May Jubilee

Little Black Ghost and Owl


Hi ya. It's been a little while so I felt compelled. In the last week or so, Heather has graduated with her Masters in English, Art has had a birthday (26!), Kim Nicolls Berry had her baby girl Sydney!, we went down to the river with dad, I found rose-flavored syrup at a Mediterranean grocery (it is worth mentioning!!!) and last night Art and I hogged out at the Red Hawk Casino Waterfall buffet. Plus yesterday we made this crazy trip to Folsom and Roseville via Salmon Falls Road, since we live pretty close to Coloma and Pilot Hill. It was an amazing drive with not another car on the road for miles despite it being 5pm and traffic probably abounding on all freeways in a 15 mile perimeter and the road felt like we were in another state or something, like the countryside of the midwest in the early 80's?. The road drops you off in El Dorado Hills and then we followed it into Folsom. The river was so so full I thought it was a lake! Then I realized we were at the Salmon Falls Bridge! The water is only like 15 or 20 feet below it! I can't wait to go back and swim there, it's so different than last year. I was on a mission to go to this place in Roseville called Total Wine and More to get Pliny The Elder. Let me tell you, if you think BevMo is cool, which I do, this place is like 10 times better! It's seriously beautiful in there, filled with tons of gadgets and pretty glasses and ice buckets and wines and spritzers and beers in singles and cold and cases and 6 packs, like- beers you cannot find ANYWHERE! Hence my trip there for Pliny. On the way home we cruised by Trader Joe's and I bought 2 packs of mango mochi which is my favorite summer dessert ever with only 100 cals and 3 grams of fat per mochi. I CAN'T UNDERSTAND why Raley's and other regular grocery stores aren't on the mochi ball yet!

About the Red Hawk Casino buffet. Perhaps you are thinking "gross" which I usually do about most buffet style places, for the most part. The thing is, I only eat fish and veggies and this place is wonderful for that. There is lots of vegetarian fare, which I am stoked about. Most notedly, they actually have lots and lots of different kinds of fresh steamed veggies like green beans and broccoli and asparagus and sqash, and they aren't sagging into a pool of greasy butter or oil, they are actually fresh and clean and steamed. They have an entire asian section with my favorite rice noodles and veggies (the little tiny rice stick noodles that are white) and they have veggie sushi and veggies and tofu. Plus they have really nice fish, and tempura sweet potato, and baked potatoes, mashed potatoes (which did look a bit too buttery) and the desserts are out of control! It's the biggest buffet I have ever seen. They have a complete gelato station. They have scores of little tiny fruit tarts and lemon tarts. And you can order any kind of soda with your meal plus have coffee after and seriously, the place is worth the money. It's 18 dollars, and thought that might sound like alot, when you think about what paying for a drink, dessert, salad (their salad bar is HUGE and beautiful!), plus a vegetarian meal...it would be at least 20 bucks.

The down side is we each played ten dollars on the way out and lost it in LESS than ten minutes. But oh well, we had Plinys to come home to!

Kimmy with her new baby girl!

Flowers at the bus stop.

Arth and Darin at the Brick Oven later that day.


Heather getting her golden ticket!

Afterwards, she's a professor-to-be!





Our tiny plinys last night!

This Golden Eternity, Mothers, and Other Seedlings

Happy Mother's Day! I have another blog I started called Coffee and Audio and there I posted some tidbits of my wonderful mother today. That blog is more little fragments of daily life and this blog is more for my rants and rambles of everything and nothingness.

This week I started back at work after 3 weeks off....how my feet hurt after these past few nights! But how grateful to have dollars in my pocket....because for the last week and a half of my "vacation", I was broke as all broke could get! It's hard to think of things to do when you can't even afford gas money or a cup of wine at the bar...etc. Luckily I have a terrific family to help me get by, and my Arthie of course. And not that I can complain, I have beautiful food and drink every single day thanks to him. And a garden to watch and tend to, and books and movies, and music to play and write, and photos to take, and friends to squeak with. This week has been so lovely going back to work, in fact, I even LOVE it! Everyday I drive the one hour it takes to get to Grass Valley down the everbeautiful Highway 49, from Placerville through Coloma, into Cool, down into the gorgeous ravine (with it's greenblue RAGING American River down under the bridge), and up over the hill into Auburn. I have been driving with the top down and with scarves wrapped tightly over braids and the driving has been glorious! Despite my owning a beat-up rusted jalopy of a convertible, loud as she blows, creaky and bumpy and wild ride, she is a convertible nonetheless and that makes all the difference! The 80 degree air is pure inspiration as the sun hits my cheek and the radio blasts out whatever comes next be it New Order, Band O Horses, Led Zeppelin, Ryan Adams, etcetera! I love going to work! And then from the glory I am much energized to take on lots of hungry yuppie-hippies (nice and kind they are almost all of them) eating crikeloads of sushi and drinking giant Sapporos and sakes! Sorry carbon footprint, right now I just am so grateful to have such a beautiful drive to work. And coming home, though not yet warm enough to leave the top down then, there are beautiful yellowcream full moons to watch over me.

This week my edemames have sprouted! So happy for that, I just hope the caterpillars don't eat them like they did my basil sprouts. And a few other sprouts are up, and runner beans and hops and squash and zucchinis. I love Summer!!! All this beauteous food on the way. I love living in the country too, and to be close to such creative young-uns. We had a bit of a Cinco De Mayo party the other night at Becky's and Jordan's and it was very nice talking with the girls and wearing Mexican dresses. And then Wednesday night Mom and Heather and I took off to Sacramento to The Idol Hour which is Scott Sowa's and Ryan Jaurequi's bar and we had too much fun! At one point I vaguely remember trying to teach people the Running Man, Roger Rabbit, and Kid'N'Play.....early 90's rap abounding........



Nancy and Sherry having a great time!


Heather's looking GOOD!


Mom is such a dancer, I had no idea, I guess if you were born pre-1970's you just have an automatic know-how on how to dance to rock and roll WITH a partner. I sure as hell can NOT!

Heather on her way to Los Angeles for Dave's (Darin's brother) wedding. She looked amazing.