FAMILY (Travel Buffs, Sit This One Out)

I originally started this blog to record our travels, both to share with family and friends, and  to have a record to refresh our failing memories.  This past 18 months or so have seen precious little travel, so the blog has gravitated towards family gatherings and frailties of the body.  Life.  Hopefully, we will return to the road, air, and sea before much longer, but for now it’s family that dominates our days.  Not that we’re complaining.  Far from it.  We are mega-blessed on all fronts when it comes to family, nuclear and extended.

Last weekend we took a trip up to S.F. so that Mom could spend some more time with her newest great-grandchild (if she was visiting my brother’s progeny, she could be seeing her great-great-great-grandchildren!).  She brought up these bunny ears as an early Easter prop.  Isla here is 10 weeks old and has everybody wrapped around her finger. 

We had an uneventful drive up the I-5, made a LOT easier by an audio book we were listening to, “Extremely Loud And Incredibly Close,” by Jonathan Safran Foer.  They made a movie out of this, which we haven’t seen, that I’d like to view if only to see what they cut out.  The book is told from multiple points of view, and it’s sometimes hard to figure out what time frame you’re in or exactly who is speaking.  Nonetheless, we became riveted by the story and it made the miles fly by.  It was over nine hours of narration, so it lasted for both the north and southbound legs.  I usually keep the V at 71mph, which is barely fast enough to pass the (speeding) trucks, but slow enough to be passed by virtually everyone else.  Is 80 the new 70?  With an hour+ stop each way at Harris Ranch for lunch, and one or two bathroom breaks, our total trip time is pretty reliably about 7.5 hours.  At that speed, with three adults and more luggage than necessary, we’re getting just over 41mpg.  Decent, but not spectacular.

On Saturday, we had a great day out, meeting  Alia’s parents, Bill and Lynne, for lunch down in Menlo Park at the Allied Arts Guild retreat.  We’d never heard of this place before, but it’s been around since 1929.  It was started as an artist’s colony where they lived and worked, but has morphed over the decades to become more of an event venue, with a collection of shops that retail local artists’ works, a restaurant, ball room, and beautiful grounds.  This used to be Alia’s grandmama’s favorite hangout for many decades.  In fact, her mom first came here as a fetus!  That’s Bill holding Isla, and Lynne to Loni’s right.

Hard to imagine this place being around that long, and so close to Stanford, but we were totally unaware of it.  After lunch we strolled the grounds, visited the shops, and watched one lone artist at work.  I was surprised to see these trees in full blossom so early in the year.  Maybe it’s the drought.  There were lots of rose bushes planted with little identification signs (at right of path in the picture below), but they are all severely pruned at this time.  I bet they’re gorgeous come spring and summer.

After the Guild, we headed a couple of miles south to Stanford to visit the Cantor Arts Center.  We’ve visited here a number of times, but there’s always stuff we’ve never seen.  They have a brilliant collection of Rodin sculptures, including one of only seven full-size castings in the world of his “Gates of Hell.”

We dropped in on a tour of the place and overheard the guide say that “The Thinker” was supposed to be deaf and dumb, as a small version of it sits atop the “Gates” supposedly contemplating the chaos of the underworld below.  Works for me. 

To the rear of the center, there’s a massive metal installation that we all walked through.  Inside the center there was a video showing how they put it in place (with massive cranes, in sections).  Noooo, Mom, don’t go to the light!  It’s too soon!

Since we seldom all get together like this, we took a family shot on the steps near the “Gates” (a snippit is behind John at the right).

Sunday we went to see “The Monuments Men,” a good, but not great movie.  I’ve just finished the book, and they took quite a few liberties in the movie to give it more drama. The basic story is there, but don’t rely on it for the details.  Afterwards, it was time for Oma to help give her first bath to Isla.  There are a lot of new gadgets and gizmos for raising kids these days, but this foam bather is brilliant.  Wish we’d had something like that for the boyos.  They had to make do with the cold, stainless steel sink!

 

Family.  Nothing better.

THE ILLUSTRATED MAN

No, I haven’t gone the tattoo route.  It’s all washable.  I finally got to the skin-testing phase in this very long saga of sinusitis and respiratory problems.  My back became a Mark-a-lot canvas, and then they applied the test allergens by pin-pricking each one four or five times in a little circle next to the appropriate number.  It felt like a school of sea urchins had taken up residence on my posterior.

I had to lie there for twenty minutes while the nasties did their thing. The biggest reaction turned out to be to dust & dust mites, with lesser but significant responses to molds, grasses, and, of all things, sycamores!  That one is hard to figure.  We’ve lived for forty years in the same house on a street lined with (now) 90-year-old sycamores with no problems.  So, why now?  Given the severity of my sinus and respiratory problems, I think my doc was a little disappointed that there wasn’t something more specific that I would react to in a big way.

So, the next step is to start six months or so of desensitization shots to see if the problems fade away.  That again cramps our spring and summer travel plans, but a small price if something actually works.

BAD JON, BAD

It’s not news that the midwest and east coasts are suffering through probably the worst winter in twenty years.  Indy is certainly getting its licks, and my brother has said he has about had it with the freezing temps and the snow.  Indy traditionally is in the “doughnut hole” snow-wise, with most of it going north or south.  Not this year.  His snow blower has been getting a workout.

Of course, we are enjoying above-average temps to go along with our drought, and Mom is very, very happy to be spending this winter out here with us in LaLaLand.  Naturally, I succumbed to my baser instincts, and sent my sibs and Mom’s friends a little postcard on a day when the temps barely rose above zero back there.

Bad, Jon, Bad!  (But isn’t Loni’s garden looking great!?!)

IN THE MOOD

While Mom is out visiting, we’re trying to do a few things to get her out of the house.  This past Saturday, we came up with a beaut.  As some may recall, Mom (almost 91 now) is a proud WWII vet of the Waves, and was in her late teens and early twenties through the ‘40s, so the music of that era his “her” music.  I grew up with a couple of “big band” LPs in the house, so I like the music a lot as well.  Using Goldstar, I got some reduced-price tickets (still $$$) which turned out to be great seats:  3rd row center. The performers were virtually on top of us, so it made for great viewing for us all.  This performance was at Cal State Northridge’s performing arts center, a quite nice hall that we’d be happy to go back to for future productions.  As you can see by the picture, we got here early to avoid the mob scene.  By showtime, the hall was full.  While they were outside waiting for me to come back from parking, Mom eyed the crowd filing in and told Loni:  “See, I told you it would be a bunch of old people!”  Well, Ma, duh.  It might have been geriatric, but the crowd was enthusiastic.

This show has been touring for twenty years(!)  Some of the musicians, as well as the band leader, would appear to have been around the whole time.  But they had chops!  The band is called “String Of Pearls” after the 1941 Glen Miller song, and consisted of four woodwinds (alternating sax’s and clarinets), three trombones, three trumpets, a standup bass, drums, and the leader on the grand piano, fronted by six singer-dancers.  The show lasted about 2 1/2 hours, including an intermission, and we got plenty of music for our money.  Unfortunately, they didn’t permit photography of any sort, and given our front-of-house seats, I couldn’t sneak any shots, so the below is a collage of shots from the web, but same as we saw.

Towards the end of the set, they did a number of WWII songs like “Boogie Woogie Bugle Boy” and honored the vets in the audience by having them stand up as the band played each service branch’s song.  When “Anchors Aweigh” started up, good old Mom hoisted herself out of her seat!  I suspect she might have been the oldest vet there.  So, if swing is your thing, check out the schedule for In The Mood.