San Diego Surprise

Not so long ago, when Hubby Tony and I wanted to visit our kids and grandchildren in California it was just a matter of coordinating schedules with the adults. Now that the grands are in school it's added another level of complexity. On this trip we decided to plan long weekend visits with each family and take some time for ourselves during the week in between.

On Monday morning we said goodbye to Son Tony and his family in Modesto and drove back to the San Jose airport. We dropped off the rental car and boarded a flight to San Diego, where we stayed for three nights.

Our home in the city was the recently-renovated Beau Hotel, right in the middle of the Gaslamp Quarter area. Al Capone was rumored to have hosted secret poker games there during the Prohibition era. The building was filled with beautiful old woodwork and exposed brick, especially in the restaurant area.

The Beau Hotel

During our visit we did a lot of walking, did some window shopping, and took a boat tour of the San Diego bay. We used our rental car to go to Mission San Diego de Alcalá (California's first mission founded in 1769), Old Town San Diego (the first European settlement in California), and the Little Italy neighborhood.

But our most unusual activity wasn't even on the list of things to do.

Over breakfast the first morning we started talking to a woman who was in the city for a specialty food trade show at the convention center. The woman owned a company on the East Coast which sold to military installations. She had come to the show to network, but it was the last day and she was headed to the airport to go home. She asked if we would like to have her entrance badges, saying that she paid the entrance fee and could give them to whoever she wanted.

Tony and I decided that it would be fun and interesting, and definitely fit in with my goal to do unique and different things. We left the dining room with the badges, the woman's contact information, and an invitation to contact us to go out to dinner the next time she was in our area. She said that if anyone should question us we just had to say we were her friends.

Shortly before the show opened we followed the crowd converging on the convention center.  We were a little apprehensive getting our badges scanned, but no one said anything. The event stretched out over multiple exhibition halls. Tony and I were there for about 2 hours, but only made a dent in the more than 1,000 brands represented. Each booth showcased a company's products to others in the industry. We sampled so much (cheeses, meats, snacks, and sweets) that we were able to skip lunch. And when we left we both had a full tote bag of samples.

Our combined loot

Over the next two days we ate some of the samples, gave some away, and packed the rest in our suitcases when we left to go back to San Jose for our visit with Son Brian's family.

Modesto Merrymaking

The first stop on our California trip was Son Tony and DIL Ie's house in Modesto, a city in the Central Valley. The most convenient way to get there is to fly into San Jose in the southern part of the San Francisco Bay area.

Froom San Jose the drive to Modesto is approximately 100 miles. It usually takes 90 minutes, although commuter traffic can add another hour or more. In order not to get caught up in the evening rush hour traffic Hubby Tony and I got a very early start on the front end, flying out of St. Louis at 6:20 am. We changed planes in Denver, and because of the two hour time difference, arrived in San Jose at 10:40 am. That allowed us to take our time getting to Son Tony's. We stopped for lunch in downtown Livermore (the approximate halfway point) and afterwards walked around that area. We pulled up in front of Son Tony's house mid-afternoon. All three grandchildren were watching out the window for us.

While we were there we were privileged to be a part of two baptisms (Granddaughter Evee and Grandson Ian entered the Catholic church). In addition, Hubby Tony and I got to hang out with the family and play games. I got my daily orange fix from the tree in the backyard:

As large as my hand, extremely sweet, and juicy

On my birthday, each of the grands picked out a individual cake from the grocery store for everyone to enjoy. The family serenaded me, and then the kids cracked up over my age.

Just enough for everyone to have a bite of each

All too soon the wonderful weekend came to an end. Monday was a work and school day, so Grandpa and Grandma gave everyone a big hug and kiss before we got in the car to drive back to San Jose, where the next part of our trip awaited.

Five years ago today: Sprouts Begone!

What A Trip!

Because it's hard to coordinate schedules between multiple families, Hubby Tony and I did not travel to see our California kids and grandkids for either Thanksgiving or Christmas. However, we just shifted our trip to January.

Tonight we returned from 12 fantastic days away. Now that the grands are in school it's harder to plan weekday activities with them, so we spent a long weekend at each household, and planned activities for me and Tony during the work week. 

