Sign of the Times

Even with years of reading inventive first and second grade spelling, I had a hard time deciphering this. GROJ SALE. Too bad I'll be out of town on Saturday.

Zikaron V'Tikvah

The tree stretches across two sides of the B building at SDJA. Completely hand made, the leaves sparkle in the sunshine. If you look closely, you will find cocoons hanging and caterpillars walking. Butterflies signifying the more than 1.5 million children lost in the Holocaust fly away. ( check out the web page for theButterfly project at SDJA http://www.sdja.com/pages/sdja_family/butterfly.pdf )

Embedded at the base of the tree trunk are paper clips from the Paper Clip project in Whitwell, TN. (http://69.8.250.59/homepage_pc.cfm?id=78 is the site with information)


"G-d give me wings so that I may look around from the tallest branches seeing all that surrounds me"... from the poem by Lynn Goldfarb

Just say no

Of course chickens don't do drugs...everyone knows they'd rather drink. And maybe, as the pictures suggests, dance.

Night of Comedy

What do you do when ballet class is canceled? Go drink coffee at Starbucks. What do you do when Starbucks is closed for a remodel? Go to It's a Grind for coffee. What do you do if the second coffee house is closed? Go to TJ Maxx, of course.

Cousins Rock!

Relaxing at Leslee's the day after the big wedding extravaganza - Aunt Dena, cousins Debra, Leslee and Laura, and sister Kathi. Girls rule in our family, sorry Jef - you know it's true.

Siblings

My sweet cousin, Sara, was married at La Jolla Cove Bridge club today. May gray turned into splendid sunshine, but even the bright sun couldn't outshine my gorgeous cousin. The day was even more special when my brother and sister and I saw my dad and his sister together. It seemed we had to move mountains to make it happen, but seeing my family together in the sunshine made it so very worthwhile.

Whine and wine in May

I love my whine pals - we try to get together on a regular basis (we'd like weekly, but settle for monthly). We try new wine, eat really good snacks, and "cackle" away (as our husbands would say). We can be a big bunch or a small group, but we always have a delicious time.

C'mon, get happy

LONG day...and I needed to get happy. Perfect martini - just a little dirty, no olive, icy cold. Add some kobe sliders, Lee, and I'm a happy girl.

Perfect.

We took the trip up to Glen Ivy mud spa today - had to take advantage of a beautiful day off from work. Perfect day - blue sky, 78 degrees, good friends. We sat in the sun, floated in the water, soaked in the jacuzzi. All that activity wore us out, so we took a break in a refreshing cool pool. I'm exhausted.

Mmmm....cookies

Love the way the house smells when I'm baking the cookies, love the raw cookie dough, love them warm from the oven. Mmmmm....cookies.

Put a kid on stage and watch the parents whip out a recording device. For years, we listened to the click of still cameras. Then we watched parents lug in giant suitcases with equally giant video cameras to record every precious moment. Everything got smaller and Ipod's and cell phones now dominate, but it's the same whipping motion.

Here comes the bride

I held this sweet cousin when she was a few weeks old and now she's getting married. Hard to believe she's all grown up and wearing a pink flashing penis crown.

Happy hour

One always meets interesting people at happy hour. Diane talked to the Gambino and Gotti boys, the gentleman next to me was absorbed in a week's worth of reading material. I understand -as a voracious reader, I can gobble up words anywhere- no matter the noise. I guess if you add a glass of wine, that book can be a very nice meal indeed.

Oh, cabana boy...

No, I didn't go off on a tropical vacation although I could certainly use a break. I was invited to the annual dinner honoring our school's math and science award winners. The property is quite large with the home itself nearly 16,000 square feet. A 10-12 car garage, meditation rooms, theater -I could probably hide away there for a week or two and never be seen. Maybe I will go on vacation after all...

Cool gadget

Yes, a slide projector. At the end of our field trip, the butterfly farm docent showed us some slides and the kids were fascinated. The little "click-click" of the slides turning, the remote control still attached by a cord, the sheer ingenuity of the whole contraption held the kids attention more than the actual slide show. All the adults just giggled because most of us have one of these buried in the garage.

Hey, that looks like San Diego!

I spend a lot of time at school. so naturally it many pictures would result. Today was the culmination of a 6 week long community service project. Tissue boxes, paint, paper towel rolls and blocks - suddenly San Diego comes to life. Blue Pacific Ocean, Del Mar, Carmel Valley, La Jolla, East county and downtown. Good job, second graders!

