Big Sur Travelogue

We had a lovely time today.  We left around 9:30 and stopped for breakfast at the Highlands Inn in Carmel (the pictures on their website are gorgeous).  I had a ham and cheese panini and Ed had a scramble with three kinds of cheese.

 Of course, I took some pictures.  This is the view from the deck at Highlands Inn, of Yankee Point.  The interesting thing is that Ed worked at the restaurant in the 1960's, and there met his dear friend Anthony Lo Schiavo, who was painting portraits in the lobby.  Still our dear friend -- and he has a painting of the Carmel Mission in the Vatican!

We headed down the road and turned off at Paso Colorado to visit Bottcher's Gap, part of a national forest and waaay down a very narrow, 9-mile road.  It's nice there, but today every midge and bee within a 10-mile radius decided to check it out.  I painted a page in my watercolor journal, but it was so icky batting flies away all the time that we left sooner than we probably would have otherwise.

We stopped at Nepenthe in Big Sur, a restaurant that has been there since the 1930's and in my opinion is in one of the most beautiful places on this earth.  It was jam-packed with cars and people, so Ed waited in the car while I ran into the Phoenix shop to get some fancy soap.  I'm thinking that somewhere in Santa Cruz they must have nice soap :) but I only buy soap at Nepenthe and that always gives me an excuse to say, "Hey, we need to take a drive down to Big Sur."  We need to.

After that, we stopped for a cocktail and snack at Ventana, another beautiful hotel with a gorgeous view.  The picture above is a view of the hills from their deck. 

I love the flowers at Big Sur -- every place has beautiful flowers.  These are from my favorite photo op spot -- outside the River Inn.  They have large plantings of flowers that seem to always be at the height of their glory.  I loved the yellow flowers (coneflowers?) and the one below was just spectacular --   

  
I don't know what this flower is (I'm sure someone will tell me), but it looked like the band around the center was gold -- it was sparkly and so beautiful in the sun.

Anyway, that was our lovely day, except for the two gigantic traffic jams on the way home.  One had us stopped dead for 35-40 minutes by the Bixby Bridge, one of the iconic views of the area, so that wasn't too bad.  Everyone was out of their cars and taking pictures.

I have a few more pictures of the flowers to process; I'll show them in the next couple of days.  All in all, a very nice day (and I got four bars of smelly soap!).

Dahlias again???

Just a quick post for today -- I've been so busy, getting estimates for new flooring, having my hair fixed before my stylist goes away for a month, starting up my watercolor class again, getting ready for Open Studios -- I feel as if I've been in a whirlwind this week.

 Probably -- maybe -- the last of the dahlias -- I've got to get out and shoot something else!!

I'm so excited about getting new flooring -- laminate, not hardwood, but it means we can get rid of our current carpeting.  Do you have kids?  Pets?  Let me tell you that carpeting is not for you.  I'd love to show before and after, but I honestly would be too embarrassed to show you a picture of the carpeting :(   Any tips from anyone who's done this before? 

We're off to Big Sur tomorrow, my Loved One and I -- our birthdays are just a week apart, and he always takes a day off work and we do something.  "Doing something" usually involves going to Big Sur, because it's just about our favorite place on earth.  He will save the crossword puzzle from the morning's paper, if it's nice and warm (probably not), we'll put the top down, we'll stop for artichokes on the way home, and it will be a good day.  There's something special about spending the day with the one you love, just taking a drive, having a nice lunch, relaxing after a long week's work.

The view from Nepenthe, a beautiful restaurant site

And also, I hope to have an announcement before too long:  I'm working on an e-course!  I intend to ask a few people to try out the first few segments, so stay tuned . . . 

Have a great day tomorrow!

Judgmental

Okay, I admit it.  I have struggled with being judgmental of others (I have to say, though, that the person I'm most judgmental of is me).  I work hard to remember that whatever other people do or are, it has little or no impact on me, especially the thing I was being judgy about today.

So I go to water aerobics.  It's mostly older ladies (one is 94) and one very old man, but there's this other person.  Class starts at 10; he arrives at 10:35.  Pretty much everyone is concentrating on the routine the teacher is taking us through (except for a couple of non-stop talkers), but this individual stands in the shallow end, where he's only half in the water, and waves his arms around in these dancercize or ballet kinds of movements, and makes loud comments that he intends to be funny.  And then he leaves about 15 minutes later.

Is there no end to these dahlias, I ask you??

The teacher doesn't seem to mind, and other people are laughing, so I guess it's just me.  Being a pathological rule-follower, the quintessential good girl who puts great stock in doing what's expected of her (a major character flaw, really), I just get so irritated at this man -- he's not doing what he's supposed to be doing!  Doesn't anyone but me care??

And what does it have to do with me?  Nothing, pretty much.  I'm at a back corner of the deep end -- he's in the shallow end; I don't find myself having a particularly hard time keeping my concentration, so what is the issue for me?  I just find myself glaring at him and judging him.

Any tips for me?  Do you find yourself struggling with being judgmental?  How do you deal with it? 

What Dreams May Come -- and come -- and come

Today on Facebook a friend was posting about the "teaching dreams" he's having.  We all have them -- mine is that I'm standing in front of a class full of students who are talking and laughing and surfing the net, not paying any attention whatsoever to me. I'm up in front saying "um, hello -- " and no one even looks at me.  The teacher anxiety dreams come to everyone -- any teachers out there?

