Category: United States

Loren and I were in Lodi for their Sand Hill Crane Festival at the start of this week. We took in 3 tours and the festival dinner while we were there. 

  

Our friends who had moved to Valley Springs a few years ago came to meet us for the one Fly-In tour and the festival dinner. Sadly, because we were booked for the dinner we had to leave the viewing site – with a beautiful sunset over Mt Diablo in the distance – early, so we only saw a few groups, families, pairs or individuals fly in for their roost. It was still impressive. We learned that cranes roost in shallow water overnight because the water allows them to hear predators – like coyote. If they try to roost in deeper water however, they are unable to push off for flight. When they do fly in, the sight is accompanied by the sounds of their purring sort of call, and sometimes they spread their seven-foot wide wingspan after they land, which to see seems like they are yawning.

 

We also were able to see egrets, herons, and hawks, among other flocks of birds.

The dinner included a talk and slideshow from an expert on Sand Hill Cranes and a silent auction of items of interest to bird lovers. We were reminded of details we knew of cranes, and we learned more. For example there are 15 species worldwide, with 11 of them endangered. As for the Sand Hill Crane, theirs is the longest migration with up to 6,000 miles from Siberia to Mexico. There are 3 subspecies: the Greater at 5 feet tall, the Canadian, and the Lesser at 4 feet tall. The way to tell Lesser from Greater is the length of their bill in relation to their head which is 50-50 or 33-66, respectively. The difference in Canadian cranes is much more subtle, which I will leave to the experts. Then there are 3 groups which do not migrate at all, and these are found in Cuba, Florida and Mississippi.

Loren and I also took a 6am Tour with another expert to see the cranes awaken and lift off from their roost to go to their feeding grounds. I took a photo through his telescope for a shadowy up close image of one crane’s neck and head at dawn. Our last tour was in the afternoon. We stopped at a few different viewing spots, and learned how the cranes’ daily pattern is to roost, feed, socialize, feed, and roost again. An interesting behavior is that they are makeup masters – using mud to stain their gray feathers to brown with mud using their bills. Theories abound as to why – as if for camouflage to insect repellent, but the feathers remain brown until the bird molts the following year. The tour included another chance to see a fly-in, however, our leaders had chosen a viewing spot that had no crane action at all. So, seeing a massive crane fly-in is still on my bucket list… 

I also had a wonderful hike this week at Lake Chabot with a dear colleague and a friend of hers, where again I neglected to take a photo, while Loren was with his Mom. Then Loren and I saw them at the same restaurant where we had a nice dinner out with friends of Loren’s since elementary and high school with their wives and Loren’s godson, son of one of the friends. You can see we then went on for desert at the local ice cream parlor….

We also had a lovely lunch gathering this week with friends from our UU congregation. One of them is an outstanding pianist, the other an outstanding artist and one of her newer designs from Colorado was enrapturing. 

Loren and I spent the night in our van at a county park up in the East Bay foothills where the views by night and day were outstanding. It was interesting to see these views at the time we were listening to Paul Coelho’s The Alchemist on audio book in our car, hearing of “The Boy” – the protagonist’s – ventures into and around the desert by night and day…

Then we took the next day to do more yard work at our house in San Jose. I was able to capture a couple of before pictures – can you make out Loren waving from above a jungle of wisteria? But I could not capture an after photo because we had run out of daylight as we were finishing up our work. I can attest that our work created a much more manicured look to the back yard trees and shrubs.

 

Now we are packing up our bedroom, preparing to leave our AirBnB to spend time  visiting with family and friends in New York, Pennsylvania and New England over the upcoming three weeks.

This week Loren and I enjoyed several fun visits with family and friends. At the beginning of the week we shared our weekly dinner with Loren’s Mom and sister. We had another dinner with Loren’s Mom while his sister had dinner out with her friends. And, we enjoyed scrumptious homemade lemon bars with a dear friend over an evening spent together. While not a visit, attending to voting by mail took up a good part of one afternoon…

 

Then Loren and I were off for another stay at Clear Lake. On our way, we stopped to see the Charles Schulz Museum in Santa Rosa.

We spent a good 4 hours there, reminiscing over and discovering more of the Peanuts’ style that was currently on display. Schulz was so good at capturing the range of human emotion – sad-mad-bad-glad, in elegant, simple lines.

   

The cartoons are beloved because, as one museum written comment offered, it is the combination of “humor and melancholy” portrayed in such a way that our human condition is shown with timeless celebration and satire…

   

In addition, to paraphrase Schulz himself from one of the films we saw in the museum’s theatre of a Charlie Rose interview of him,  the cartoons are pleasing to the eye and offer good clean fun.

  

Many of his creations even include references to the larger world of music…

 

We then stayed at my friend – the Bikram Yoga studio owner’s – home at Clear Lake. We enjoyed taking a yoga class, and, later catching up with some other good friends who live nearby. A special treat was seeing a yogi friend perform in a memorable rendition of the musical, Oklahoma! We ended our visit to Clear Lake with my teaching a yoga class. 