Vectorportal.com

My sense of adventure adventure started on the flight from St. Louis to San Jose, when I figured out that as a Southwest Airlines Rapid Reward Member I could now get free WiFi on the plane. I felt like a big shot returning texts and emails that popped up on my tablet while I was reading my e-book. The feature worked better on some flight segments than others, so I was glad I didn't need to rely on it to get things done.

Five years ago: Ternary

What's Your Life's Movie Title?

Mine would be The Starry Guardian From the Abyss (which I would absolutely go to the movie theater to see). How about you?

Source

Five years ago: Good For Animals And People Too

Better To Be Safe Than Sorry?

I try not to respond to texts from people I don't know, but just the day before it showed up I had spoken to someone who is in sales and said she visits St. Louis once a year.

Phone number deleted for privacy

However, I put her in my phone as a contact, so if the text was from her, her name should have popped up. I checked the area code the text came from, and it wasn't even close to where she lived.

I know that if it was a spam text any type of engagement back would verify my phone number was active, so I just deleted it. It felt impolite to not respond, but I figured it was better to be safe than sorry.

Five years ago: Welcome To The Future

January Collection Of Randomness From My Camera Roll

It's time to showcase some more of the offbeat photos that have been hanging out on my photo app.

I liked this funny take on the universal restroom symbol.  Wonder if the Braille lettering is standard issue or if it's also humorous?

Even though stealing something from a gift shop was the last thing on my mind, this sign made me stop and think. Do you think it would deter a real criminal?

The Botanical Garden Arboretum found a way to make their hand dryer a decorative element in the bathroom by shrink-wrapping it. 

One of the restaurants we went to in Greece had packaged eating utensils. I've never seen that for reusable items.

This is the extra toilet paper roll holder at the vet office we take our foster cats to. I thought it was pretty appropriate. 

Five years ago today: Scarf Up

I'm Having A Moment!

You may remember that back in 2025, Dictionary.com named 6-7 (six-seven) its Word of the Year. 

This morning I was talking with Son Tony and family. Because today is my natal day, the topic of how old I was came up. When I said I was 67, the kids all broke out in a cacophony of "6-7" that went on until they ran out of steam.

Hooray For Me!

Hubby Tony and I have a newspaper subscription that includes the e-edition six days a week and one physical paper on Sunday. Recently the company discontinued the printed Monday edition, but includes those puzzles with the Sunday ones. I've been enjoying the extra crossword and word puzzles, which last me for days.

Even though I am better at putting together words than I am at anything to do with numbers, I even occasionally take a stab at completing the Sudoku. If you're not familiar with the puzzle, the goal is to fill a 9x9 grid with the numbers 1-9, ensuring each number appears only once in every row, column, and 3x3 box. The Monday puzzle has a difficulty of one star, but I usually only get halfway before my faulty logic trips me up.

Today, for the first time in history I actually completed an entire puzzle!

 Five years ago: Twice Ten

Refrigerator Refresh

This morning the refrigerator was looking pretty empty, and before I went to the store for a big shopping trip I did one of my least favorite chores--cleaning the refrigerator.

I tend to go months between cleanings because of the way the refrigerator fits snugly between the cabinets and the wall. Unless the entire unit is pulled out a couple of feet, the door doesn't open wide enough to allow the shelves or produce bins to come out.

I started with the produce bins. Each contained a handful of items, which I temporarily moved to a shelf. The bottom was full of vegetable and fruit detritus, which I dumped in the trash. I scrubbed the bins in a sink of soapy water to remove the mystery blobs stuck on the sides, then Hubby Tony dried them for me. Before I put the bins back I swept out the onion peels that had fallen to the bottom of the fridge and gave it a wipe.

Instead of taking out the shelves I moved the items on each and gave everything a cleaning lick and a prayer-just enough to get by. I did the same on the walls and door bins, marveling at how much 'ick' had accumulated.

Ordinarily Part Two of the job would be tackling the freezer, but today there was too much food in there. And my attempt at Part Three (cleaning the coils and underneath) wouldn't win any awards since I only took off the front plate and cleaned what I could from there. However, I am calling the job good enough done.

Needpix

How about you-how often do you clean your refrigerator?

Five years ago today: Rack Receptacles

It Lasted Forty-Five Years

Hubby Tony and I try to follow the tradition of removing our Christmas decorations after Epiphany (which celebrates the visit of the three Wise Men to Jesus). The actual feast day is January 6th, but in the United States the Catholic church has moved the observance to the first Sunday after January 1st.Because of our schedules this year, we chose to put everything away on Sunday.  

