Evening scenes

NC trip

Z & I just returned from a week in North Carolina.

(We are now profoundly exhausted & need to take a vacation.)

After a full Sunday morning/afternoon,

we drove down to LAX arriving with lots

of extra time for our red-eye flight

scheduled to leave around 11pm-ish,

only to find out that we were bumped to a flight

leaving at 2am instead.

So we settled in at Malibu Al's &

did some writing/editing/etc.

& took pics of random stuff...

When we finally arrived in NC, 

we were greeted by this:

Mama & Daddy just bought a really interesting old house.

They've already uncovered gorgeous hardwood floors, 

but there is still plenty of work to do on the

old wallpaper & cleaning up all the mature landscaping.

Another fun discovery was finding that their attic

is full of vintage treasures from the previous owners.

There were some fabulous items, including

luggage filled with the contents below from

vacations past.

I love the shoe horns & unopened pack of cards for just $0.29!

There were also books, frames, jackets, 

bowling trophies, vintage toys, 

the most amazing women's hats, and clothing.

Below, Z models a suit he just pulled

on over his clothes, shoes & all.

It was evidently tailored for a short man

with a very round middle.

Much more NC visit to come...

including photos of my brand new niece!

Breaking through the fog

 I know it's no comparison to the heaps of snow

or bone-chilling temperatures many of our 

friends are dealing with right now, 

but winter in the valley

is colder & grayer than I'd anticipated.

For a place that gets above 110 in the summer, 

I admit that I didn't expect to see the 30s in the winter.

Besides the temps, though, there is often a heavy 

blanket of fog/smog, 

and honestly, 

it can be really depressing.

So we try to take advantage of our sunny days.

Below you can see Z & Mr. Wilson

hanging out on the front porch

while Z does a bit of old-fashioned writing.

Dog Days

Left coast dog.

East coast dogs.

Obviously the east coast dogs are a bit more active.

Our Mr. Wilson loves going for walks, but is

perfectly happy viewing passersby from our front window

& alerting us to the arrival of the mail.

Ball is not in his vocabulary.

The east coast canines, Shelby & Abby,

belong to my folks and my brother,

respectively.

They are BFFs and salivate

at the mere mention of the word 'ball'.

Lovely, crazypants dogs.