613

The fifth graders hand painted tallit for their shacharit service in June. Usually, one doesn't wear a prayer shawl until 13, but we make an exception for our fifth graders. After painting for an entire day, the kids are ready to tie the tzitzit - not an easy task unless you have four hands, so we have the parents come in to help. 4 strings are folded to make 8 which are tied into 5 knots. Every letter in the Hebrew alphabet has a numerical value and "tzitzit" has 600. Add the 8 strings and 5 knots and the number is 613 - which happens to equal the number of commandments in the Torah. Everyone is so proud of their handiwork and every year, I'm bittersweet. Making tallit is one of the last things we do together before they go off to middle school.

Never ending

Stayed up until nearly one a.m. Sunday night getting ready for Tuesday guests. The kitchen was a disaster with tomato sauce splattered on the stove top, manicotti noodles clogging the sink, cooked ground turkey on the tile - and dishwasher was full. It took a while but finally my sparkly clean kitchen returned. Now I have to clean my house.

800 calories an hour

I love my Saturday morning spin class, but so does everyone else. For one hour every week, we sweat and laugh and bike to nowhere, but we have formed a wonderful community and we are faithful to our leader, Andrea. Problem - the class starts at 8 am, but if you don't snag a bike by 7:15, you're out of luck. This photo was taken yesterday at 7:20am - 40 minutes before class. No matter how late we were out the night before, I don't miss this class.

huh?

Jeanne and I ran about 3 miles and met Christiana at Via Italia for "dirty" happy hour. Lee and Tracy joined us a little later and we had dinner at Beach Side Grill. The sign at the bathroom intrigued us and we considered the many reason such a sign would be necessary. No definitive answer could be found, we'll probably have to go back another night and debate some more.

November 1957

I found an old advertising trade magazine in one of my dad's boxes and was quite interested in one of the handsome salesmen at the ABC version of XETV. My dad was a manager of XETV in the late 60's, early 70's, but this article showed him in a prior postition. If you read carefully, you will know he had a lovely model wife (not my mother) and a French poodle named Charlie (never our dog). Written almost exactly 4 years before I was born, I wonder of the sequence of events that lead up to October, 1961. I know some of the details, but it's still interesting to speculate.

Amo il caffè!

Everyone knows I love a glass of dark, full bodied wine, sparkly champagne, or a perfectly chilled cosmo. But the drink that must top them all is the frothy cappuccino I make every morning. Assolutamente necessario!

Quatro de Mayo

The new neighborhood Mexican restaurant is getting ready for Cinco de Mayo a day early. When I passed by yesterday -nothing. Today the place is loco with balloons and flags. Can't wait to see what tomorrow brings!

30 years later

I was a teenager when the Rubik cube came out the first time. I remember standing around at the YMCA pool trying to "get" one side, and shaking our heads with wonder at the whiz kids we saw on tv who could twist and turn and finish in under a minute. Fast forward to a few present day whiz kids. It started with Sam - he taught Daniel, who in turn taught Jordan. Now half the fifth grade class is consumed with the Cube. And thanks to a patient student, I have finally joined the whiz kids!

Helpful, but not useful

Cats think they are helpful, but they are often mistaken. Darby likes to lend a paw with whatever we do - wrapping gifts, making the bed, folding laundry - and he would probably argue that we under appreciate his unsolicited assistance. Today, my selfless, generous kitty thought my life would be easier if he offered to help hem a pair of pants. Swatting the thread, digging around the waistband, and stuffing his furry head into the leg to take a catnap is Darby's idea of helping out. Thanks for the kitty help.

Thanks again, Karen!

Wine tasting in Temecula, part 2. Mt. Carmel teachers, assorted husbands, wives, boyfriends, girlfriends, and others all pile into a party bus and head out for a day of wine tasting, lunch, and general fun. We started at LongShadow, an old favorite with outdoor tasting, horses, and a hilarious bartender. We moved on to savor the view and delicious sangria at Faulkner and finished the day with a picnic lunch and more tasting at Maurice Carrie. Weather was perfect - 74 degrees, not a cloud in the sky, and snow on the mountains in the distance.

SDJA

Sports Day at my school is a lot of fun - Kindergarten through 9th grade are divided into color teams, each one representing a city in Israel. We go to "stations" where the kids compete at events such as tug of war, capture the flag, and obstacle course. Points are added and a winner color/city is announced at the end. An enormous trophy is awarded, but the big prize is the year of bragging rights. The soccer, football and baseball fields at SDJA are a huge source of pride, but I like the ocean view off to the left.