Arlo Guthrie

Tuesday evening T and I were paying customers at the Clark Center to hear Arlo Guthrie and his family. What an entertaining evening! He still sounds really good. His stories are a riot and his family are amazingly good. Even the little ones got into the act singing along with the adults or just strolling around the stage. The next generation of Guthries will carry on the folk tradition very well.

Womenade

Monday night I hosted the first Womenade potluck dinner in South County. Technically the second one as one was held here many years ago but didn't have many people. We had 54 women attend this one. I rented the Cypress Room from the Pavilion which holds 50 people. I didn't know how many people would attend when I started planning the event but I thought if we get more than 20 they would be pretty crowded in our house. LD, RH and NQ all helped out Monday evening. They did the registration, name tagging, instruction giving etc. We played a "meet and greet" game with prizes and had a few door prizes. We had a 30 minute meeting where I read a litany of some of the good works that our contributions have funded in the first quarter. This was the first meeting for many people and they were impressed with the things that were accomplished. We raised over $2,100, $35 a person! Here's a link to their blog: http://womenade.blogspot.com/

Birthday cookies

One of my favorite cookies - chocolate meringue sandwich cookies with ganache filling. Two of my friends have birthdays on April 15 - yes, income tax day. I thought they deserved a treat. Made half a batch for us too. They got gobbled up at the fitness center. I guess that's why we work out so hard!

Rain, ducks and peacocks

It's pretty late in the season for rain but we've had rain the past 2 Sundays and over an inch yesterday and another 1/4 inch this morning. This picture is of an opportunist water hazard that appeared near the 18th green. As you can see it true what they say about "ducks to water"! If you build it they will come.

Last evening after the major rainstorm T and I headed out for our Sunday evening dinner and we saw a male peacock crossing the road heading towards the most beautiful complete rainbow.

San Luis Obispo Food Bank

My friend, D and I, checked out the local Food Bank today. They contacted Womenade and suggested we come and have a look-see as we may be eligible to shop there for some of the needs of the clients. As it turns out, it operates almost exactly like Foodshare in Bloomfield. There are 2 warehouses in the county and we live pretty close to the one in South County. They are willing to set us up as an agency and permit us to shop for items for our clients' needs. I've been trying very hard to stay away from the whole food supply chain since I've been out here as I did so much of that when we lived in Hartford. Hmmmm....

Concessions "captaining"

Last week T and I usher captained at the Clark Center for the Arroyo Grande High School Band. It was a comedy of errors night. The show was slated to start at 7:30. This means the ushers start arriving at 6:30 and we start briefing them. There was a larger than normal crowd gathering at the doors at 6:30 so we started investigating. It turns out that the programs said the show started at 7 not 7:30 and indeed the conductor started the show at 7. Many of the parents had been told it was a 7:30 show so they missed a good part of the conference. To top it off the show did not have a captain for the concessions stand. T has never done concessions and I have only done it once - so ergo, you got it, I got to be concessions captain. Fortunately (or unfortunately) there was not a large crowd so everything went off without a hitch. I always feel so bad for these musicians when there is such a small audience. Music in West Hartford was such a big deal that the shows were often sold out.

Easter 2010

I was supposed to "open" the church on Easter Sunday. The practice at our church is that the vestry members rotate opening and closing the 14 doors at the church on Sunday morning. Typically one arrives about 45 minutes before the first service. I was supposed to do it Easter morning. When I arrived at 8 (for a 9 service) the church was already unlocked. I didn't realize that the choir would be coming early - before 8 to start rehearsing! Oh well, live and learn. I did my duties anyhow and found that they had only opened the doors that affected their activities leaving another 8 doors that needed to be unlocked.

We had cousin P and S for dinner. They had invited their young friend who is the contractor on their home renovation (no entering the 5th month) but since it had started to rain, he had to go to all his job sites to make sure they were all water tight.

We had a wonderful repast of potstickers, roasted butternut squash soup, mint/rosemary lamb, roasted rosemary/garlic potatoes, green beans with bacon, tossed salad and chocolate peanut butter cake.