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While home for the holidays, dad and I ventured through some ol’ family photos as we consumed copious amounts of cinnamon-topped coffee. Here’s a fun photo of me & mom ~ as the reigning crown-winners (not kidding!) and title-holders (yes!) of California State Miss La Petite and California State Mrs (the only mother/daughter duo to have done so ~ big time!), we were asked to come back and perform the next year. What glamorous number did we perform?
Well, leave it to mom and I and how seriously we took the whole pageant thing, we performed “We’re A Couple Of Swells.” One of my favorite performances ever. I *heart* my mom.
And here’s the number as performed by Fred Astaire and Judy Garland to give you an idea of the actual song.
I’m not entirely sure what the Halloween plans are going to be– Halloween in the city or the small town? It should be said that I LOVE holidays. Adore them. I grew up with a mother who would give all of us cards at St. Patrick’s day, pull out all things patriotic on the Fourth of July, etc., etc., and her love of holiday celebration has definitely been inherited by yours truly.
So when mom and I were on the phone recently, she said to me “Well, I better go. Need to research zombies. Have a great evening!” I learned of her and my stepdad’s plans to be zombies at the hometown haunted house this year.
“Want to come be a zombie with us?” She asked.
Um…. Uh….
Well, if zombies wear shoes like this… I’m totally in.
(Thanks Notcouture.com!)
Dear Winter,
After 1. Numerous Venti Chai Tea Lattes from Starbucks 2. Trudging through a rain and wind storm carrying a heavy computer bag, a large box (bound for post office), and an umbrella (that tried to blow away) 3. Walking through my neighborhood that has golden and rusty red (wet) leaves on the sidewalk and Halloween decorations on stoops and in windows, and 4. Seeing this terrific illustration on SnuggleMuffin’s site…
Skating from http://snugglemuffin.vox.com/
I’m ready for you.
Don’t get me wrong… I’m officially excited it’s autumn, and I have nothing against it. In fact I quite love the autumn season: It smells good, the air starts to get cool, colors in nature get saturated and lovely, what’s old falls away and makes room for the new and exciting. Autumn’s great.
But I’m officially ready to have autumn usher you in, dear winter.
Bring on the snow! and hot cocoa! and cozy fires! and Christmas trees! and twinkle lights! and snowball fights! and…okay, you get the idea.
Hot Chocolate from http://snugglemuffin.vox.com/
I look forward to seeing you again, ol’ friend.
xo
Uptown Small Town
Previously I’ve mentioned that there is allegedly a dog in my hometown that plays an accordion. And allegedly this dog plays to a crowd on Saturday nights.
And last weekend… I saw him.
And it was fantastic.
Went to dinner at Sierra Sky Ranch which is rustic, notoriously haunted, features the head of a moose mounted on the wall which over-sees the dining room, and where we spotted a Real Cowboy dressed in black cowboy gear complete with spurs. SPURS, people. Spurs at dinner. (Pretty sure this was a real person rather than a ghost of some sort but one never knows…) (Do ghosts wear spurs?) (I was sort of expecting a wild west sort of shoot-out but unfortunately for my imagination that didn’t happen.)
Anyway, this is also where a band plays every weekend and features… a dog who plays the accordion.
At first he didn’t cooperate. See the cowboy (of the non-spur wearing variety) trying to get the little guy going? (I couldn’t resist capturing this on my camera-phone.)
Then he got into it (the dog…well, the cowboy too). He basically takes the rope that is connected to the accordion and pulls the rope with his teeth. Then the band plays with the beat set by the dog.
No joke. See?
So there we have it. Reason number 4,542,392 of why I love my hometown.
All of my grandparents passed while I was a child so, as I got older, I sort of just “adopted” new family members. Two people in particular, Jack and Jane (yes, those are their real names!), became my grandparents ~ not by blood, but by love.
Grandma Jane was a fairly prominent artist ~ she was the Artist in Residence in Yosemite, she was featured on The Today Show, etc., and when she died, Grandpa Jack invited my mom and I over to go through her paintings and pick one out. (!!!)
It was… one of those experiences I will never forget. It was like opening a book to someone’s visions and dreams, sitting on the floor with complete awe and wonderment propelling me through painting after painting after painting. Though I’d known Jane since I was a small child, I knew her better that day. And I loved her all over again.
The painting I chose is actually unfinished. She died before finishing it… but to me, it’s perfect.
It hangs in my bedroom and every night before falling asleep and every morning when the sun starts to stream in through my windows, I peek at it. And dream in it.
(Please forgive the picture of a painting!)
It’s no small wonder that I would choose the French Riviera to visit for vacation ~ I was craving what the painting was providing. Color and contrast and texture and light and shadow and history and calm confidence.
And on my first full day in France, I made it my mission to get absorbed into the feelings and rhythms ~ to find the color and contrast and texture and light and shadow and history and calm confidence of the Mediterranean city.
And find it, I did.
Though I’m not really a “leave something unfinished” sort of person (generally speaking…that’s not to say I don’t have ten books started and discarded for another day), I find beauty every day in what Grandma Jane left unfinished ~ it’s a painterly sort of unfinished. And her gift could never have been more complete.
