Bon Voyage and Farewell

Tears and smiles filled the day yesterday. A celebration of Al Sandecki’s life was held in San Jose. Al is my son’s father-in-law. More than 130 people gathered together at Al’s church, St. Victor’s. Then the whole group moved on to Il Fornaio, Al’s favorite restaurant, for a sumptuous lunch.

It was a most unusual gathering. We were presented with leis in the restaurant’s foyer. The tables had puzzle box centerpieces. Huge stacks of puzzle boxes and flowers were the decorations in the restaurant.

If you didn’t know Al you might wonder what this meant. All of us attending the Bon Voyage and Farewell knew immediately. Al loved to go on cruises and he managed to include many, many friends and his family on these ocean jaunts. He also loved jigsaw puzzles and bought them and put them together all the time. Al’s daughters brought 500 puzzles to the gathering and we were told we had to take at least five home with us.

His daughters, Toni, Sheri and Angie pulled hundreds of photos of Al’s life and these were projected on a screen during the luncheon.

Al also had to be one of the world’s busiest sports, concerts, theatre, and movie goers. He had season tickets to all the major sports games, plus season tickets to live theater productions in the Bay Area, and in his spare hours he went to every single movie that opened in San Jose. He made sure that all his friends and family were invited too.

A most important piece of his friends and family’s life is missing now. The puzzle will never be the same again.

Emma Bird

Isn’t she darling? This stuffed cloth bird was made by Terry Grant.

Emma arrived at my place yesterday and she is perching here and there trying to find a perfect spot in the house. Right now Emma is sitting by my computer and looking up at me with her bright blue eyes. Living here in California with me will be a climate adjustment for her. She hails from the foggy, rainy Northwest – Oregon, and we are expecting a sunny day today with temperatures predicted to reach 106 Fahrenheit.

Terry Grant is a very talented fiber artist and printmaker. She now has an Etsy store at: http://www.etsy.com/shop.php?user_id=7583915

She had eight fabric birds up for sale on Etsy June 23. I was so pleased to find Emma.

Terry wrote about this bird on her blog on January 6, 2008. I fell in love with it that day.

New art

I bet you don’t have one of these. I just purchased this piece from a young artist, Stephanie Davis. I call it “Baby Buggy.” It arrived today and I am thrilled to have it. I’ve been carrying it all over my house looking for the perfect spot to place it.

Baby Buggy is a ceramic work. The gold part is a cast doll head and the coppery round part is also ceramic. The wheels are metal and they do roll.

Stephanie just graduated from high school. I am sure she will be a famous artist someday.

I saw this piece on Vicky Davis’ Cat in the Batt blog and immediately fell for it.

Skewered

The carrot section of the planter bed is now protected from visiting cats. We stuck wooden skewers amongst the carrot tops. O.C. does not curl up for a morning nap in the bed anymore. Click Carrot warming to see the first post about this. Vicky and Del inspired us to put up deterrents. Thanks.

We are also making progress on the repair on the house. AT&T arrived promptly and put up a new phone line last Thursday.

Click on Ripped off for the background story. Commenters gave me good advice and I took it. Thank you all so much. I have such smart friends.

I contacted the agency that grants the franchise to the garbage company and they were very receptive and nice. They have power over the garbage company. They assured me that they would get an incident report and give me a copy. They also said I could send my building contractor's bid for repairs to them and they would make sure it was paid.

Ripped off

Our garbage truck guy took more than garbage this morning. He managed to rip down our telephone line and pull off the corner trim on the house.

The garbage company, Oakley Disposal, seemed indifferent about the incident. The supervisor said, “Get it fixed and send us the bill.” However, he would not put anything in writing. We have to find our own contractor. I can’t imagine that many contractors will do the work without some sort of paperwork.

Our insurance agent told us we would have to pay a $250 deductible if we put in a claim. Nertz.

Carrot warming

The neighbor’s cat O.C. (Orange Cat) comes by in the morning and climbs in the planter bed and sits right on the carrot section. What is he trying to do? He stretches out and goes to sleep until we chase him away.

Did you ever read the book Horton Hatches the Egg? Perhaps O.C. is trying to hatch the carrots, but he is squishing their tops. This will not work.

Flag Day 2009

I didn't know it was flag day, but Robert put it out so it must be.

Minding my business

Last year, I finally got a neat, efficient office. For years and years I worked in a crowded, messy space.

I put a video tour of my new office and sewing room on YouTube when it was finished.
I’ve loved being in my new space.

Today I took pictures of how I mind my business. I sell quilting patterns and my orders arrive from PayPal.

When the orders come in I check my warehouse (ware box under the dropleaf table). If I’m lucky I find all the patterns I need for the orders.

I enter the information for the invoices in my MYOB (Mind Your Own Business) program.

I print out the invoices.

Then, I scoot my roll-around chair back and pull out envelopes and labels from the convenient cupboard on the other side of the room.

I pack the orders and hand them to my delivery guy (Robert). He takes them to the post office.
What fun it has been for this past year.

Fig leaf cover up

Fig leaves can cover things you don’t want to look at.

We had a big fig tree on our lot next door. It covered up something we did not want to look at. Here is what the tree looked like this morning.
Our neighbor to the south has a kind of ramshackle looking house. She called last week crying. She said our fig tree was scraping the top of her plastic garage roof and she was a poor woman, nearing 70, and so she could not cope with the tree. She told us that if the tree branches broke the plastic roof it would cost $800 to replace it.

Enough said. We called our lawnmower guy and asked if he could find someone to take the tree out. He sent a fellow with a chain saw today. At 8:30 a.m. it cranked up and got to work. There are more branches to haul away tomorrow, but here is our new view from the back porch.

A bunch of radishes

I knew something would come along to brighten this gray day (mood).

Robert picked a bunch of radishes from the little ziggurat garden bed. He had to clear out a lot of radishes to give the carrots some room to grow.