A view from the kitchen window. If they haven’t hatched yet, I expect babies to emerge pretty darned soon. Thankfully, the rain has stopped. I’m happy not only for us and our water-logged property and for those who live in the Hudson Valley who have experienced flooding, but also for mama robin. She could use a break.
Finally, a day without a flash flood, flood, severe thunderstorm, or heat advisory warning – at several points we had all of those warnings at the same time.
Working on the next painting. I considered this basket vase a while back but concluded that the handle was a bit too complicated for me. I’m still tweaking everything, of course, and have lots of detail to add.
This morning, while making our second cup of coffee, I saw this card tacked to our bulletin board:
I saved it because it holds such happy memories.
Four years ago, after a somewhat late start, we started on our trip home from California – in our CR-V – where Don had been performing Escape to Margaritaville in La Jolla. That first leg on our journey was magical. We headed north through Orange County, then Los Angeles County, saw Stella for the first time, stopped in Santa Monica and swam in the ocean in the very late afternoon, and headed up the Pacific Coast Highway. We had no idea where we would stop for the night, but we knew we were very, very hungry.
As we drove through Malibu, our search for a good place to stop and have some dinner grew more and more frustrating. We finally found a little place called Gravina, an Italian restaurant. We had no idea whether it would be good or bad, but we were desperate. It turned out to be one of the best meals we’ve ever had. It was late, there weren’t that many people there, it was intimate and lovely and way more expensive than we’d planned. But we went for it and, oh my goodness, it’s such a strong memory for us. I’m thinking of all of these things as we prepare to say goodbye to the CR-V – hopefully, at some point this week. I’ll write a separate post about that car, a car that took us eastward on a new journey in our life.
I’ll miss her. When I stop and write even a little about her, I start to cry. I’m going to take some pictures of her today.
Stay safe.
Happy Monday.
