February/March

Sunday after lunch here.  Let's get some blogging underway at long last.  Shall we?

Yes, I know that posting the rest of the Vancouver trip is still to come.  Lots of photos for those, and I don't quite feel like tackling them yet.  So I shan't.  Let me go back a week or so and instead report on the goings-on of the weekend that bridged February and March.

Van's sister, Cathy, and his brother-in-law, Bob, came to town for a visit.  Always good to see them again.  Funnily enough, I don't have any photos of them from the weekend.  We were mostly just enjoying the company instead.  But I did get a bunch of photos from our Friday evening.  That's when Conrad and I got all dolled up,

and we all went to Vibrato, Herb Alpert's jazz dinner club. 

It's not an inexpensive meal, but it is a good one, and the entertainment is great.  We were there for the earlier set, the doors opening at 5:30.  A cocktail, a good meal that for a few of us was a nice steak each,

and then settling in to enjoy Brenna Whitaker. 

Great voice, great stage presence and patter.  She recognized some folks in the crowd, and that included singer Claude McKnight, whom she persuaded to come on stage and do a song. 

Near the end of the set, we all shared a couple of desserts, and then it was out into the mild evening to head home.  A really terrific time, and Cathy and Bob enjoyed it immensely.

Saturday morning was the usual walk.  The tabebuias around Old Pasadena have been dropping flowers about, making for colourful "snowfall". 

We ended up at Amara, of course,

and then it was home to work on dinner.  I made us a nice little meal of a salad with burrata, halibut on pea puree, and a chocolate layer cake.  Not my best ever, but a nice enough dinner, I think.  We sat outside because it was a warm enough weekend,

and had a lovely evening of it.

On Sunday we came over to Van's to hold down the fort.  Bob had flown home earlier that day, and Van had taken Cathy to Ojai for a couple of days.  That meant we were on Olive duty through Tuesday, and it was a pleasure to take her out on walkies. 

All in all, a quiet end to the weekend and then an easy Monday working remotely.

I can't quite believe we're a week or more into March.  Time to get planning some things for April! 

you know, that was a good weekend

A breakdown of a good weekend:

• Saturday morning walk followed by breakfast at Amara.
  
  
  
• A Saturday afternoon of getting things done at the condo - I made a lasagna for dinner, I tidied up a bit, I worked on Christmas cards (yes, Christmas cards), I ironed some napkins.
• Cocktails
  
  
  and dinner and then the recent Celine Dion documentary together with Van.
• Sunday morning walk for the four of us (Olive included!) to Starbucks.
  
  
  
  
  
  
• Sunday afternoon of getting things done at the condo - finishing work on getting Christmas cards ready for writing, more ironing.
• Sunday evening at Vibrato,
  
  
  
  
  
  Herb Alpert's jazz dinner club
  
  
  in Bel Air.  Spencer Day was performing
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  with a quartet of musicians
  
  
  and even pulling a friend, Ariana Savalas,
  
  
  up on stage for a song.  Good meal (I only photographed the carrot cake we shared, sorry),
  
  
  good martinis, great setting, terrific show.

How awesome to have a weekend where there is a good, healthy balance of fun and accomplishing things.  A rare commodity these days, I fear.  The next few weekends will be a little different - Conrad will be doing some travel, we'll have some entertaining.  Still, I am glad that we got to have the weekend that we did!