Snow, Tea, Scones and Loves

I think Lester is getting tired of snow!  She looks like a lost dog here.

Jeri also sent a photo of her truck buried under the snow.  Look at how much snow is piled on top of the side mirror to the truck (or maybe this is her car...)

Walt said he felt like he should fly back there and help them shovel until I pointed out that this was the last thing a 75 year old man unaccustomed to shoveling snow should be doing!

Well, fortunately, we are not dealing with snow here in Davis, but "suffer" under an abundance of spring blossoms.  I feel so bad for all those still digging out.

As for us, here in the land of blue skies and lovely blossoms, we took my mother to the Citizens Who Care show, an hour and 45 minute salute to love, singing the songs of the 40s to the present.  It was quite different from the past 22 years of concerts, but I heard nothing but rave reviews afterwards.  Walt has worked so hard on this show and I'm so happy for him that it was a big success.  I don't know how my mother felt about it, but I'm glad she got out of Atria for a change.

I skipped the after party because I had been invited to "tea" at our friend Susan's house.  When she invited me for tea at 2, I told her I couldn't go because of the concert, but she was well aware of the concert and had set the tea time from 2 to 5, so that those of us who had been at the concert could still come.

I drove my mother back to Atria and then drove to Susan's, arriving at the same time as The Psychiatrist (remember him?) and his wife.

What a great collection of people.  Starting with Susan, Susie and Sue and then a lot of people I've known for 40 years in this town.  In addition to the psychiatrist there was a former state assemblywoman, a former mayor, the woman I decorated cakes for for awhile, a woman with whom I used to meet, along with our friend Joan, to complain about Bush during his administration, a woman I knew very well and recognize by sight, but don't remember where I know her or what her name is.  And then some folks I didn't know at all.

There was an amazing array of goodies on the table.

There was enough food left over that they insisted I take a plate home to Walt, who had been eating his own hors d'oeuvres at the concert after-party.

When it got down to the smaller group, we had such a good time reminiscing about old time Davis and stories from decades ago.

Then it was time to take a photo before we headed off to our respective homes.

Susan, Susie and Sue, along with me and Judy

 
Susan tells me it's been 2001 since I was last at her house for coffee (she lives 3 blocks from me!) and we have decided we need to do it again soon.  But I sure came home feeling happy (and very full of good food!).  The whole event seemed to be an extension of the history of "Love" I had just left at the theater.

Hearts and Flowers

Valentine's day is usually such a non-holiday around here.  I laugh in the weeks leading up to it, with all the commercials for what to give your sweetheart... everything from diamonds to automobiles.  Like Mother's Day it has become such an incredible hype for advertisers! Walt and I give each other a card.  Period.

He always sends little four-piece Whitman samplers to the kids. He's been doing that all of their lives, it seems.  When they lived at home, every Valentine's day he would get one of those cards that grammar school kids give each other and the little box of samplers and give it to them.  When they moved away, he would mail the samplers and cards to them.  Now that they are married, he sends two samplers, one for the kid and one for the spouse.  This year was the first year that he sent four to Tom's home, including a box for each of the girls.

This year I didn't even make him a special dinner, since he was rushing off to the theater at 4 to take care of the show he has sort of been producing, I guess, and I was headed off to nearby Woodland to review a different show.  I had a bagel for dinner and he heated up something when he got home.

But I couldn't let Valentine's day go for my mother, so I was off early in the morning to buy flowers to take to atria.  

Nugget market was doing a big business in flowers, so big they had even set up a stand outside and I noticed that a girl kept bringing in carts of flowers, so I guess they were selling like hotcakes.

I always notice the price of flowers when I'm in the store and it seemed that these had definitely been jacked up for the holiday!  It was difficult to find a bouquet that was under $10, but I did.  Valentine's day is not cheap, even if you aren't buying diamonds or automobiles!

Then I decided to add some candy to the flowers, and the table with all the candy on it was a jumble and it was difficult to tell how much anything cost, but I chose a tiny bag with red chocolate hearts in it, ignoring the heart shaped boxes, which seemed to be much more expensive.  The little bag had no price on it and I was shocked when I looked at my grocery tag in the car afterwards -- I hadn't looked at it when they were ringing me up -- to find out that this little bag cost $13.  But owell.  It was for my mother and I wanted to make her smile on Valentine's day.

Next I looked for a card and was unable to find a card under $6.  They are clever now, some of these companies.  Instead of just selling you a card,  they package it in a cellophane pouch so it looks richer and, of course the price is higher.  I could have gone to a different store where I knew that there would be non-cellophaned cards, but what the heck, I was there.  I bought a "Mom" card.