Another one I have is obviously a frustration dream -- I'm trying to get somewhere, usually to an airport, and I cannot get out of the house.  I can't find my passport or tickets, my check-off list is not working at all, and the clock is ticking closer and closer to the time the plane takes off or the cruise heads out to sea.  What's really frustrating is that I *never* get to where I have to go.  Had this one the other night . . . 

 The dahlias will come to an end soon, I promise.

I have another one but it's not appropriate for a family-friendly blog :)

Do you have recurring dreams?  What do you think they mean -- why do you keep dreaming whatever it is over and over?

If I Never Hear That Song Again . . .

I'm going to deviate from the NaBloPoMo prompts, because a while ago I asked this question of my Facebook friends and it caused a lively discussion.  Here goes:

What are the songs that if you never, ever, heard them again in your life, that would be just fine?

I'll throw out a couple to start; jump in and add your no-nos to the list.  For me, it's 

The House of the Rising Sun

Summertime

Anything by Supertramp

Maybe this will stir up a little controversy -- if so, great!  What songs do you never want to hear again?

And here's a flower for Macro Monday:

and Texture Tuesday
   

If you're in the US, hope you're having a restful Labor Day; if not, I hope you're having a good day too.

Happy Talk

We have so many options these days, when it comes to communication -- which one feels right to you?   Must you be face-to-face in order to feel you're having a conversation?  Do you prefer to text?  Rely on email?  Pick up the phone?  I think our preferred mode of communication can tell us something about ourselves.  Here, take this survey and then we'll talk.  Think about how you'd like to communicate with acquaintances or business, not close friends and family: 


  It's a little uncooperative on Firefox, but Internet Explorer works.  

I'm so curious what readers will say!  Take what I say with the usual grain of salt, but I think someone who prefers to speak face-to-face is outgoing and gregarious, maybe?  Someone who likes to have the full range of responses, both verbal and non-verbal.  To me, someone who likes to talk on the phone is confident, because it's a medium that can intrude on people who might be sleeping, deep in the middle of something, and so on.  

Email seems more polite -- the receiver can open it when they have time to, respond when they have time, delete if they really don't want to communicate with you, unlike phone or face-to-face. On the other hand, there's no tone or facial expressions to give the reader a clue as to whether you're kidding, or taking a swipe at them or whatever.  It can lead to misunderstandings.

Texting . . . well, it seems too personal and casual for communicating with acquaintances or business contacts, right?  You have to kind of know someone well to text "I'll b there @ 7 c u," right?  It's also pretty intrusive and seems urgent enough to demand an immediate response. 

 Linkup to Your Sunday Best

My preference?  Email.  Of course I meet people face-to-face, but other than that, I like email.  For some reason, I have never liked talking on the telephone that much, and when I have to place a call to someone, I find myself procrastinating for some dumb reason!  I only text family, really, and both son and daughter criticize me -- an English professor -- for using all the abbreviations.  My response is hey, everyone else gets to use all the shortcuts, why should I have to type everything out?

Tell me which form of communication you prefer!  My curiosity is getting the better of me.

Hope those in the US are having a great holiday weekend! 

NaBloPoMo/Kitties

I've decided to join NaBloPoMo's September blogroll, which means I will be posting every day in September (yikes!).  I'm hoping it will really get me in a groove.  The theme for September is EYE and they offer a prompt for each day, which helps.  But today I want to just talk a little about our kitties.

First up is October, who is about 8 years old and weighs somewhere upwards of 20 lb.  He's not svelte.  Here's a lovely view of him, taken by our daughter's grandma, while she was visiting:

 

Charming, right?  This is how October approaches life -- surrender to it, just lie down and get comfortable and let life roll on around you.  (Actually, that kind of describes me, including the "not svelte" part :) 

And then there's Buttercup.  She does not  let life roll by --  

(bad cell phone pic, sorry -- )

She's not supposed to be sitting up by the tv, but there she is anyway.  We actually were laughing because she doesn't usually look at the tv, but yesterday she was actually tracking the ball back and forth over the net.  We thought it was funny until she got up and put her claws on the tv, trying to catch it (suddenly not funny any more).

Yesterday she also spent a long time stalking a spider that was on the molding up by the ceiling.  When she's honed in on a target, she will break every rule in the book (rules for cats -- ha!) trying to keep her eye on it and, if the cat gods are kind, actually catch it!  She was up on a table she's absolutely forbidden to get onto, trying to climb up on my photos printed on canvas hanging on the wall  (yeeeek!!!), and she will jump over and over again, thinking that she, a little dainty cat, will be able to Michael-Jordan-it up to the ceiling and catch that evil spider.  

I'm trying to get a picture of her hanging from the screen front door, way up on top, thinking that she can get that moth flying around on the porch outside.  She rushes from room to room when she hears a bird outside, leaping up on the windowsills to get that birdy in her sights.  

I wish I had her energy!  I also love it when she comes to sleep with me at night -- yeah, she wakes me up at 4:30 AM, but when she snuggles up next to me, I scratch her head, she stretches out a paw as if embracing me -- the pleasure I get from this little creature fills me with joy.

Here's a portrait I did from her baby picture in Painter.  I like how it came out:

Linkup to Camera Critters

Do you have a creature that brings you joy?  I'd love to hear about him/her.