A roommate and a road trip

One of my best friends in the whole world moved to California this month and is staying with us for the Summer or until she gets settled. It's been so great to have her here. We drove down to LA to visit Joel this weekend. It was a total blast. We spent an evening out in Disneyland, walked the Venice boardwalk, drank loads of coffee in the sun and took a drive out to the Griffith Observatory. Here are a few shots from our observatory trip. This is one of the few places you can get a picture of the Hollywood sign though I really needed a longer lens.

my Yelp link

Recent reviews by Stacey E.

What's this?

I've been reviewing restaurants for the past few years. All of my reviews are on yelp in case you ever want to re-trace our gastro tour of the planet.

Oceanside

This weekend we headed down to Oceanside for a bike race. Oceanside isn't a particularly happening [read: retirement] place but the beach front is beautiful and the drive down wasn't bad either. It was a nice change from our usual LA weekend activities.

Devils Punch Bowl

I've been continuing my 4 days in LA/3days in SF schedule flying back and forth. This weekend Joel came home to ride in the Devils Punch bowl race. I'm pretty used to these weekend race days. We're up at 4:50 or 5am, off driving for hours to some tiny town or truck stop in the dust bowl sector of California. This race was in Pear Blossom. I did not make that name up. There were a lot of tumble weeds Joshua Trees and stuff that's just hard to explain.

Lets not forget the bike race! Joel came in 8/75! Go honey.

The Getty Villa

The Getty Villa, a set on Flickr.

the Venice Canals

Venice Beach Canals, a set on Flickr.

I don't think I really fully appreciated this area until we came back for another Spring here. I'm here 4 days a week and each time I fly down I find more things I enjoy doing. I'm certainly not a bored trailing spouse. Every day after I finish my homework I'm out with the other film widows, exploring, doing yoga, running on the beach, lunching in cafes in the sun. I will never say something unkind about LA again... ;)

Q. Where in the world are Joel and Stacey?

A. Sometimes in Fairfax, sometimes in LA

Spring, the season of weekly flights and filming hysteria is upon us. Joel, being the Pennington he is, manages his overtime hours and fits in his cycling training for hours in the wee hours every morning. Around LA. He's not all that fond of the inner city routes but looks forward to the longer weekend rides in Malibu. He also claims that riding "California Screaming" in Disneyland's California Adventure is part of his training. If he's successful at proving this DL will become a haven of athletes. Imagine that. 

I scaled back my school schedule to make room for (drum roll) skating and (another drum roll) a life. I know, frivolous. I got a little burnt out on school in the fall and have diversified my weeks with skating and more regular running. I hired a skating coach here and will begin to work with her tomorrow. I also took a trapeze lesson at a circus school yesterday. So to all the kids that made fun of me when I was too scared to venture up the ladder to the tree-house... try the ladder to the top of the trapeze platform. Fear of heights conquered. Without the use of a trapeze, I fly to LA every other week to see Joel. A schedule we are pretty used to now. 

The Academy of Art is giving me an Associate of Arts degree (AA) in May of this year. It's nice to have that under my belt though I will most likely keep working toward my full degree over the next few years. An ongoing gallery of school projects of mine is growing on Deviant Art

That's all for now! If you're in Victoria, enjoy the snow or buy some really huge patio heaters.

Sometimes life gives you really tasty lemons

It was a beautiful day in the neighborhood. The sun was high in the sky with not a cloud in sight. The chilly morning had finally settled on being an 18 degree afternoon. I dropped our car off at the mechanic shop and headed over to Good Earth natural foods to wait while they changed my headlights. After selecting a gluten-free slice of pizza and a greens drink I found a spot on the patio where I could watch the three (!) mechanics all working on my car gesticulating and shouting loudly enough in Spanish that I could almost hear them from where sat half a block away. Then they got a jack. Apparently I'm not the only one who has trouble changing the lights on this car.

When I showed up to pick up my car the patriarch of the garage sidled over to me with a bulb in his out-stretched hand. "Why? Why they made your car have bulb like BMW?"

I paid for my yuppie-bulbs but as I was turning to leave the mechanic appeared in the doorway again heaving a large box full of lemons "here, you take?"

In the end he made sure I had a grocery bag full of lemons from his tree.

When I got home, the 8 year old boy who lives next door was standing in the driveway with a rake "I'm clearing out your garden" he announced proudly "so you can plant things here." He was indeed clearing out a leaf pile I'd hidden behind the Wisteria.

An hour later the rake was abandoned for dinner time but there was a big dent in the leaf pile. I split my bag of lemons into two and placed the second bag on the doorknob of his house. Above me in the window he and his four year old sister waved to me waved to me gleefully from their seats at the dinner table.

Wine tasting in Sonoma

We're about 40 minutes South of Sonoma but are not up there nearly often enough. It's a beautiful area.

Vancouver in the snow

We spent a night at the old Sylvia hotel while visiting friends in Vancouver. It's been snowing a lot this month and a dusting overnight transformed much of the west end into a dream-like quiet place.