Another month, another senior lunch

Monday was the last Monday of the month again! The menu called for macaroni and cheese and ham. I thought there would be too much sodium for the seniors so I went in search of a lower sodium alternative. I finally settled on some lower sodium chicken sausages with roasted red peppers and spinach - yummy. I had to find a m&c recipe on line to get the quantities right for 60 people. I usually make it for the 2 of us and I cook it by feel. I wanted to make sure I got the amount of seasonings more or less right. It was all a hit.

I find that having regular monthly events like this seems to make time fly by even faster!

When a hurricane goes up the east coast....

Hurricane Irene has been heading up the east coast since Thursday. We left Connecticut because of the cold winter weather, icy slippery roads, the hot humid summers and the never ending utility bills and off course hurricanes. This past week Connecticut experienced some rumblings from an earthquake in Virginia and the last 2 days the impending and then striking hurricane. It did feel good to be over 3,000 miles away but we still are so connected with people on the east coast that we followed the storm and the reports from various areas of the earthquake! I was glad to hear that overall our family and friends are okay with some minor inconveniences (easy for me to say) of loss of power, cable, internet, cell etc.; some basement flooding and lots of preparedness. I am still grateful that we moved and although we still followed it from afar, I was glad to be out of the way of the hurricane and earthquake (although we have plenty of those of our own to contend with.)

So what's up with our gate???

What's the point of living in a gated community when the gate is taken out so often? This is the second time in a month that our main gate has been taken out. Fortunately they have cameras and have been able to track the perpetrators. These gates cost thousands of dollars! This one is dented on the wrong side so it looks like someone backed into it.

Why is it?

Have you ever noticed that the stores never carry what you're looking for when you're looking for it but it's plentiful when you aren't interested in it? I have "given away" a number of my smaller plastic containers with lids and I am down to my last 2 of that size. I try not to over-buy items but wait until I really need the item. In the past I have been looking for the smallest of these containers with lids that K has in Chicago and I think they are perfect for saving small amounts of leftovers etc. Of course I haven't been able to find them in our stores for the last year. Today I went to buy the slightly larger containers and you guessed it, they didn't have any of those although they've had plenty of them for months but guess what they did have? Yup, they had the smallest containers now. Go figure....

A day of "what would you do's?"

This morning I passed a house that had a pile of garden trimmings dumped in front of the house on the street. It was cordoned off. As I got closer I noticed it was smoking where a pile of grass clippings had been thrown on top. What would you do? I went to the front door and rang the bell. I explained to the homeowner what I observed and she said, "oh, it's probably just heat from the composting and unfortunately it is all going to have to stay there until Monday"!!

Then this afternoon I went grocery shopping. I swiped my credit card and handed the checker my "loyalty" card. At the end of the transaction the checker handed me my receipt and thanked me. Now, I never use my debit card to pay for groceries so I was expecting to sign something. The checker assured me that I must have put in for an "eft" transaction so I left the check out. Still puzzled I stopped and checked the receipt - it didn't have my card number and there were items on it that I had not purchased. He charged my groceries to the person who checked out in front of me and didn't give them a receipt! What would you do??? Well, I went to customer service to explain the situation. The "manager" on call didn't have the security clearance to search for who the previous customer was but he said he would take care of it and I went through the line and they onloaded everything and rang me up again. The poor previous customer have a debit of more than $100 more than what they bought!

Ladies Who Lunch and other things

The lunch attendance has been slipping but I noticed that cake seems to bring them back. I promised a cake and we had it on Tuesday. There were 9 wonderful ladies who came for lunch. With the help of some very obliging men golfers we finished the entire cake. I actually made a half cake for us to have at home and made a baker's dozen of cupcakes.

I took some of the cupcakes to the church for their Wednesday after eucharist breakfast and got many thank yous. The older generation really loves their sweets.

The latest t'ai chi class is in the second week. 10 people signed up but only 6 people showed up. Pretty typical. Of the 6 only one has never taken tai chi before. He is at a distinct disadvantage. To add to these difficulties he is very hard of hearing. It's going to be quite a challenge.

New plantings

All the new plants are doing well after about a week.

On the ever increasing size of things

As you can see from the picture my 8x8 square baking pan of 43 years has seen better days so I went in search of a new one and found this beautiful Wilton brand gold 8x8 size pan. I put them side by side and thought they looked pretty even. I have a plastic square container that I can transfer things to from my old pan and it fits "perfectly". When I put the old pan into the new one I discovered that the new pan is a few centimeters larger than the old pan. I guess this is part of the problem of the ever increasing sizes of everything in the US. I don't think the new pan will bake things that will fit "perfectly" into my plastic container. :(

Lots accomplished?

