Ketzl ia eating asparagus, the grapes and mini carrots for the road are purchased. The almonds are repacked in plastic bags. The car is gassed up. I guess we're almost ready.
So what's been happening lately?
Last night was the annual gathering at Hakone Gardens put on by Hospice of the Valley. I brought Shelley and Jackie with me. It wss a very nice and meaningful evening and it was especially wonderful to reconnect with 3 of Linda's Hospice folks: Mary Lois the social worker, Pam the chaplain and Joyce the primary care nurse. Also Laura the bereavement counselor was there. Pam did a wonderful invocation/meditation. There was some gentle guitar music as well, and the whole thing was followed by snacks, which were our appetizer course, as a prelude to
dinner at Chelokebabi in Sunnyvale with Jeff and Razmik and Billy....
JEFF AND RAZMIK WERE MARRIED YESTERDAY BY COUNTY SUPERVISOR KEN YEAGER!!
and also Billy and Eric. This was very exciting!
This was followed by dessert of ice cream pie and champagne at Jeff & Razmik's.
Plus there is now a new friend, Maribeth, who was walking around near the koi pond at Hakone Gardens, whom we adopted and came for the dinner and dessert.
I went in to the office for a couple of hours to continue shoveling and so we got a bit of a later start than I had hoped. So instead of the more ambitious trip, we spent the day in Santa Cruz, and I have no idea how hot it got there but we were schvitzing (yiddish for sweating)...probably close to 100 degrees, amazing for the seaside town.
We did take the last bit of Highway 9 from Felton down to Santa Cruz and it was really nice and tree-filled. The boardwalk wasn't too crowded (it was Thursday after all). We had to do my two favorite rides: Giant Dipper, imho the best wooden roller coaster, and Loggers Run. They were great...two rides that hold up very nicely. Then we walked down to the water so Shelley could get her toes wet, never having been to the Pacific Ocean before. We walked back along the water to the Ideal Cafe, a favorite of mine and Linda's. Not being quite ready to eat, we walked almost the length of the pier, finding nothing really interesting except a passle of seals on a small floating dock. We ended back at the Ideal Cafe, where the service was not so great, the clothing of some of the servers was an embarrassment, and it was a total bummer that it wasn't Lobster Night (Wednesday). $42 for a lobster dinner (instead of $14.95) was not doable.
Tomorrow is San Francisco and the Golden Gate Bridge.
And then back over the Richmond -San Rafael Bridge and connect with Hwy. 80 and north and east. We've decided that going to Boise is too complicated and stressful. So i'l fly up sometime maybe in August.
so off to the shower and then to bed.
