To The Lurkers

Yes, you, I know you’re out there.

This is your chance. Speak up, and tell me about yourself.

Why am I doing this? I know I have some lurking readers. We’re going to be in the SF Bay area and Sacramento area next month, and we love to meet new folks. So, if you speak up, I can take a look at your journal (hopefully I can read it), and if my “this is a neat person” sensor lights, you can get added in and participate in the planning.

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Musings on: Vacation, Heating, and Bat Mitzvahs

  • We’ve now picked the time for our vacation. The plans are to leave Sunday, August 13 for Northern California (we’re driving). Monday and Tuesday I likely have testing in Foster City (yeah! chargable hours!) while my wife and daughter bum around. We plan on visiting friends (and that includes you, my LJ friends) in the greater San Francisco/San Jose/Oakland and Davis/Sacramento areas until Friday, August 25, when we drive back to Los Angeles. The interstitial weekend, August 19/20, we hope to spend in the Sacramento area, visiting our dear friend Rabbi Sheryl Nosan-Blank, spiritual leader of Or Rishon in Orangevale. Of course, during this time, we would love to visit with all of the folks on our friends lists in the area for conversation, games, and just plain socializing.
  • It’s hot. Part of the problem is that they didn’t finish the HVAC work yesterday. They only connected the ducting to two of the bedrooms, and then the thermostat got wedged (I think it is failing) so that the A/C didn’t kick on. Luckily, we have ceiling fans in most rooms. Yet, it is still 80° in the house this morning. I’ve opened all the windows before it heats up–they predict a high of 91°F today, and 94°F tomorrow.
  • Last night, I had Mozilla lose my profile. Luckily, I was able to recover it, but it still was a royal pain. Have other folks had Mozilla randomly lose its profile upon startup?
  • Last night, we had our second B’nai Mitzvah Parents meeting. Quite interesting, especially when Cantor Alan brought one of the moms to the bima to demonstrate a point. She seems like a real nice lady. We got to write blessings for our children. The kids made yads while we met with the Cantor. Afterwards, I asked my daughter how long a yad was? She didn’t know, so I told her: 36 inches.

And now to clean off my desk so I can work. I’m working from home today, because my sister-in-law and her family are coming over at 4:00pm to visit.

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The Quiet of ‘Morn

 
As I sit here in the quiet of morn, a few observations. Last night was noisy—evidently Small and Feisty didn’t get enough sleep during the first two days of “the run”, and decided to take it out on us last night. I was exhausted from cleaning up the glass from the broken shower door, and my wife was exhausted from driving. So a “coyote girl” was the last thing we needed. The screaming started when my wife wanted to watch While You Were Out, and I wanted to watch (get this) Abbott and Constello Meet the Mummy. S&F wanted to watch Full House. I don’t know about you, but I’ll take Abbott and Costello over the Olsen twins any day. Well, she didn’t get her way and… 1… 2… 3… meltdown! But she went to bed (melatonin is a wonderful thing).

I mentioned “the run” before. No, this isn’t grunion, but quilters. You see, quilters have this strange obsession with visiting quilt stores. Often, they do it individually, but occasionally, they “run”. The Quilters Run, in this case, is a four-day attempt to visit 20 quilt stores spread over Southern California, from Palm Springs to the East, Newbury Park to the West, El Cajon to the South, and Santa Clarita to the North. Over Thursday and Friday, my wife and daughter hit many of the stores to the East and South (San Gabriel, Montclair, La Habra, Anaheim, Yorba Linda, Orange, Mission Viejo, Oceanside, Carlsbad, El Cajon, Poway, Temecula, Palm Springs, and Calimesa). This weekend (around other things), my wife and her crew (which is being augmented by ixixlix, ellipticcurve, and the Karate Kid) will be hitting the remaining stores. I still don’t understand this, as my wife has only made one quilt (yet, she says), and the sewing room is overflowing.

In the middle of the run, we’re all getting together to go see West Side Story at the Cabrillo Music Theatre in Thousand Oaks. This I understand. Cabrillo, for a community group, does excellent and affordable productions. I get balcony tickets for my family, which run $99 for 3 shows for 3 people: you can’t beat that. This year, the season was The Scarlet Pimpernel, Ragtime, and West Side Story. Next year, it is Annie, Annie Get Your Gun, and The Wizard of Oz. I think it is so important to expose children to live theatre… and West Side Story in an excellent show.

So, I’ll have this morning and tomorrow morning to myself. Part of the time will be spent packing, as we go on vacation Tuesday. I’m really looking forward to the vacation. We’re going to St. Louis, where I haven’t been since 1987. We’ll be visiting with some long time family friends, and S&F will get to meet the only relative left (other than me) that I know of in my mother’s family. There’s loads to see and do there—they have a great Museum of Transportation, the Arch, everything in Forest Park [zoo, planetarium, “jewel box”, botanical gardens, the 1904 exposition centennial, the Muny Opera (we’re seeing Guys and Dolls, etc.], St. Charles, St. Louis Union Station, Grants Farm, the A-B Brewery Tour, and loads more. So I’ve got to start getting everything together.

Well, the alarm for the rest of the family should be going off shortly, so I’ll finish this off.

[Explanation of “What I’m Listening To”: We live under the radio towers for what used to be KGIL 1260AM. They are now 1260 KSUR and play easy listening standards, and they come through my computer speakers when something doesn’t overpower them. So it has been Frank Sinatra this morning. Not a bad thing.]

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