They Declared a Pandemic on my Birthday

I had a major milestone birthday on March 11th.  We got to go out and celebrate.  But it was also the day that the World Health Organization declared Covid-19 a worldwide pandemic. 

I’ve been meaning to blog about my birthday for a long time now (2 months).  But things have been SO different since then that it’s hard to even go back to when it was kind of normal.  Things like eating out and going to an art supply store.  But here it is, for memory’s sake! 

Todd took the day off work to celebrate with me.  It was also the day that his company declared that everyone should work from home from that day on, until May 1st.  They’ve since extended WFH indefinitely.  The day began with Todd showering me with gifts. 

I got an Apple Pencil, a tracing board with lighting, and a Baby Yoda sketch book.  Great gifts!  I had been into drawing already so these were prescient gifts for quarantine, it turns out.

I wore my “Fifty Years Young” Baby Yoda shirt that I bought from Disney Store online.  We were supposed to spend a few days at Disneyland for my birthday.  I was looking forward to all the new Star Wars Galaxy’s Edge rides and attractions.  But the pandemic changed all that.  Disneyland was closed, and I didn’t get to go.  But I still had my shirt!

We had my birthday lunch at Bencotto in Little Italy.  They had already instituted social distancing, so the seating was spread out and only at around 50% capacity max. 

I had squid ink gnocchi with shrimp and it was delicious!

Todd had gnocchi with spicy marinara sauce and sausage.  He really enjoyed it.

After lunch, we walked down the street to Blick Arts so I could peruse art supplies.  I purchased a few pens in their loose pen section.  Some of my favorite types of pens, where I didn’t have the colors yet.  Then we walked over to Extraordinary Desserts, where we seem to celebrate our birthdays, anniversaries, etc.  We got my favorite cake there, Truffe Framboise, and took it home to share later that day.

In the evening, we went to the movie theater and saw “Onward”, the new Pixar movie.  It was great!  It was right before movie theaters shut down, but after people pretty much stopped going to movies.  So there was hardly anyone there and we were naturally socially-distanced.  I really enjoyed the movie.

It was a wonderful birthday! 

Read More »

I’m Back

I haven’t blogged for about four months due to technical issues with Open Live Writer’s interface with Blogger.  I HATE the Blogger web interface, so blogging was no longer fun for me and I gave up.  I kept checking Github threads to see if someone was kind enough to volunteer his/her time to rewrite Open Live Writer to fix the issues, and lo and behold last Friday when I checked the thread, someone named Nick Vella did!  So now I’m back to blogging, except I’m still considering migrating my blog to self-hosted Wordpress so I never have these issues again.  But that would require research and lots of work, and learning the technical details on my part. 

Todd and I are doing really well, and I am personally doing well! 

Here are some bigger things that happened while the blog was dormant.

• I started reading and watching videos about skincare and have been really interested in it for the last three months.  My 49-year old face looks more glowing and wrinkle-free than before! 

• We watched Game of Thrones’ final season, Season 8.  Sigh.  We loved that show.
• We discovered a couple of new-to-us Chinese restaurants:  Szechuan Chef and Shan Xi Magic Kitchen.
• We turned in the Kia Soul electric car (lease was up), and we purchased a used 2017 BMW i3 electric car for Todd.

• Todd played an entire season of intramural softball at Illumina.  They lost in the first round of playoffs.  I went to 4-5 games.

• Todd went to Trailhead DX in San Francisco.
• We celebrated our 25th wedding anniversary!

• We took a week off in July and staycationed here in SoCal.  We went on a bay cruise.  Spent a day up in San Clemente.  Went to Coronado.  Learned to make Chinese dumplings at home.  Had breakfast out.  Went wine tasting.  We did most of the activities with a Groupon and it cost less than 50% of the regular price!  Woo!

• We went to Nashville, TN for Con of Thrones!

• I went to jury duty.
• I drove to the US-Mexico border for my Global Entry interview.  I’m now a Global Entry cardholder, so I can go through the expedited customs line when I return from a foreign country.  And Global Entry includes TSA Precheck, which I enjoyed immensely when we flew to Ohio.  Two minutes through security!
• We flew to Ohio to spend a few days with Todd’s family.  Todd’s sister Amy had her second baby while we were there!  AND Todd attended his 30th high school reunion!  The funniest thing was when a guy he knew in high school said in front of everyone, “Now what guy our age still has a full head of hair like that??!”  Apparent Todd does.

• My sister Joyce and I put together a 75th birthday party for our dad in LA.  She and my nephew Andrew flew into LA and we drove up.  We had a Chinese banquet at Newport Seafood and invited several of my dad’s friends.  We had two big tables of people to celebrate my dad.  It was grand.

So now we’re caught up!

Read More »

Noodle’s Close Call with a Bee

On Saturday, Noodle got stung by a bee on his right eyelid!  A bee had gotten through our chimney and Noodle chased after it, not knowing what a bee was.  The bee stung him on his right eyelid.  He ran around in pain.  Finally Todd got a hold of him and immobilized him while I took the stinger out with a tweezer. He’s been ok since then, no allergy or lasting effects. Thank goodness! We were ready to take him to the emergency vet if he showed signs of distress afterwards. Poor little Noodle.


On Monday (April Fool’s Day!) I had a doctor’s appointment to get a mole removed and biopsied.  I had a new mole on the back of my left wrist and it was growing.  So my doctor decided to take it out and get it sent to pathology.  Thankfully, I got the word on Thursday that it is benign!