Bon Voyage, my friends. I’m jetting off to the sea and the sunshine that I dream of… as depicted in this drawing I discovered in my notebook at work (thanks to LB). 
Is it possible to have pre-travel jet lag? If so, I think I may have it… I’m currently in search of a few travel odds & ends and Google is telling me to go here:
A luggage store that doesn’t sell luggage or travel goods of any kind. Gah! Way to make a (soon-to-be / somewhat spontaneous) traveler feel (even more) wonkey!
But like any good pre (or post) jet lagged explorer, I paused to investigate that which I’d stumbled upon. Apparently this Luggage Store (that doesn’t sell luggage) is an arts organization with the mission to “amplify the voices of the region’s diverse artists and residents, to promote inclusion and respect, to reduce inter-group tensions and to work towards dispelling the stereotypes and fears that continue to separate us.” Terrific!
Here are some of the featured works:
More of the Luggage Store works can be seen here.
So while it may have led to a dead-end, it was a nice little side-trip.
Cheers!
“What he needed, Arnaud often told himself, was a wife.
He had one in early August, unfortunately not his own.”
Hahah. That is my favorite line, thus far, in the book Encore Provence by Peter Mayle. In preparation for my first “real” vacation in a ridiculously long-stretching dusty dry path of two years, today I purchased the book about the South of France as I’ve spontaneously decided that I am going to the South of France to explore my lil’ petite self along the Cote d’Azur. Tres enthousiaste!
My morning preparatory measures involved three missions:
1. Purchase homeopathic remedy to combat jet lag.
This morning I received a call from a family friend/hair stylist in my hometown.
She said: Hi honey! I’m here with your mom, doing her hair, and she told me about your trip to France– so excited for you! Now, you must go get this homeopathic remedy so you don’t get jet lag or it will ruin your whole trip.
I said: Oh, wow, thank you! I hadn’t actually thought of that…
She said: Well, do you have time today to find some? If you don’t find any, let me know, I have some and I’ll overnight it to you on Monday.
I said: Yeah, this is San Francisco. I don’t see it being any trouble at all locating homeopathic remedies.
She said: Okay great! Well, have fun and we love you!
I have a ridiculous love for conversations like this ~ homegrown love from the hometown. Nothing beats it.
(Remedy found at WholeFoods!)
2. Travel Guide + French book to provide path for the feeling of France to awaken within me.
It’s not hard for me to connect with the feeling of France. I do have some French ancestral roots in me and quite a few times it’s been assumed that I’m French… by fellow Americans. (a bit odd but it makes me smile every time.) Anyway, I wanted to read some sort of travel memoir about France to provide proper mood alignment. Sound weird? Maybe. I actually did this with New York too. One day I read the book The Devil Wears Prada (not my usual sort of book but entertaining nonetheless) and within 4 weeks I was living in NY without having had any real previous conscious thought about moving there.) (I’ll send postcards if I decide to move to France while there– promesse!)
Also purchased travel guide and pocket translator — essential dining translations necessary to avoid such things as duck meat cooked in flaky butter pastry. (Leave the flaky butter pastry, s’il vous plaît, remove the duck.)
3. Première Passe packing
This first pass at the packing thing involves:
~ Drag sun dresses out from back of San Francisco closet.
~ Decide that packing for the French Riviera is fantastique. Love one-dress-wonder packing.
~ Try on bikini and determine that… good lord almighty. I clearly work indoors for entirely too many hours a day. Any tan gleaned from the 4th of July has disparaitre. Oh well. C’est la vie!
So, now I return to my preparations for spontaneity… South of France, here I come mon amour.
As my imagination has me sitting poolside in a chaise lounger sipping some sort of summer concoction, I take a moment to investigate the autumn couture collections (*gasp* please let it be summer for a while longer…).
Dear Valentino: please have this divinely dramatic piece of outerwear sent to me tout d’suite!
Merci!
xx
Exit imagination… (*sigh*)
I may be over-thinking this whole idea of a vacation but I’ve become curious about something… how do people decide on where they vacation? What drives this decision most of the time?
I would certainly be one to travel for pure curiosity… being the curious sort and all. I have traveled to Paris out of an inherited (from my mom) love of France, I’ve ventured to Scotland due to a simple invitation by a friend, I’ve traveled to Jackson Hole to see family, Seattle because I won a contest, etc., etc. I suppose we choose locations for all different reasons, which, in itself, is quite enjoyable ~ I do love a good story. And this is usually the part of the travel story that gets left out.
Lately I have been wanting to travel to locations to feel in that location. I’m currently quite drawn to Italy ~ Lake Como, Florence, and Tuscany~ and London. I want to feel the earthy, sensual richness that I love about Italy and I want to explore the pointy-tipped proper city of London with that historic British sensibility that is all its own.
I want to vacation. I am in need of vacation. I have taken one vacation day from work in the past year… one. I’m ridiculously overdue. Apparently the word “travel” is derived from the french term travailler ~ to work hard ~ and that term is related to the latin word trepalium ~ a torturing device.
Awesome. No wonder people feel they need a vacation from their vacation.
So, I will continue to torture myself by dreaming of my next set of travels while I work hard.
Travel story TBD…
Thanks LB for “introducing” me to the delicious art of Tadahiro Uesugi.