 

We finished out our week with more lovely visits, first at my cousin’s in Santa Rosa on our way home, then, we had an evening catching up with more dear friends. 

 

I am a day late with this post once again, as it was a full week. The day before we went to Monterey for a special wedding at the beginning of this week, we had gotten our annual flu shots. I was surprised though when I came down with the flu symptoms of achiness and malaise! They lasted about 24 hours, including all the way on the drive. Thankfully Loren drove while I slept, then slept again on arriving at our motel. On awakening to attend the wedding I felt much better. And the wedding was awesome! Enchanting, lovely, memorable. We stayed overnight and enjoyed a delicious brunch with many of the family and friends the next morning. 

 

Another activity this week was spending the afternoon in San Jose. When we discovered the cost to have our front yard mulched, we opted to spread it ourselves. We are proud of our efforts in doing that and some trimming, believing we did a better and more loving job than the paid workers would have…

 

Not only that, we were able to catch up with a few of our delightful neighbors, reminisce over the old meaningful log we lugged with us to this home, marvel at the flourish of a previously planted bush in our yard, enjoy another neighbor’s festive lawn decorations, and, become acquainted with a neighbor’s new cat who has a penchant for climbing a tree beside our front porch.

    

To treat ourselves, and as well as to avoid the commuter traffic on the way home, we stopped for our favorite burgers at MoJo’s, then went to see A Star is Born. Both of us can highly recommend it. Loren’s comment after the movie was that there was not a dull moment. A young man in the lingering audience heard him and seconded his opinion. 

 

Then we had a few fun days spent with a dear colleague and her husband who have relocated near Sacramento. It was nice to catch up with one of their daughters and her family who have moved nearby too. We all enjoyed their dog and cat. We also spent a beautiful fall day together visiting Apple Hill, an association of farms featuring – of course – apples, as well as pumpkins, wines, other fruits, related fruit products, crafts, and lots of food items to choose from to enjoy for lunch. You could spend hours, maybe days poking around here.

   
On leaving Sacramento, we returned to the south bay to attend a memorial service for a special member of our UU congregation. Our minister invited me with a couple of other congregants to offer a prepared remembrance, which was meaningful to do. That evening we enjoyed dinner with a couple from our congregation, one of whom has become quite the accomplished artist in her retirement. I always appreciate seeing her work, and this particular image of hers with quote of Epicurus struck me:

     “Not what we have but what we enjoy constitutes our abundance.”

Towards the end of the evening their more grownup daughter returned from a track event for more of a catchup. 

Then my brother and his wife sent photos of their visit to their younger daughter’s college football game that they attended. Otherwise, the local Bikram Yoga studio now has me on a weekly schedule of teaching the 6am and 7:45am classes once a week, which I am totally enjoying. On the same day each week, I have a routine of attending a Shakespearean Cultural class at a local community center, and, making dinner for Loren, his Mom, one sister and myself to share.

  

Loren and I hope you too are enjoying your days this fall!

Dear Friends and Family, we so appreciate you following along and reaching out to us recently as well as during the 4 and a half years that we have kept up this blog. It is still, as always, wonderful to hear from you!

To start off this week, while Loren was with his Mom I went to First Unitarian Church of Oakland with a Bikram Yoga instructor friend who has been staying in California for a few months now. It reminded me of how I met her at my Bikram Yoga Teacher Training. She was a friend of a classmate of mine, visiting our training, and the three of us went to see Paramahansa Yogananda’s Self Realization Fellowship Lake Shrine Temple. Not only was Yogananda a spiritual superstar, he was an older brother to Bikram’s guru – Bishnu Charan Ghosh. Anyway, we three had a nice day seeing the temple, the lake and gorgeously landscaped grounds, then having lunch together. This week, it was just the two of us who enjoyed the UU service, then we had a picnic lunch in the park next door. 

It appeared our week would include rain, beginning with this colorful sunrise one day, however the desperately needed moisture that came was just a tease of rainfall…

On my way to nearly daily yoga classes, I sometimes see some interesting things, and I am always delighted when the horses along my route are near the road. This week though my sights also included a rather bizarre scene from a crashed vehicle… I believe that no one was injured. 

  

This week too, fun fall activities abound. Are you watching some of the postseason Major League Baseball games too? This week we saw our Oakland A’s lose in their wildcard game to the New York Yankees, then saw the Yankees split 1 game each with Boston’s Red Sox for their best of 5 series.

Fun fall sights and tastes abound too, from Halloween decorations that are popping up in the neighborhoods,

and Loren’s and my homemade crumb pies – that we made with apples from a tree that he has cultivated from when he was a teenager that began as a mere sapling, sprouting amongst the ivy in his parents’ front yard,

 

to the delightful cats of a dear friend who I was able to have dinner with this week. Her kitties from the same litter are smartly named Pumpkin and Spice, which are even more precious at this time of the year.

 

Then, Loren and I took a day outing to pick up a pumpkin and walk along the beach at the Pacific coast, something we have tried to do most years as the anniversary of our first date, which was 29 years ago now. On our way there we drove over the 7 mile San Mateo Bridge, and witnessed the coastal fog lifting over San Francisco in the distance.