I spent a lot of time last week crocheting some soap scrubbies, which is like a soap pouch combined with a wash cloth.  I’ll be selling my hand-crocheted soap scrubbies with some soaps as a gift set at the end of April in my Pacifica Grace Studio shop!  They will make really cute teacher gifts!


I also spent a lot of time formulating some new products that will be included in a gift box for Mother’s Day in my store.  I’m excited to create the products!  This month’s product release will be delayed until 4/29 due to the number of products I’ll be offering.  It will also be the last new product release until September.  I’ll be taking the summer off, since the majority of the products that I ship will melt in shipment in the summer.  I will do product restockings by request, if it’s something that won’t melt in summer shipment.

The weekend before last weekend, Todd and I went to Meet Fresh again for Taiwanese dessert.  This time we got the taro ball ice bowl.  It was yummy & chewy!



This past week Todd organized a couple of social outings with coworkers and ex-coworkers.  I love how good he is about catching up with people and bringing fun into the workplace.  On Wednesday at lunch, he and his coworkers went to the newly opened Salt & Straw at One Paseo for some ice cream!



Then on Wednesday night, he had dinner with his ex-coworkers Andy and Cecile at Aladdin Mediterranean Restaurant. 


On Saturday, we went to lunch at Santouka Ramen, one of our favorite ramen places around here.  We went there because I wanted to go to Mitsuwa Market to buy some matcha latte mixes.  The trip was a success, as the ramen was delicious and I found the matcha latte that I was looking for!



Yesterday Todd ran his annual favorite trail race, the Xterra Black Mountain 15k Trail Run.  He did well!  As always, I’m super-proud of him.  I tried to find parking at the venue so I could take photos of him at the finish, but there was no parking, it was completely full.  So the photos of him are courtesy of his friend Amy, who ran the 5k and placed 2nd in her age group!  The run looked extra scenic this year with all the wildflowers we got from the winter rains!





After a shower, we went to Todd’s usual post-race meal, Phil’s BBQ!


For the last month, blogging has been very tedious due to Google disconnecting it’s photos API.  I despise the clunky Blogger interface and had been using Open Live Writer to do all my blog posts.  I used to be able to just drag and drop photos into Open Live Writer and blogging was so easy.  Now I have to go through a whole convoluted route to get photos to post correctly and it is taking me 3x as long to blog each post.  I’m super-frustrated with the situation.  As if having the motivating to blog isn’t enough, now I have to contend with the difficulties of getting photos into my blog posts correctly.  I’m definitely considering migrating to Wordpress.  If any of you have had experience migrating from Blogger to Wordpress, please share with me!

Read More »

High Tea at Marlene’s Tea and Cakes

My friend Anne treated me to high tea at Marlene’s Tea and Cakes for my birthday.  We went at 11 am on Friday, March 29th.  I had never been to any high teas before, so this was an exciting new experience that I was anticipating!  Thank you Anne for the incredible treat!

Anne made reservation ahead of time.  They have high tea seatings from 11-1 and then 2-4.  They have limited seating so a reservation is a must.  When we arrived, I was enthralled with the fresh floral decorations and classy ambiance.


We were given a tea selection menu and we picked a pot of Paris tea to share.  The description for the tea:  Fruity black tea with vanilla and caramel flavors, and a hint of lemony Bergamot.   Oh man, it was so good! 


And how cute are the tea cups, creamer, and sugar cups?



Our tea came and I tried to do the pinky up but ended up with pinky down anyway!


I think Anne was better at it than me, ha ha.


Our first course was Hot Vichyssoise Soup with Puff Twist (Creamy potato and leek soup).  It was quite flavorful and delicious.


Then they brought out the three-tiered plates of awesomeness! 


The bottom tier was filled with little sandwiches and savory puff pastry and quiche.  There was:

• Cucumber & Dill Sandwich – refreshing cucumber sandwich with dill
• Mini-Beef Wellington – tender beef, with mushroom, in puff pastry
• Blue Cheese Marscapone and Red Onion Confit Quiche – caramelized red onion quiche with Gorgonzola cheese
• Chicken Pistou Sandwich – chicken salad with pistou, a mixture of garlic, basil, and olive oil
• Nicoise Salad Sandwich – sandwich filled with tuna, egg, baby potato, haricot vert, and tomato

The second tier was filled with fruit and scones.  The strawberry & lemon scone was a cream scone with fresh strawberries, topped with lemon glaze.  It was very good!



The third tier was desserts and everything looked so pretty!  There were:

• Kentucky Butter Crunch Cake – moist buttermilk cake soaked in cream cheese glaze, with almond & coconut crunch topping
• Lemon Meringue Bar – luscious lemon bar topped with meringue
• Brownie Cookies & Cream Trifle – dense brownie layered with Oreo crumbs and whipped cream
• Vanilla Panna Cotta Tart – biscuit topped with smooth & creamy Italian custard

Anne doesn’t like chocolate (!) so I got to take a couple of the desserts home for Todd.  Everything was so exquisite and unique, and also delicious.  I really enjoyed my first high tea experience!  I’m so glad Anne invited me.  I really appreciate friends who take the initiative to make time to do something together.  As adults it seems hard to find time to see friends, but any time I can get together with a friend is truly appreciated!

Read More »