I enjoy reminiscing over all the ornaments when I put them on the tree, and again when I take them off. A couple actually go back to 1980, the year we got married. Tony was only a couple of years into his career job, and I was still in college.

To save money Tony went with a friend out to the friend's parents farm to get a tree. They underestimated how tall the tree was; our living room had ten-foot ceilings and the tree reached to the top. We had to use fishing line attached to the wall to keep it from toppling over. A tree like that needed a lot of ornaments, which we hadn't acquired yet. I improvised by cutting pictures out of magazines and gluing them to card stock. There may have even been a paper chain draped around the branches.

Most of those first year ornaments are long gone, but one that had survived was made by sticking adhesive letters on a large blue glass orb. As you can imagine it looked a little ragged, but held a lot of memories. This year when I took it off the tree it hit against another ornament, which cracked a large hole into the side.

Can you see the hole by my thumb?

It was sad to scoop up the shards of glass and throw everything away. I wondered if there was some type of superstition about breaking a personalized ornament, but according to the Internet I think I'm safe.

Five years ago today: A Yam Is Not Always A Yam

Contact List Competence

Over the last decade I've held several service positions for a fellowship. My newest one started four days ago. As the Communications person I will be quarterbacking communications to other members in Missouri, and eventually reviving a dormant newsletter.

VectorPortal

The fellowship has a Google Workspace account for non-profits which will allow me to send out messages via a mail merge. (If I decide to get fancy with it I can set up an even add the person's name.) For the past few days I've been working on coming up with a solid contact list. The information is in one of four places, but one of those places actually has three different categories. And there's some overlap in the categories. 

I started out trying to put everything into a Excel spreadsheet and only confused myself. Next I tried Google Sheets, but since I don't know much about its commands I got angry and had to walk away. Eventually I sent an email to the person who did the job last year, then went out for a walk. 

Along the way another possible way to put together the list occurred to me. Back at home I manipulated the information I had and uploaded it into Google Contacts. then added categories so I can send out messages to some or all of them. I composed and sent a test message to everyone on my list by category. 

When it showed up in my personal inbox I was so excited I jumped up and started dancing around! 

It didn't take me long to realize that anyone who was in more than one category would have received the message more than once, so I started cleaning up the list. And I've already gotten a few automated responses that some of the addresses are not valid, so that's still more work to do.

Five years ago today: Thank God Its Monday

Neighborly

Earlier in the year a cork board with a bunch of push pins appeared on the wall next to the door leading out to the garage. At the top of the board there was a piece of paper that announced it was a "Community Posting Board". At the bottom of the board was a "Let's Go Blues" poster (for the NHL hockey team). Based on the fact that the downstairs neighbor had just retired, he seems to be a huge hockey fan, and the board had some fade lines showing where previous things had been tacked on I suspected he was the installer, but I thought it was a handy thing to have there.

I may have been one of the few in the building who thought that, because the board hasn't gotten much use. Over the months a couple of business cards were pinned there. One day I found a grocery store receipt laying on the floor and stuck it on. Eventually a calendar showed up. 

December's page had a nice generic snowy landscape. This morning I was taking the trash down to the garage and noticed that the calendar was still showing the old month. Even though I wasn't the "owner" I went ahead and changed the page. January has a large eagle perched on a snow bank with icy water in the background. I'm going to enjoy seeing it for the next month.

No Two Days Should Ever Be The Same

Like many people, New Year's resolutions don't really work for me in the long term. For the past several years I've chosen a word to help keep me on track, but this year nothing spoke to me. Finally, I decided to incorporate a concept.

I've come to realize that so much of my life is doing the same things repeatedly. Each day I perform the same morning routine, and (mostly) eat a very similar lunch. Afternoons have a similar flow, then it's time for dinner. I do much of my computer work on the couch in the evening, either listening to the radio or with the television on as background noise. Then it's time to go to bed so I can start again the next day.

In 2026 I've decided that each day has to include at least one non-repeated activity, which can be silly or serious. I did something similar in 2008-my first blog documented my year of doing a new thing every day. This time, though, I have no expectation that my activities will be worth documenting (although I have no doubt some of them will show up).

Wish me luck!

Openclipart

Five years ago today: Just For Today