A Getty Weekend: Part 1

After all our traveling during the Christmas and New Year holidays, I wasn't ready to spend another night away from home. So rather than follow our mutual birthday gift tradition, we stayed home for my birthday weekend - sort of. Since I have Fridays off, I drove down to Malibu for a wonderful, solitary, and mellow afternoon at the Getty Villa. It wasn't very crowded and it was another one of those warm and clear (Catalina Island was totally visible) SoCal winter days. After parking and walking up the path to the museum, I started my visit with an architecture and garden tour. The docent told us about the Villa dei Papiri in Herculaneum, Italy - the first century Roman country house the museum is modeled after. He did such a good job of describing life on this "working ranch" that I think I was in a timewarped haze the entire afternoon!After my visit, I rendezvoused with Tom and some of his Portola colleagues at Rookies for beer and appetizers - not a bad way to return to 21st century Ventura!
(Once I have edited my pictures, I will activate a link.)

SoCal Spring Has Arrived

Mid-January continues to be the beginning of our spring flowering season. After our big rain, the hills are beginning to turn from brown to green and our flowers are beginning to bloom.This is the first daffodil to bloom in 2008!

3AM moonset

An advantage of falling asleep in front of the TV (and laptop) is waking up at 2:30 and getting to watch the moonset in front of the house. The color was actually this orange tone but by pushing the ISO for a sharper image, I lost the true color and got the color it was when it was higher in the sky.Clear but cold tonight - 43 degrees.

Sweet Home, Redondo Beach

Having grown up in this beach city sixty miles south of where we now live, I still think of this as my hometown and love visiting it often, especially in the winter when most of the tourists are gone. Since I was scheduled to work late, I took half of my workday off and ended up with much of the afternoon off as well. I started the day by leaving Ventura before sunrise to get my hair cut by Kathleen. After that, I wandered around The Pier taking pictures (click on the photos to see the sandpipers, pelicans, and black-crowned night herons better) and enjoying the sunny morning until Tony's Fish Market (AKA "New" Tony's) opened at 11:30.I had a leisurely lunch of smoked salmon chowder, Catalina sanddabs, and linguine with clams - yum! Sitting by the window, I got to see rainbow reflections as the waves broke under the pier. I even saw a dolphin in the the distance - how perfect is that? (Actually, I consider every day I see dolphins as perfect days!)

Another Gorgeous and Mild January 14th

Aaahhh . . . I am soooo lucky to get these gorgeous sunny and warm birthdays. It seems to be part of the normal SoCal climate to have rain that washes the air and land clean the week before, so we have blue skies and warm winds by the middle of the month. As is my birthday tradition, I had to walk on the beach and enjoy the weather, so I spent my lunch hour on Hueneme Beach and just sighed with pleasure!(Had to try self-timing a self-portrait or two . . . but it took a few tries to find the right place to stand!)
Tom and I had a nice dinner at Eric Ericsson's on the Ventura Pier. Of course, the celebration won't be limited to just one day, especially a work day, so stay tuned!