Ramblings of a Crazy Woman

The great outdoors has been my saving grace in this pandemic we had previously relied on Disneyland to fill our weekends but we are finding that there is more to life than theme parks! 😱  That has been a refreshing realization.  From creeks, to walks in the woods to exploring tide pools to waterfalls, Southern California has a ton to offer. They even have snow 50 minutes up the 210!  My eyes are more wide open so kudos to the great outdoors!   This past Friday, distance learning was done for the week, tons of job applications submitted and well, I felt the need to get out!  So we spoke to the neighbors and headed out. Two weeks ago, all of us went to Sunset Ridge but there were no signs and what we walked on I don’t think was Sunset Ridge as the signs were sparse and the people I asked weren’t sure either and there were a ton of trails. We picked an unlabeled trail and asked people where we were but they seemed to be just as unknowledgable as us!  Later, w...

It's been 300 and some days before Coronavirus took over our lives. I remember the day it happened because it was Friday the 13th.  It was March 13th and it also, happened to be my 13th wedding anniversary.  Lots of 13's, did I cause a global pandemic?    Well, I didn't but I sure remember the day.  A national health emergency was declared.  School announced it was closing immediately and lastly, I remember being in an Lyft, scared as could be, going to my 13th wedding anniversary dinner at the Nomad Hotel in Downtown LA.  It was supposed to be glorious but it was riddled with fear.  No one knew what this virus was or how it spread and I was going Downtown where tons of people reside... where any one of them could give me this mysterious disease?! Luck was not on my side that day. As I am riding in the Lyft I get a call from my employer telling me they were going a different direction with the job I had and they no longer need my freelance service...

The thing about inspiration is once it gets going it’s absolutely an amazing thing! Over a month ago, parents sat down and tried to figure out what the heck we would do to replace a most beloved in-person MLK event in pandemic times.   What grew out of that meeting was something extremely special and proves a point, that kindness even in it’s littlest form matters.  Last night 12 children out of 123 that participated, volunteered to speak about their month long acts of service within their home/neighborhoods (1 child spoke from Brazil where her family got stuck in the pandemic) via a Zoom celebration.  These kids were amazeballs! Our teachers were amazeballs! Our administration were amazeballs!  I about cried when the principle said “my soul feels full” and when another teacher declared “Kindness is our Jam!” ...just so moved to have witnessed a teeny tiny idea blossom into such inspiration.  This project was OPTIONAL, the kids didn’t have to do it on top of all...

  Duh-ism #5240- Hubs walks into the kitchen with beautiful flowers and hands them to me. I was so stunned. Then 15 seconds later he walks back into the kitchen with a “Farm Fresh To You” box and the realization that I had ordered these for the first time occurred to me. .....Oh well, sometimes a girl has to take things into her own hands! . Today I’m celebrating surviving 348 days of unemployment, 348 days of distance learning 348x3 meals prepared (or ordered) and 1.5 million loads of laundry and dishes done! I’m also celebrating New York opening up their movie theaters!!! Starting to look sunny!

Has anyone else watched Netflix’s 4-parter on the super creepy history of the 1924 Cecil Hotel in Downtown LA? Brian Grazer and Ron Howard definitely reel you in on this one. 80 deaths in one 10 year span alone! Serial killers and the weird elevator footage of Elisa Lam who went in the hotel and never came out? Not to mention the weird General Manager lady who was upset by bad Yelp reviews, the hotel is nicknamed Death Hotel um bad reviews follow me thinks! Also, don’t Google this hotel or you will go down a rabbit hole of people crazily internet sleuthing trying to figure out what happened to the girl and there are bizarre theories. Um, freaky and so many things to discuss. Um, my Friday night movie was interesting.

  Duh-ism #5231....So I’m hiking and I hit a section of the trail I’m sure I could easily get lost on if I wasn’t paying attention, so I take a picture of an item partly hidden in the bushes to mark where I’ve been, you know in case I don’t remember on the way back. Flash forward 45 minutes, we get back to the questionable area and the kids ask if they can go up? I look around for the item I took a picture of and it’s not there. Where did the blue bike go, I ask? About 30 seconds after I asked...it dawned on me that my marker was resting and not a woodsy decoration and it’s owner um, rode away on it. “That’s why dad won’t go on Amazing Race with you.” P says.

