Happy Autumn! Southern California is starting to look like fall, with a few falling leaves, even though the temperatures are still warm and there has been no precipitation.

There is another fire raging in Ventura County. I could see the smoke and drove through falling ash on my drive home from tutoring this afternoon. The winds are gusting and humidity is low, which unfortunately makes for perfect fire conditions.

The rest of September I will be mostly absent from Blogland. I have several deadlines looming, some self imposed and others imposed upon me. I am also getting used to a new job schedule, which always takes extra energy. I'll be back as soon as I can with photos and catch up news. I promise to post that Carrot Top Soup recipe for Clarity and photos of the spun yarn for Mary P. Oh, and there is a shawl, a hat, a scarf and more yarn (this time green and blue) to show, once I get them all photographed.

I'll be back soon, before Autumn really sweeps in with piles of orange and brown leaves and overcast days.

Friday Fave Five, #54, Mid September Edition

It's Friday (again) and it's Friday Fave Five time. FFF is a weekly post for many people who focus on the happy, and positive events in their week.

It was a very busy week here at Willow's Cottage, and I'm thankful for the opportunity to choose to think about the 'good stuff'.

1. The Professor and I spent the weekend here:

Los Angeles' Beach Cities is always a happy place for us. We kitty-sat while our friends were gone and appreciated the opportunity to be away from our routine and get a little beach walking time.

2. Gelato! Dark Chocolate! Love it!

3. This merino/silk blend fiber slipped through my fingers quickly and turned into a lovely yarn.

4. Shopping in Manhattan Beach. In three very quick stops, I found office supplies, t-shirts, a work blouse, black capris, and a kitchen scale. This makes my FFF for two reasons. I do not enjoy shopping and being able to complete all those purchases with a minimum of effort is a definite highlight for me. Finding a scale (at Sur La Table) that can be used for weighing fiber has been on my to do list for quite some time, and now it can be crossed off. The scale can be put to use making sure the skeins of yarn I spin for sale are the correct weight as well as length. This expedition was almost painless and was certainly helped by several ounces of, ahem, coffee.

5. The Professor and I met old friends and co-workers for lunch on Tuesday. PF was in Southern California visiting from Florida, traveling around with MS1 who lives up in Santa Barbara not too far from us. During our years in Indonesia, we worked side by side with these women and have great love and respect for them. Two hours over lunch just wasn't long enough to catch on everyone's news! Hearing and speaking the mix of English and Indonesian languages in our speech was like music, a secret song that only we four were singing.

This is a quick recap of 'Willow's Week'. To join in, go to Living To Tell The Story.

Friday Fave Five #53

This week is officially the fifty-third Friday Fave Five. I checked in my post history and found that this is my fifty-first FFF!

This week has been a good and busy start to my school year. But I want to focus my faves on the weekend when The Professor and I took a quick overnight trip to Anaheim, California. If you are human, were ever a child, or are even a little bit literate, you will recognize the name of that city as being the hometown of DISNEYLAND, DOWNTOWN DISNEY, and CALIFORNIA ADVENTURE.

Riding boats through the Pirates of the Caribbean tunnel, climbing up the Matterhorn, and visiting with Minnie Mouse and Goofy are not the only attractions at Disneyland. Last weekend Disneyland hosted the Half Marathon and Chaplain Dan, The Princess and her sister ran it for the first time.

We joined the hundreds of people cheering the 13,000 participants. Since the starting time was 6am, we drove down Saturday night and stayed in a motel near Disneyland to be on hand to see our three favorite runners at the beginning of the race.

We were able to follow their route and wave and shout at them at two different spots.

And of course we were there at the finish line to congratulate them!

We were so proud of their accomplishment, and so was Mickey!

My five faves?

1. Spending Saturday evening with them, sharing dinner at The Block, an outdoor mall in the vicinity.

2. Cheering them as they ran past us. We were amazed that we were able to spot them among the thousands running down Disneyland Drive at the beginning.

3. Finding an open coffee place at Mile 4 so we could sip some refreshment while they ran out of Disneyland and through the city.

4. Being at the finish line to hug them and congratulate them on a good run.

5. Dining with them and The Princess's parents afterwards, just enjoying being together, promising ourselves and each other that we would all walk and run and train and join the throng of racers NEXT YEAR!

