting last Tuesday, Mike noticed what he thought were two planes flying extremely close to each other. But as they turned in what appeared to be perfect tandem, it became clear that it was just one plane… and a very strange looking one at that. It looked like someone had simply hooked two planes together. It was flying over Plant 42, and we were about two miles away, so we did the only thing we could do… we put the errands on hold and buzzed over to BJ’s Corner to see what this thing was. We only had to wait a few minutes before it came back around and flew over our heads. (The photos were taken with our small Canon, so they aren’t very large or detailed.)
The plane reminded us of the Voyager from years ago, so it’s possible it’s an experimental aircraft.
It kind of looks like two planes holding hands.
After the flyby, we buzzed home and got the big Canon with the wonderful new zoom lens and hurried back to BJ’s Corner. Mike kept a lookout with his binoculars for several minutes hoping the plane would make another round, but it never did. I guess we were lucky we saw it when we did and had our little camera with us to get these photos.
So there's a proposition — Proposition 37 — on the ballot in California that would make the state the first in the nation to require the labeling of food products containing genetically modified organisms (GMOs). When you turn on the TV here in the Golden State, you'd think these extra few words on our instant coffee, granola, canned soup, or soy milk containers are going to bankrupt poor food producers and send millions of people into instant poverty.
Posted in Uncategorized
This is one of multiple posts of our trip to Oahu, Hawaii October 20-22, 2012.
There aren’t many photos that I can post that haven’t been taken millions of times by millions of other folks, but these photos are special because they were taken by me and Mike (mostly Mike).
First of all, the view from our room at the Ala Moana Hotel:
I was so happy to be back in Hawaii that I didn’t even notice the dark clouds until I saw the photos.
How about some palm trees swaying in the breeze? Here you go…
A rainbow greeted us on our first day there.
And then a little later (drum roll, please)…
A double rainbow!
Now, photos in no particular order.
Have you ever thought that one day someone might stop you on the street (or in a store) and ask if you have a website or a blog because they think they recognize you? Yeah, me neither. But it happened. In a local store. And it blew me and Mike away.
We were out grocery shopping when a man stopped Mike and asked if he had a website that had something about Pancho Barnes on it (not exact words… those were lost in all the excitement). I was on the next aisle over so Mike called me over to talk to the man. As he started to introduce himself I knew exactly who he was as soon as he said his first name. Les! The man who had commented on my blog post about Pancho Barnes to let me know that his brother had worked for her! Wow! This was beyond belief! I was amazed! We were all amazed! (Yes, all those exclamation points are necessary.) The day went from an ordinary one to something that could only happen in a movie.
Les has a photographic memory and recognized Mike from the photos I’ve posted on the blog. There were lots of hugs and handshakes all around and exclamations of disbelief that this could happen. It made our day. No, our week. Heck, it made our whole month.
Photos were in order, right there in the middle of Wal-Mart, at this awesome meeting. Good thing I always have my little pocket-sized Canon with me.
We’ll be having lunch someday soon with Les and his brother, Larry, so we can hear (and record) stories about Pancho. We can’t wait! This is SO exciting!
I wonder if something like this has happened to other bloggers.
Women for Afghan Women’s Children’s Support Center (CSC), located in Kabul, was founded in 2009 to support underserved children, most of whom were previously living under harsh conditions within Afghan prisons.* The Kabul branch is one of three funded and operated by WAW (the other two centers are located in Mazar and Kunduz), and is presently the only operation of its kind in Afghanistan.
