sizzling summer
Our garden is growing some new produce this year.
plus we have some new floral beauties too! two flamingo colored glads and several chocolate sunflowers intermixed with our new crop of yellows.
for the 3rd of July I made something I've never made before - Ceviche! it was pretty good, and didn't need to make a trip to the store as we had most ingredients and acceptable substitutes already in the kitchen! for 4th of July Craig cooked ribs and a spaghetti squash from the garden. so yummy!
for the third show in a row I needed to drive to Davis. Craig had nowhere to go so he let me borrow the truck. the drive was horrible, both because gooiee maps kept sending me into the heart of traffic, and it was a triple wammie of weekend traffic, holiday traffic and construction traffic. OY! it took 90 minutes to go a normally 30 minute distance. one of the patrons in the parking lot saw the rideshare label in the window and asked how people got up into it! so I let her see how it now has a step that pops out when you open the doors. I went to see another one of my most favorite musicals, Hunchback of Notre Dame, this one was music directed by our theater friend Kyle! in our follow up texts, he let me know he will be MD'ing another show soon, which I will go to see, Sunset Blvd! he also thought I'd have made a great Norma "in my day." <<sigh>> the drive home was so much easier, as I was going against the holiday and weekend traffic, and the construction was less on this side of the highway.
for the third year in a row the company is having layoffs, and I know SO many people who are being impacted. so many super talented people who do a LOT of work! the people left behind cannot do this work, because they don't have the breadth of institutional knowledge. it's almost like leadership is trying to set us up to fail :'-( it's been crushingly heartbreaking. the day after our GC had an all department meeting, and we had a watch party in our office, and I brought bagels for the team. it certainly was not a happy proximity event. so many of us know so many others who are now gone. I was actually in the office two days in the same week. I guess I'm mentally preparing for the Return to Work of four days a week.
not the way I like to start the weekend, but Craig's truck battery died, so he woke me at 7:30 to drive him up to Lincoln for a golf game. Luckily I got a 4-shot latte for the drive, and one of his buddies drove him home. I had to make food for a breast cancer support group pool party in the afternoon, so I found a Mexican Street Corn Salad recipe that stands up to heat - no mayo - and made that. it was really good, and didn't need mayo at all! we gathered at the home of one of our pink sisters in the next town over, so literally 3 miles from home! they had a great bar, and whipped up pina colada slushies - I only had one. only one-third of my salad was left when I left after four hours, so I guess it was a hit! and the party kept going after that! they had a craft - I missed the craft! - and when the sun went down and the lights came up, they were programmed to turn the house pink! what a lovely bunch of pink sisters I'm so blessed to have in my life!
I had been talking about it for some time but was finally motivated by a pink sister at the pool party who recommended her artist. I think she did a beautiful job on my fierce, fabulous, flamazing flamingo!
on the last evening of the month one of our neighbors made a presentation at a local museum about the work he is doing to revive Lincoln Highway markers and memorials, first in our area, and hopefully to Northern than all of California. It was fascinating to hear the history of the road. It may even be something I could get involved with when I get to retire.