 

As he often does, Loren spotted a heron as we approached the lagoon at San Gregorio beach. I am always fascinated by herons! Our arrival timing to the beach was just as the fog was lifting here too, providing for a beautiful day after nearly a week of clouds overhead. 

  

We continued up the coast by car, and I had to stop to take a photo of the largest cluster of Naked Ladies in full bloom that I have ever seen. 

Loren and I also stopped for lunch at a restaurant with an ocean view. The water was just shimmering in the afternoon sunlight. Afterwards as we drove “home” to the East Bay by way of San Francisco, we just missed seeing the US Navy Blue Angels at Fleet Week. All we found in the sky were fading gray trails from what must have been the final act of their show. I remember seeing them practicing overhead years ago when we had lived in Sunnyvale – their tight flying formations are just incredible. 

 

To finish I will include an inspiring quote from an email byline that came through my inbox this week:

   “Stars only shine in darkness. If I am a Star, I’ll stop complaining about the darkness.
    Learning to shine.”

May we never stop learning! Oh, and in addition to a small pumpkin, I picked up a few gourds and ears of Indian corn to decorate the table outside our sliding glass door at our AirBnB… 

We started this week with a barbecue to celebrate Loren’s and his sister’s birthdays at his Mom’s house. We finished dinner with a chocolate cake with candles.

 

Loren has been enjoying the one teen boy at our AirBnB, he and his Mom are also long term guests in the house. He challenged Loren this week to their second battle in a game of Nerf gun war. Can you see their white styrofoam “bases” – what I call targets, on the driveway?

 

Last week I taught 8 Bikram Yoga classes with the long Labor Day weekend, this week I taught 3 more… I am really enjoying the teaching, as well as taking several classes a week myself.

Now Loren and I are at the start of a week’s getaway. Loren’s sister who lives with their Mom has gone off for a week to celebrate her birthday, and their Mom is staying the week with their other sister. Our first stop was in Berkeley – the once famously named Berserkely. We drove along Piedmont Avenue – a coincidence in name to the neighborhood in Oakland where Loren’s Mom was raised as well as theAnglicized name of the region in Italy where her grandparents were from. We soon stopped at the University of California to see Sather Tower. Its campanille is the third-tallest bell and clock-tower in the world.

 

We went to the top for the views of the Berkeley Hills, Oakland, and in the distance San Francisco.

 

The elevator operator mentioned on our way up that someone informed her that there was a fallstreak hole phenomenon happening today with recent formation of clouds overhead. We saw it clearly, both in the photo I had taken of Loren as we arrived and again from the top of the tower. 

 

Our timing was perfect as the carillon only plays three times a day, one being at noon. So we went back to our car and drove closer to hear the player perform three pieces after the clock rang out noon. Then we made it in time for our 12:30 lunch reservation at Chez Panisse, also in Berkeley near the campus. Seeing the Bell Tower and eating at Chez Panisse have been on my wish list for probably 25 years. and I am grateful that we could experience these both this week.

Now we are in Santa Rosa, making our way to a friend’s home for lunch…

We hope you had a nice Labor Day weekend, a good time to get together with friends and family. For us, this was another good week of meeting up with special people.

I enjoyed a lunch date and a good walk afterwards with a dear friend on one of the days that Loren was with his Mom. Sadly I did not think to take a photo to share. I am looking forward to also visiting with Loren with her and her husband in their new home soon.

The next day Loren and I drove to the south bay at 5am to avoid the traffic. We hung out in a coffee shop to pass the time, where one of Loren’s good friends met up with us for a visit. Alas, again I forgot to snap a photo. Then Loren and I met with our property manager, who is transitioning his business to a new property manager. It was a good meeting and we are grateful that the business relationship between the two men will continue in a modified form for the foreseeable future. 

A highlight this week included Loren’s birthday. On the exact day we celebrated twice with friends. First over lunch at Google where one of friends from our home UU congregation works. 

   

And after lunch we enjoyed a walking tour of the Googleplex campus, where Loren especially enjoyed the Games room.

  

In the evening we enjoyed a dinner date and celebrated Loren’s birthday with more friends. We enjoyed talking about travels with their daughter and her boyfriend who are also enjoying some traveling right now. 

On another morning we had our last scheduled appointments with the acupuncturist in Palo Alto this week. When we have gone across the bay for these appointments, we have left home by 5am to avoid the heavy traffic. Near his office is a coffee shop that opens at 5:30am. I developed a habit to pick up the newspaper and have enjoyed usually solving the embedded word and numbers puzzles.

 

Afterwards we enjoyed another lunch datewith more friends from UUFS, and this time I remembered to take a photo!

We finished this week with a memorable evening of visiting with Loren’s godson. We walked the partly steep trail down to a sushi restaurant in his nearby downtown neighborhood and after returning uphill from dinner, he and Loren enjoyed a soak in his hot tub. I begged off as it seemed to be extra hot water, so I enjoyed playing with our godson’s fun cat. 

Tonight we will be celebrating Loren’s and his sister’s birthdays with their Mom…