Is It Saturday Again???

I did make shepherd's pie for dinner, and it turned out really well. The only problem was Dad. We had invited him to eat with us as a way to have the occasional meal together. Unfortunately, he used our most unfavorite comment, "Did you taste it?" It's his funny/nasty way of telling you he thinks you ate too fast. Then he tried to defend it saying he says it to the pastor at men's group luncheons and the pastor doesn't mind. No, the pastor just doesn't know how to tell him it's an insult. Anyway, the meal was good; I even had seconds, something I rarely do. For dessert we had the incredible apricot almond torte Dad's friends had brought when they came to lunch on Tuesday. You excused yourself from the table before dessert. We pretended it was fatigue but it was really 'did you taste it'.

Friday morning was a gift. We still didn't have any coffee because I completely forgot about it on Thursday, and you don't drink it anymore. Thankfully I had bought a packet of 5 Starbucks $10 gift cards for the holidays and had only given one away as a gift. I had Starbucks again. Their coffee isn't as good as you make it for me but I'm sure that's more a personal preference than an industry rating. The best part was getting to work for Professional Development to discover I got to work in my room as my 'professional development'. I got a fair amount done and then I asked Sofia to help me set up my class with a special reading program we subscribe to. When the children came in we went to the computer lab. The day flew by. YAY! We had sushi for dinner and bought some coffee.

News reports were that there was high surf and big waves. We headed to Malibu this morning only to find high tide and rough little waves. Not what we had expected. On the way home we stopped by the food truck fundraiser for Haiti. There were 26 trucks, higher-end new additions to the roach coach industry, selling their foods on a side street. I don't know if the event made the evening news but a woman in my cancer support group had organized it. It was quite the culinary collection! There was fusion, thai, sushi, the grilled cheese truck, fancy dessert trucks, shaved ice, pulled chicken, a philly cheesesteak truck, Mediterranean cuisine, Vietnamese fare, -----a very exotic selection. I bought a variety of foods and we took them over to Jessica's new apartment. Jessica is new in our lives. She married our neighbor in June, and in August he decided it had been a mistake. What a strange situation. The entire neighborhood had liked her and had taken to her immediately. It was the first time he had ever come to neighborhood events, and we had the two of them over for dinner three times. We thought she was the best thing that had ever happened to him. How shocked we were when she told me he had changed his mind! So he helped her find and move into an apartment. We all had lunch together: shrimp and chicken tacos, carne asada wrap, chicken satay, chicken pesto panini, and lollipop chicken, staying and visiting much longer than we had planned. We will miss her a lot.

You took a nap, sleeping deeply and restfully, while I cleaned my bicycle. At 3:45 we left for a bike ride. The bike trails were a mess from the rains and the pelicans had taken refuge on the creek, over a hundred of them. They were beautiful, all sizes, with interesting variations in coloring on their necks and heads. We had seen a news report of pelicans not being able to handle the rains well because their feathers get so much oil in them from the runoff. Jessica said one had landed in their backyard last week. They were so surprised. We all said we were glad it hadn't landed in our backyard. It's bad enough Matt killed one of your favorite kind of animal; this is my favorite kind of animal. What a sad thing that would have been. We rode up the service road on the beach. The bike path along the east end of the creek was closed. That was odd but maybe it was flooded from the rains. After the ride we went to Carrow's because you remembered they have prime rib on the weekends. It was geriatric central but we enjoyed our meal. Since it is National Pie Week, we bought a chocolate cream. Laura and Kyle are on their way here. We'll have it for dinner tomorrow night. Maybe we'll have our other neighbors over; he was really wonderful during Quincy's health crisis this week. Your energy is good and you have very little side effects from the chemo. We are learning to make the most of the days like these.