Do you think we could really do it?

To read what other people are thankful for this week, go to Susanne's blog!

Sun and Moon

Sunset

Moonrise

Same evening

Friday Fave Five, #52

Is this really #52?!

I have enjoyed doing this Friday meme. I know I've written several times how just knowing that I would be posting something for FFF made me look at my week's events differently. Susanne, thank you, thank you, thank you, for faithfully hosting this group of thankful people each week.

Here are mine for this first week of September~

1. The Professor took a quick trip to 'that other place way far away' when Our New Boy and his Mama live. It seems that Kiti's car didn't get the memo about lasting 200,000 miles. It almost made it, but died a very sad death, and everyone knows that the Mama of a toddler really needs transportation. With his red Superman Cape flapping in the wind behind him, The Professor flew off to help corral The New Boy at car lots and offer sage vehicle purchasing advice. How many Superpapas would do that? And on Monday night, Son #2 donned his Superson cape to brave LA traffic and pick him up at LAX, saving me from that freeway caper.

2.While The Professor was away, I played. With my food. Knowing that cooked carrots are way down on his fave food list, I decided to do the unmentionable to those sweet little farmers market carrots and cooked up some Cream of Carrot Top Soup. I had found the recipe in a gardening book from the library called Edible French Garden by Rosalind Creasy and was intrigued. Are carrot tops actually edible? After cooking carrots and potatoes with various herbs and adding a little milk to the pureed veggies to thin them a bit, I blanched the carrot tops and blended them with some of the soup base. It was delicious!

3. Ellen B and I have been walking a little earlier in the morning this week because of the higher temperatures and poor air quality due to the fires in Southern California. The deer, quail and bunnies have been out early too. Why is it that rabbits sit very still like little bunny statues, thinking that we don't see them squatting right in the middle of a driveway?

4.It's official! My whole family has taken to enabling my photography addiction. On our drive home from (a very yummy) dinner at a local Thai restaurant, Son #2, who was driving, looked in his rear view mirror, turned left and did a 180 onto the gravelly road side by the field near our neighborhood, exclaiming,

"Mom, you've got to take a picture of this sunset!"

Yes, I did. And, so, I did.

The smokey atmosphere over Southern California is producing some amazing psychedelic sunrises and sunsets.

5. Speaking of Son #2, he drove away yesterday morning from Willow's Cottage to begin a new adventure. The Professor says I should change Son #2's name to The Grad Student. Stanford. PhD. Anthropology.


6. Susanne, I just have to add one more! While The Grad Student was doing the gallant deed of braving the Los Angeles freeways for me on Monday evening, I accompanied my friend to a meeting where I watched her greeting and interacting with the parents of the students she has taught in past years and will be teaching this year. Her enthusiasm and passion for her students and for teaching writing skills was evident in every encounter. I have stated for years that my friend is one of the best teachers I've ever known and Monday night's experience only reinforced my opinion. I am so very fortunate and thankful for the opportunity to work with her and assist her in teaching those students.


I hope you have enjoyed the adventures of this edition of Willow's Week. To participate in Friday Fave Five or just read others' FFFs, go to Living To Tell The Story.


Have a great week, everyone! If I don't get around to visit everyone's posts, it's only because, like last week, I just got overwhelmed by the heat.

Los Angeles Fire Departments

Thank you to all who are thinking of and praying for our firefighters. My nephew was on a strike team yesterday but is home now resting, recharging so he can return to his post.

The fire departments here in Southern California aren't always fighting fires, although this week it seems like they do. Sometimes they rescue boaters whose capacity to sail extends beyond their ability to control their craft.

Heroes are everywhere!

What We Need

What we need right now is some of this~

Not another forest fire.

Praying for our firemen (including our nephew) who are fighting the Station Fire and our family members who are very close to an evacuation line.

Friday Fave Five

Friday's Fave Five, Late Summer Edition

Join me and others at Living To Tell The Story to share what we loved about our week. Here is my week in retrospect.

1. First is Last. Just before sitting down to write this post, I drove The Professor to Los Angeles to catch a plane. The round trip took a total of two hours, home to LAX and back to home, three freeways and freeway interchanges each direction. The drive was mostly easy and smooth, no close calls or crazy drivers. For a quick and safe airport trip I am truly thankful.