I drove to Atria and she was thrilled with the flowers, and barely looked at the candy and the card.  I had to remind her they were there...and I had to remind her three times that I had brought a card, which she finally opened.  Her attitude was "ho hum...a card? candy? Whatever"  But she did love the flowers.

We went to lunch at the dining room, which was all tarted up with balloons.

Lunch was a delicious chicken pot pie, which was a far cry from the last time I ate there, when the "Captain's platter," consisting of "shrimp, fish, and clams" was inedible. Everything was barely warm, and so hard you could barely chew it.  But the pot pie was delicious.

While we were eating, a barbershop quartet circled the room and serenaded everyone.

I had to kind of smile because I remember them from last year, when it seemed they had more volume and were on tune more of the time.  They, like the residents, are getting older.

My mother seemed to have little interest in the music, but did tell me several times about how many balloons there were (sometimes she couldn't remember the word "balloon" and said either "balls" or "bubbles.") and what a lot of work it must have been for someone to blow them all up, and how much work it was going to be to untie them all and deflate them so they could use them again next year.

While we were eating, two little girls, Sophie and Bella, along with their father, came around to every table, carrying a paper bag and gave everybody in the dining room little Valentine's day cards.  That was very cute.

Jeri had sent a text video of the snow in Boston today.  Some guys were removing snow from the roof of their house, almost completely covering her truck in the process.  The video, taken from inside their flat, shows the snow falling off the roof past the window--and was pretty impressive.  I decided to send back a video right after I had shown it to my mother.  I turned on the video and asked her what she thought of all that snow and she seemed very flustered and then said it was "very cute" and what cute girls the granddaughters were.  It's probably just as well that for some reason the audio on my video didn't work.

The truck is just barely visible--that black wedge over on the right

 So that was our Valentine's day.  I came home and took a nap, as I usually try to do before going to review a show so I can stay awake.  Walt went off to the theater and when I got home from my own show we shared ice cream cones and he went off to bed.  I fell asleep watching television.

There was no new car in the driveway, or diamonds on my breakfast plate.

Say It Isn't True, Jon!

When The Daily Show started tonight, Jon Stewart had a secret that the studio audience didn't know...but that the viewing audience already knew, since the show is broadcast much later than it is taped and so his news had been all over the news and social media all evening.

Sometime later this year, at a date not yet specified, Stewart is stepping down as host of The Daily Show.  The tributes to him all over the media and news shows this evening made you feel as if he had died.

First Robin Williams, then Stephen Colbert, and now Jon Stewart.  It's definitely the end of an era.

I was not a fan of The Daily Show for the first few years, but Ned goaded me into checking it out and I was immediately hooked.  Stewart jokes that his is a "faux news" program and reiterates time and time again that he is not a newsman and yes, that's true.  He doesn't go out and find news, but he reports news he finds on other sources, and he interviews newsmakers, and in so doing he has created an entirely new genre of news reporting, one which holds the feet of everyone to the fire, who takes no prisoners, and whose facts, when checked, are almost always spot on.  He may have had a glitch or two in the past 16 years, but I don't remember any.  It seems that I read once that the two programs which had the least factual errors were Rachel Maddow and The Daily Show.

He reports the news in an entertaining fashion, but always with a biting edge that does not suffer fools gladly.  Or maybe he does suffer fools gladly, since he has so much fun pointing out the errors in their messages.

What will we all do without Jon Stewart?  We will survive.  We survived last summer, when he took off to direct his first movie (I knew then, in my heart of hearts, that he was getting restless and would soon leave for other pastures -- maybe not always greener, but different.)  

Then, he left the show in the capable hands of John Oliver, who now has his own show on HBO, and is doing well...and can say all those words that Comedy Central has to bleep out of The Daily Show. 

 

Stewart is making a very wise decision, though all of us fans are in mourning this evening.  He is going out on a high note.  He's not going to stay too long at the fair, but he is leaving the show, leaving people clamoring for more, not sticking around to the point where everyone is wondering if maybe he's lost his edge.

As much as I hate change, and as much as I have loved The Daily Show and look forward to it...daily...I wish him well and congratulate him for a very long, very successful roll of the dice.

His announcement at the end of tonight's show was very emotional and, as he fought tears, I had tears running down my face as well.  But hey, I cry at supermarket openings and Hallmark card commercials.

He's not gone yet.  It may be July, it may be December...he doesn't know, but he will leave a legacy behind that no one will be able to match, at least not for a long time.

---

"Mommy, please make it stop," Lester seems to be saying.

You can see that the snow mountain has reached the top of Jeri and Phil's porch...fortunately they are up off the ground by several steps, otherwise their windows would be covered.

And Boston is set for two more storms to hit later this week.

I feel so sorry for them and for everyone in New England who is trying to cope with this incredible snow season.