Wallflower

I've always said I was a wallflower and I think this proves it.

Here is my view from the table where I was sitting for the Sutter Davis thank you lunch for volunteers.  Note that all tables are filled except mine.  I rest my case.

Actually, eventually some people came to sit with me (the other tables were full) but four of them were friends who were immersed in their own conversation throughout lunch, but at the end, one woman did say my name was familiar and had I been a real estate agent?  When I told her I was the critic for the Enterprise, she was more friendly and told me she always reads my stuff.  That always makes me feel good.

But the lunch was nice and I was surprised to get a pin for having volunteered 100 hours since I started volunteering (along with a tiny box that held one See's truffle...worth the trip out to the Flyers Club in itself).

Our trip home from Santa Barbara on Monday had been a beautiful tour through a lot of yellow wildflowers.

Mile after mile of carpets of yellow flowers (mustard, I think).  This was an area where a few years ago, the carpets were purple and orange, for lupin and poppies, but I didn't see any of those today.  Still, the yellow kind of takes your breath away when you see it surrounds you as far as the eye can see.

We were listening to David Baldacci's "The Guilty," which is a complicated book in spots and the fact that I had terrible insomnia the night before and kept dozing off didn't help.  But at least the end of the book was so intense that one could not really fall asleep listening to it.

We stopped at one of our regular restaurants along I-5, Pea Soup Andersons.  I know they have a great menu....

but I can never get past their "travelers special," which is a bottomless bowl of their famous split pea soup along with a selection of toppings.

You can get refills on soup as often as you want, but I can never finish more than one bowl, though Walt had two.  The combo comes with the drink of your choice, which includes either a chocolate or vanilla milk shake (I got the vanilla shake).

When I woke up this morning, Amazon had delivered a package, which was my own copy of the Harry Potter cookbook that Brianna was reading when I was in Santa Barbara.  I thought an added dimension to our correspondence would be to compare recipes, since she likes to cook and was excited about several different dishes.  I love it that she likes to read cookbooks as much as I do!  My first experiment will be a Butter Beer Milk shake!