Life of Wry

My walk to the creek this morning with Janet.

I’ve been in Davis since January 1978… where’s my calculator… that’s exactly 45 years (and some change)! Clearly my home. I think of Palos Verdes as my hometown, and in so many ways, “my home.” (I remember it used to drive Jim a little nuts when I’d say I was going home to visit family… “Davis is your home,” he’d insist.) But let’s be honest, I’ve been here a whole lot longer, through numerous critical, life-shaping, life-defining phases of life. My life is far more defined by what I’ve experienced here: it’s where I graduated from college, where my career started, and where many relationships started (and ended). Most significantly, Davis is where my relationship with my husband started (and thrives) and it’s where my son was born (undeniably his home). Community and social roots are deep, I feel like I’ve grown up here — or at least matured here. I’ve spent damn near my entire adult life in this one place.

So.. yeah.. my home.

All of that is my way of saying I love this picture. Betsy took it a couple weeks ago on a walk (of course) in the arb. Classic Davis.

Sometimes just cozin’ around the house is all I wanna do. Better still, having a long conversation with an old friend. I was so appreciating the view I snapped a pic.

We are working our way through these. Fortunately, I had a great excuse to bake them (Elliot’s birthday!), and, unfortunately, I never need an excuse to eat them.

How could I resist?

Oh, these are chocolate-almond cookies. You beat eggs with sugar for about ten minutes — until it starts to form ribbons — then add melted dark chocolate and butter, and finally some ground walnuts (I ran out of almonds). That’s it. The dough sits overnight because it really has to be hard in order to roll into balls. The balls get rolled in granulated sugar and baked for 12 minutes and are then dusted with powdered sugar as they are cooling. That’s it! Chewy, light, deep chocolate flavor.

You’ve been warned.

I hear that Uncle Chris and Pam, joined John and his three kiddos at the Long Beach Aquarium today. Here are a couple of pictures that Pam sent me…

River and Magnolia at the hands on tank:

And Juniper riding atop Chris’s shoulders (so cute).:

I was reminded of a time, 19 years ago (!), when the young John accompanied Jim, Peter and me at that very Long Beach Aquarium. John was 18 years old then, Peter was 5:

Today was my approximately semi-annual trip to Berkeley to have breakfast and a walk with my buddy Elliot. It’s a good tradition, and usually celebrates our mutual birthdays (when we meet in January… or this year February). As usual, much ground was covered — both conversationally and literally. (And come to think of it, this may be the first time — ever — that we didn’t talk shop! Starting our friendship as colleagues, work was always high on the agenda… and funny… work now’s been overtaken by kids, grandkids, hearing aids, recent vacations, latest tech-whiz discoveries on our digital devices…)

Fortunately, and hilariously, we both enjoy doing a lot of this:

Here are some of my favorites from today:

Flower ballet:

Elliot getting eaten by a blow-up dinosaur, using the aforementioned, newly learned & mastered tech-whiz technique of blanking out the background:

I just love the variability of the stone size around this window. SO appealing! This was, by the way, a gem of a horseshoe street off of Claremont. To a house, charming!

Got a kick out of their sign, “Since 2017.” A very sweet little cafe, though. On College Ave, I believe.

A Calla Lily to be… and very dewy:

And whatever this is…. the plant seemed very confused to me, part cactus, part flower, part orange tongue:

My god, that trunk!

After saying goodbye to Elliot, I met up with Monica and we headed to an art exhibit by Lucy Ames. En route … on San Pablo… Patti’s Auto Care:

Here is one of the many walls in the exhibit of Lucy’s colorful tree art…

And lucky me! I found one I like and bought it!

I have to wait until the show’s over to collect it, but I have the perfect place picked out; stay tuned for a pic of that in a couple months.

Jim and I are big fans of Sam’s Mediterranean Cuisine at the corner of 3rd and B. It’s a decades-long love affair, pretty much our go-to for take out and one of our favorite bleacher dinners during Little League years. There is one dish that we order there — provided they haven’t run out of rice, which happens a bit too often — the chicken shawarma (over rice). The chicken is roasted on a spit and whatever Sam does with his seasonings, it works for us. It sets the standard for chicken shawarma, and none other has ever come close.

When I was down at the Oxbow Public Market in Napa last week, I bought a few jars of sugars and spices from the Whole Spice folks. (They are a local business and have some great looking stuff… like, for example,. vanilla sugar and cocoa sugar, which will be great sprinkled onto the frothy milk layer of my coffee in the morning!) But I was most excited about this:

I’ve never made shawarma before and hoped it might be as good as Sam’s.

It wasn’t.

However, it was good! I made some greek tzatziki to go with it (I improvised with some yogurt, garlic and cucumber), but have since found a recipe for shawarma yogurt sauce (yogurt, tahini, garlic, dill, mint, lemon, salt) and will try that next time.

Looks a little lacking on the plate, but, again, it was pretty edible. Forgot vegetables! Next time a cucumber and tomato salad. Here’s a close up:

So.. it’s thinly sliced chicken breast, marinated in a mix of olive oil and the shawarma spice. You saute some chopped onions in olive oil, then add the chicken and saute it until done. That’s it. I served it with basmati rice made with onion, garlic and pine nuts.

We might try concocting our own version of shawarma spice. Or…. just go to Sam’s.

Apropos of nothing.. I like this:

Honestly, though… such a sweet way to convey a lovely thought, and always a good reminder.

And actually… maybe it is apropos of something. I’m at an all-time, non-pregnancy weight high. I kinda need to do something about it, but I may as well like myself in the meantime. Right?

Right!