2. Messing around with my camera's macro setting. Photo taken Saturday while watching our bikes outside the hardware store.

3. Gifting. I love the give and take of sharing with others, giving away what you don't want or need to someone else who has been looking for just that item. This week I was able to gift away some decorative rock that was in our front garden, placed there by the previous owners. As I was scooping up the rocks, a nearby neighbor wandered over and asked if I or my daughters had any interest in a chair and a desk. I have been thinking for some time that I would like a desk for my laptop. My little Dell wanders around the house and is often placed on my lap while I am typing or browsing. So now my computer will have a home, once I figure out where to put the lovely drop down lid desk. This week everyone wins! I have a desk, my neighbor has more room in her house, and my sister in law has rock for a pathway.

4. I heart my library. I love having so many books available to me through inter-library loan!

5. The Farmers Market. We are fortunate to have a local farmers market that is open 50 Saturdays during the year. The Professor and I shop there most Saturdays and choose fresh, local, often organic, vegetables to eat during the week. This evening's dinner was tomatoes (local: our garden), basil (ditto), spinach and garlic (farmers market) sauteed in olive oil (farmers market) and served over linguine (Trader Joe's).

I hope you have enjoyed this Late Summer version of Willow's Week!

Late Summer Spinning and Knitting

As the summer season slowly winds down, those lazy dog days of late summer slip into early autumn, I look at my summer vacation to do list. While I have accomplished some of the hundreds of tasks I set for myself this summer, I also find I have not completed most of them.

Buy new tablecloths--no.
Purchase a guest room lamp--not yet.
Hang more pictures--nope.
New area rugs--no.
Strip and repaint my grandpa's old wooden chair--mostly done with that.

Ah, but, spinning and knitting? Yes, I've done a bit of that!

Variegated blue superwash wool from Crown Mountain Farm--all spun up, twist set, skeins wound.

More superwash wool, also from Crown Mountain. This one reminds me of Peppermint Candy.

My summer knitting has been simple and uncomplicated. The warmer weather prevented me from working on large, cold weather projects such as sweaters or blankets. In fact, my summer stitching has been so boring I haven't bothered much with photos. A few bunnies. A couple of scarves.

However, yesterday a request came from a family member for me to knit some soft cotton caps to cover a head soon to be free of hair. I am searching my pattern books for sweet, simple, soft hats.

As autumn arrives, I will have more purpose in my knitting. I promise. And maybe, just maybe, I'll finally purchase those rugs, lamps and tablecloths. And finish painting the grandpa chair.

It's Fair

After going to the county and state fairs in Oregon, Washington, and California for so many years, I wonder if I'll tire of wandering through commercial buildings, around the craft, garden, and collections displays,

and along the main refreshment thoroughfare.

The Ventura County Fair drew us this year as the fairs have done every year.

Yes, there were fried Snickers and fried Twinkies, but I resisted. I had already eaten half of that strawberry and whipped cream funnel cake.

I learned early in my fair going career that although I still enjoy watching the ferris wheel make its revolutions, I am quickly bored with the rides and games. Carnies are carnies wherever they're peddling their wares and entertainments.

But I'm always up for the tractors and livestock. The fairs, after all, focus on the local economy, and there is still an agricultural presence in most counties in the West Coast states.

No, I haven't tired of spending a day at the fair yet. I don't think I ever will.

11.667

He said, "Shall we ride our bikes to the farmers market this morning?"

I said, "How far is it? How can we carry our spinach and beans and broccoli home?"

As I spoke, I knew those were silly questions. He rides his bike daily and carries everything he needs in a black backpack.

He said, "We can ride to the market and then if you want to wait for me Somewhere, I'll pop over to the hardware store and pick up that screwdriver I need to mend your spinning wheel. And then we'll ride home."

The thought of 'Somewhere' intrigued me.

I asked, "Where is Somewhere?"

He replied, "Oh, Somewhere where there is coffee."

He has been encouraging me to ride my bike more. He knows that once I'm out on the bike, on the street, I love it, I feel strong and free. The tricky part is getting me on to the bike. That's where the encouraging part comes in.

He calls it encouragement. I call it bribery. It works.

I said, "OK. How far will we have to ride?"

He didn't say.

