quinceañera

Something new for us this past weekend.  Conrad and I (and our neighbour Natasha, and a pair of former neighbours and Marina, who went to Chile and Argentina with us) were invited to a quinceañera by the mother of the guest of honour, a 15 year-old named Naomi.  So we put on some nicer clothes and headed south in the metro and found ourselves at a church in Lynwood late Saturday afternoon.

It was a pleasant service that I understood almost nothing of - unsurprisingly, the service was almost entirely in Spanish.   If I'd known I would spend my life after 30 in the US and in SoCal in particular for most of it, then I would have studied that language in school.  My almost fully deteriorated French is no use at all, alas.

Anyway, it was a nice service, and then we headed to a banquet hall in Bell to attend the reception.

It was loud and energetic, and there was abundant food

(I really limited what I ate out of respect for the cleanse month).  Angie, Naomi's mother, introduced us to some of the family, including Naomi's grandmother, and made sure that we were part of the celebration.  Mostly, though, it was nice to be guests at something so important to Angie and her daughter.  No, we didn't know the customs or could follow the speeches, but you know, just enjoy the food and sway and tap to the music and clap and cheer.  Celebration is easy, after all.

And really, don't Naomi, Angie, and Naomi's grandmother look wonderful?

I'm appreciative of opportunities like this.  We left a little early, but I was so glad we went. 

the weekend is here

It's a summer Saturday, and promising to be another fairly warm if not hot one.  Conrad and I have a quinceanara celebration to attend later today, and we'll go to the movies and then have dinner tomorrow with Van and Natasha.  A busy weekend, in other words.

So, then, it was nice to start it out fairly easily.  Conrad and I did our welcome usual:  head to the bar at Maestro for an early dinner.  And a light dinner at that:  with my self-inflicted cleanse this month, most of the menu is off limits to me.  I filled up, nonetheless, on guacamole, oysters, and ceviche

(then came home to have some fresh cherries for dessert).  Conrad - curse him! - got to enjoy cocktails and wine while I stuck to sparkling water. 

Rigo made him up a new cocktail, a clarified pina colada, and I had to laugh and tell Rigo I couldn't have any.  At which point Rigo laughed and said the other bartender, Franco, and one of the waiters are also doing a dry month.  August seems to be it for folks!

We came home, Conrad sipped a bit more wine and had some chocolate, and read until bedtime.  A nice evening.

After a good night of sleep, it was up and out the door by 7:30 this morning on a good walk.  We headed north of the freeway today, which we haven't done in ages.  I knew there would be decent shade in among some tree-lined streets there.  An hour and a half (almost) later, and we were at Amara.  I swapped out my decaf latte for an oat milk decaf latte.  My usual breakfast was already fine for my cleanse.  And that made for a happy start to Saturday for us!

Conrad, I should add, has now gone upstairs for a wee nap.  🤣

Kings Canyon National Park

Our second full day of national parks, and we decided to focus on the other one, the less well-known and less visited one.  Conrad mapped out a loop that would take us up and around and then back down the way we had driven the day before, and we set off

on a back road through arid California countryside. 

Destination:  Kings Canyon National Park.

Full disclosure:  we didn't make it to Kings Canyon itself.  The national park sets in two parts.  A smaller part is appended to the northwest of Sequoia National Park, and the canyon and the larger part of the park is north of Sequoia.  The wet winter, though, had severe impact on many roads in the state, and it seems that the drive east into Kings Canyon is not yet open.  It would have been an ambitious drive, perhaps, especially given our relatively late start, but I am sorry we missed seeing it.

Just the same, though, we had a good drive and a very interesting stop.  A short drive into the park boundary, there is a picnic area near trails that lead to sequoia stumps.  We wolfed down sandwiches and then set out to be impressed.

It's kind of awful that something that is all about destruction should be so fascinating and even beautiful.  In the late 1800s, timbering activities in the area felled some of the giants, and the stumps remain as testimony to that time.  And oh, what stumps.  HUGE! 

In some of these photos, you'll see us beside or on them, and I hope that gives a sense of just how massive the remains are.  The trees must have been enormous.  The ones that are still there are young and huge, but perhaps not as large? 

There was also a little bit of historical information that we could learn from, happily.

I'm guessing that the meadows we encountered were the result of clearing out the trees. 

A few lush green patches, wildflowers in abundance still. 

There was something very idyllic about it all that made it easy to look past the tragedy of the fallen trees.  It was altogether very thought-provoking, and I found I appreciated the visit to this park more than I did the one to Sequoia.  What was even better, though, was that there were so few people there.  Plenty of them at the visitor center area, for sure, but as we walked through the woods on the trails, we encountered perhaps a dozen people in total.  That was a real pleasure, the three of us enjoying our meander in tranquility.

And then it was in the car, back through Sequoia, and on to the hotel to shower and change for dinner, souvenirs (from the store, not the forest!) in hand, another national park visited.

oh, come on!

Just look at that face!

Olive had a salon appointment yesterday, resulting in an especially fluffy girl.  How can anyone resist her?

🐕💗💗💗