Spoke to a dear friend today that I haven't heard from in a long while. Right before Covid hit in March they had left LA to go care for a family member for what was supposed to be 2 weeks and wildly, those 2 weeks turned into a year!   After getting their family vaccinated and also, themself they finally felt it was safe enough to travel home. I asked if they felt safe on the plane and they said they wore double masks, a face shield and bought out the row on the plane because the seats were cheap! I could tell from the description of the past year there was a real relief in getting that vaccine.  My friend returned to a house that hadn't been lived in almost a year, grateful no one had broken in, there were cars in the driveway with dead batteries that had to be jumped by AAA and the yard massively overgrown like a JUMANJI jungle had taken over. It was a time capsule of sorts. However, they slept liked they never slept before last night (I was jealous).   Today with so ...

We so miss eating out in good ole LA...with numbers down...we decided to book a table at our favorite restaurant, at good ole Tam O'Shanter. Eating inside restaurants is not permitted however, eating outside is. So we booked a table on the patio to celebrate this most special day of love and like any good movie there was an element of surprise...WIND!!!   Our first trip back to a restaurant was like visiting the Wizard of Oz with men dressed in PPE gear aka facemarks and plastic gloves. We had to following the brick road to our table. The restaurant had set up tents. This has always bugged me. If you are not supposed to eat inside, why is eating inside a tent okay? Anyhow, we got the one table not covered by the tent which was fine by me (safety) but boy was it ever a windy dining experience!  I am pretty sure no droplets could have penetrated our masks in this unique situation. Despite the weird wind, the meal was absolutely delicious! Prime rib, creamed spinach, mash...

In 2019, my lovely and super dear grandmother passed away, kiddo and I flew to Michigan to go to her funeral, which oddly didn’t happen in the way we expected (long story) and we made friends with her next-door neighbor, who had been such a good neighbor and friend to grams for many years.   As we sorted through grams belongings we found a huge stack of letters that he wrote to grams full of notes and poetry he wrote. He is a teacher, a guy who cares about his community and a fellow fun seeker (he took us for a spin in his red convertible). Anyhoo, he is a good soul.  So after that trip we took to writing letters to each other. My grandmother was a good letter writer and in writing to him it is like I am writing to her as I did for so many years after moving to California. We send stuff back and forth across the country and it’s just fun and in a way it’s double fun because we made a new friend and it’s like hearing from grams when we get a letter from him.  Plus, my pare...

When I was growing up in Michigan we had these things called snow days...so we silenced the screen, double-masked it and drove 50-minutes to the mountain to a place called Mount Baldy.  Our neighbors came with us so it was a girls day and a much needed break for Marie, a teacher who hasn't had a day off since March 2020! Thankfully, the trip to the mountain wasn't as wind-y as it normal is. Usually there is an element of car sickness when you head up a mountain but we either found a straight path or we got lucky. Probably both. With only one other car behind us it was a perfectly socially distance day on the mountain. We parked and immediately spotted a baby Bob Cat lurking very near our car on a hill. That's not something you see every day! We had to wait to get on the ski lift so the girls placed in the snow and picked up shards of ice. You can tell these girls didn't have much exposure to snow as they played gloveless only to find out that their fingers burned a ...

The great “keep yourself entertained during a global pandemic” outdoor exploration continued with a 2-hour birdwatching hike in Temescal Canyon.  Our guide, who outfitted us with binoculars and bird field guides took us around pointing out everything from different woodpecker species to California Thrashers and various hawks. He brought a spotting scope so we could see these birds up close and personal and they had some real gorgeous coats.  One of the highlights of the hike was stopping in an empty valley where he challenged us to be absolutely quiet and listen to the bird symphony around us. It reminded me of being in a movie theater or a mixing stage with sounds coming at you in multiple directions. This pandemic has put a hold on a lot but it’s also has a funny way of showing me what I’ve been missing.