We rode to the market, and I felt strong and free, so we rode to the hardware store, where I waited outside and guarded the bikes. Then we decided to ride to the closer coffee place because I wasn't feeling so strong and free. I was hungry and thirsty.

Down the hill on Barry Street. Along Mission Oaks, which parallels the freeway and is actually lined with large, graceful eucalyptus trees, not oaks. Across Santa Rosa and into the parking lot.

He happily paid his bribe.

Round trip: 11.667 Miles

Friday Fave Fives

Late August. Lasting summer. Lazy days.

My week in review.

Each week I share my five best moments in Friday's Fave Fives, hosted by Susanne.

1. Sylvia has gone to live with a new little girl, born this month. I hope Sylvia brings her many happy hours of comfort and joy.

2. The county fair. Food and Fun. Just The Professor and me.

This was once a strawberry and whipped cream covered funnel cake. We shared.

The Spinners and Weavers Guild was there, spinning and weaving. The guild members were taking turns weaving a bamboo runner.

3. Cool and foggy mornings make for pleasant walks. Every morning this week, our blue sky has been obscured by low clouds and fog. The haze usually burns off by mid afternoon. The morning cloud cover keeps the temperatures in a comfortable mid 70s range.

4. I love living in an area of Southern California where there are still large fields of market crops. I pass this and several other fields on my route to the Pacific Coast Highway where I can go either south to Malibu and Santa Monica or north to Oxnard and Ventura.

Wednesday I drove PCH south (past this field), through Malibu, to Santa Monica to spend a few precious hours with a friend. We met at Le Pain Quotidien on the Third Street Promenade and enjoyed French pastries and excellent coffee served in French mugs.

5. University faculty gathered for dinner and schmoozing Thursday evening, hosted by the library staff. The fortunate librarians have a new and fancy building that was recently dedicated as the John Spoor Broome Library, named for the benefactor of the land on which the university is built. I accompanied The Professor to the dinner and enjoyed getting reacquainted with faculty members that I usually see only once a year, at this event.

Well, here you have it. Willow's Week. It was a quiet week. And it was good.

To share with others, go to our hostess, Susanne, at Living To Tell The Story.

Friday Fave Five

Friday Fave Fives

1. A writing class. I attended a class designed to teach writing to students. Two years ago, I took the class for the first time, and the two part class this week is a review. Institute for Excellence in Writing.

2. Which brings me to Fave #2. The bad news? Right off the newspaper's front page-- CA budget crisis slashes education jobs. Including mine. The good news! I am privileged to take my teaching and tutoring experience and recent writing knowledge and put it to work to help a dear friend (the writing teacher) increase her class load in homeschools and charter schools in the area!

3. Fun trip to the county fair. That's where I will be while you are reading this on Friday. Walking around with The Professor. Eating greasy food. Watching the people. Gazing at photography and knitting.

4. Library books. I love the serendipity of cruising the bookshelves and discovering a new volume or unknown (to me) author. Oh. And library book holds!

5. My camera. I still really really love it! My current favorite photo.

Peace, Los Angeles

To visit the rest of the FFF gang, go to Susanne's blog.

Downtown Los Angeles: Random Views

When you do the tourist thing in Los Angeles, you don't have to limit yourself to looking for the Hollywood sign, cool as it is, searching for Movie Stars, or spending big bucks at Universal Studios. Entertain yourself! Look up and around. Los Angeles provides a crash course in urban architecture.

Olvera Street fountain with Terminal Annex in the background.

Pico House, a notable Los Angeles Hotel, in the early days.

Decorative cornice on an old Main Street building.

Two movie theatres that are great examples of the classical architectural style.

Dept of Transportation building with church in background.
Juxtaposition of old and new, reminiscent of London's constantly changing urbanscape.

Church with Dept of Transportation building in background.

Abandoned buildings provide sad testimony to urban blight.

St. George Hotel missed the memo about luxury loft makeovers.

This building got the memo and reinvented itself as retail space.

Please note here that the advert proves once and for all that knitting is now mainstream.

Clifton's Cafeteria, Downtown restaurant.

The Professor remembers eating there 'on special occasions' when he was a child.

On our next visit, we'll have lunch there, The Professor promised.

Thanks, Los Angeles! Until next time...

I'm very excited to announce that my previous post Downtown Los Angeles: Getting There and Getting Around was selected by David McMahon as a top contender for his Post Of The Day.