There are times I think I got a lot accomplished because it feels that way but when I look at my list it isn't such a lot. Today was one of those days but I'll give myself credit just the same because it felt good. Our neighborhood was overrun with lots of lookie-loos. One of the residents organized a "rummage sale" throughout the neighborhood from 7:30 AM to 2:00 PM. Starting at 6:30 lookie-loos were lined up waiting to get in. Many residents held sales at their homes and an equal number were "up in arms" about the activity. The biggest problem is that the visitors drive way too fast, drive over residents' lawns and they and their animals are always looking for places to relieve themselves.

I did my usual Saturday routine of spinning, hooping and housecleaning before heading out to do other chores.


Our landscaper pulled out our dying purple lantana and replanted the beds with 25 new red/orange/yellow multicolor lantana plants and dressed the bed. They also planted a new hydrangea, transplanted a bunch of other plants and put in some new agapanthos (California lilac).

I have been obsessing about replacing our furnace airfilter and I managed to pull out the old one (it's in the ceiling) but the replacement I had wouldn't fit. I always seem more obsessive about things I can't do by myself! This is complicated by the fact that we don't have a tall ladder (remember we decided not to do ladders anymore). I bought a filter that would fit but because T and I are on the short side I enlisted the help of a very tall neighbor and he was able to install it in no time. It would have taken much wrangling and probably nashing of teeth if we tried to install it ourselves. Hooray for wonderful neighbors.

While I was shopping I also stopped at the church to take out a frozen carrot cake (remember the case of the missing carrot cake - this was a clone cake that I had frozen). Hopefully this one will last until tomorrow morning for the coffee hour.

This week we are having the Womenade potluck dinner and we are collecting school supplies. Walmart is having a terrific sale on the items requested so I was able to bring home a wonderful collection of needed items.

So as you can see, it wasn't such a lot that got accomplished by me but it felt good so I'll take credit for it all :)

More day tripping

We got all our day tripping done in 2 days. Yesterday Camarillo and today Santa Barbara. T and I headed down to Santa Barbara to meet Sister P and K and their son and his girlfriend. We met at Brophy Bros restaurant on the wharf as it was recommended by a friend of mine. We had a great meal (thank you sis for the treat!) and walked around the wharf before heading back to the Pier where we had parked our cars. We walked up and down the pier and found some great ice cream for dessert. It was a perfect summer day with temps in the mid 70s.

Exploring Ventura County

http://www.ottavio.com/
Today T and I drove to Camarillo, California to meet J and D and J's aunt for lunch. They are visiting in Monrovia, CA and we wanted to meet part way. I asked my wonderful network of California friends for restaurant recommendations for the area and the consensus was Ottavios in Camarillo. It's right off the 101 and very easy to find and the food is delicious. We had a great time, great food, great company and the first time (if you can believe it) for us heading into Ventura County. I have to say I am not impressed with the land south of Santa Barbara. Too many cars, crowded and the country is nowhere near as attractive to this Central Cali Girl!

The grinch who stole the carrot cake

At the senior luncheon on Monday I made too many carrot cakes. Even with their immense appetites for sweets they didn't finish the cakes. There was a whole cake left over. We decided it would be a wonderful treat for coffee hour after the early service. We called the people signed up to host and they were thrilled. As I posted earlier I opened the church on Sunday and the turkey incident pushed this incident out of my brain until just now. The set up crew arrived as I opened the kitchen. They went in search of the carrot cake with great glee but lo and behold someone had taken the sweet treat and left nothing but an empty pan on the counter! Now, who would do such a thing. I can only hope they were really hungry and that they enjoyed it. There were many disappointed coffee hour people.

Dining out surprises

Last evening was Sunday evening - date night! Being good thrifty senior citizens we had a coupon for 50% off second entree at the local Marie Callender's restaurant in Pismo. We put in our orders and had a great time talking, catching up and then noticed that a family who came in just before us had ordered just before us and were now FINISHED eating their meal. We had drinks and cornbread...So I called over Mary the waitstaff person and asked her to check on our meal. She came back shortly and apologized to say it would be just a few more minutes. We thanked her and sure enough it came out just a few minutes later. It wasn't a gourmet meal by any stretch of the imagination but it was tasty enough. Shortly after the manager stopped by and said our wait person told her that she had forgotten to put in our order and that we had waited quite a while. The manager said the restaurant's policy was to apologize and to give us our meals free. She was pretty adamant and being the good thrifty seniors we have become, we didn't fight it too hard. So then the conundrum of whether or not to tip. We decided to give the tip to the manager with a message for the wait person that we were tipping her honesty.

On our way out of the restaurant we were treated to a most beautiful sky - pretty clouds and colors. Clouds at this time of the year are pretty rare for this neck of the woods which made it all the more beautiful.