“Give Thanks”
The Pacifica weather has been unusually beautiful all week. Only very minor bouts of fog rolling in. Amazing sunsets have been served up every evening. It’s hard to tire of the view from Clorinda’s deck.
Here’s the view South from our room with interesting contrails on a pleasant day, and then with the fog rolled in:
We enjoyed a coffee at Soul Grind and then a pleasant walk along Lindamar beach on Monday afternoon. I captured this picture of the sun going down over the Pacific Ocean on our walk back to the car.
The exercise put us in the mood to join the 24 Hour Fitness gym, down the hill from Clorinda’s home, and we’ve been there every morning since for a workout to start the day. Don’t get the wrong impression, I’m not complaining – I’ve enjoyed watching World Cup matches from the elliptical.
So much work goes into preparing a Thanksgiving feast. I did provide a little assistance as McD slaved away with the meat and vegetarian stuffing creation. We eye-balled the proportions of bread, veggies, and meat, and I have to say the end result was delicious.
Diana and I were trying to plan out the Thanksgiving Day oven schedule at Clorinda’s home – ham, various dishes of stuffing, artichoke dip, all had to be warmed and transported up the hill. Thankfully Adamo took pity on us and took the ham up to his oven – he was scared we were going to dry it out as we shuffled trays in and out of the oven.
Campbell came to Clorinda’s house early in the afternoon to watch the traditional Thanksgiving Cowboys game – this year playing the New York Giants.
It really was a rare treat to watch the game with Campbell (and later arriving Marco and Gianluca) – I typically just get to exchange text messages with him as we cheer or groan about plays during the game. Maybe we can do it again over the Christmas break. We had to migrate up to Amy and Adamo’s home mid-game, but got to see the conclusion – another great win for the Cowboys!
Here are a couple of pictures that I love that were snapped before we migrated up the Hill:
We had 24 folks for dinner. The view from outside looks very welcoming as you can’t get a good sense for the volume inside.
Here’s what it looked like inside as dinner was served:
Will and Christine joined us for dinner, with Christine providing some excellent appetizers. Will really enjoys Adamo’s company.
It really was heart warming to see Marco and Julie both looking so great:
After dinner, it was time to head out for some pictures before the sun was completely gone.
We had to reprimand Uncle Marco for encouraging more loud vocal activity from the youngsters:
And another crazy Campagna Thanksgiving was in the books!
Some other interesting activity from the visit. Diana entertaining her Mom with some instructions:
A sign that we saw in the coffee shop that really resonated with me:
Earlier today, I enjoyed Clorinda’s company for breakfast on her deck. It’s a joy to sit and listen to her stories and commentary with such a wonderful view:
We’ve been enjoying the Stanley Tucci series about food in Italy with Clorinda in the evenings – she really enjoys all the commentary and food. I do highly recommend this series.
In other movie/TV news, I started watching a movie called “The Swimmers” in the gym this morning, and it looks excellent. About a couple of girls, excellent swimmers with Olympic aspirations, trying to escape from the horror of Syria. I left the movie at a particularly traumatic boat journey scene, and have some trepidation about picking it up again:
What I saw so far is excellent, and I will hope to finish this movie soon.
My book this week was “Sweet, Soft, Plenty Rhythm” by Laura Warrell, and I thoroughly enjoyed the story. It’s hard to imagine this is a debut novel from Warrell. This was reviewed on the Today show, and I remember Diana turning to me and commenting that she thought I would enjoy it.
“It’s 2013, and Circus Palmer, a forty-year-old Boston-based trumpet player and old-school ladies’ man, lives for his music and refuses to be tied down. Before a gig in Miami, he learns that the woman who is secretly closest to his heart, the free-spirited drummer Maggie, is pregnant by him. Instead of facing the necessary conversation, Circus flees, setting off a chain of interlocking revelations from the various women in his life. Most notable among them is his teenage daughter, Koko, who idolizes him and is awakening to her own sexuality even as her mentally fragile mother struggles to overcome her long-failed marriage and rejection by Circus. Delivering a lush orchestration of diverse female voices, Warrell spins a provocative, soulful, and gripping story of passion and risk, fathers and daughters, wives and single women, and, finally, hope and reconciliation, in answer to the age-old question: how do we find belonging when love is unrequited?”
A passage that ties into the title and features Maggie, Circus’s true love:
“‘How do you know what your doing?’ Kamar asked.
‘Rhythm,’ she answered over the shimmy of the high hat. ‘Everything is rhythm. Our bodies, time, the plane, man. It’s all moving in beats you just have to catch.’
Maggie struck a slow roll against the snare because she’d missed hearing the sound, her eyes closed so she could feel its hum deep in her fingers. She doubled her stroke, building to a buzz, then let the beads of the sticks roll against the toms before shifting to the pattern she’d dreamed up the night before and had been drumming into tabletops all day so she could get it into her hands. Within seconds, she found it and played the pattern until her muscles started to know the rhythm’s shape.”
This is what I imagine Circus from my book sounds like:
A classic John Lee Hooker/Van Morrison collaboration that I came across again this week:
And finally, some typically English music that popped up on a playlist:
Coexist peacefully, with kindness and compassion for all!
The Loren is a brand new luxury hotel on the Austin riverfront. It has a lot of kinks to work out. On our first night the smoke detector was shining some kind of bright green laser light in the room every few seconds. We moved to a new room, with the same problem, and then learned that the lights are controlled by a solar powered heat sensor – problem is the sensor isn’t anywhere close to light. The engineer came up and shone a torch to charge the sensor. The next morning a fake fire alarm woke us very loudly at 5am. Good grief – two nights with interrupted sleep. Tape on the smoke detector had improved things, only to be replaced by loud announcements. The next morning at 6am, we had a reprise of the loud fire announcement. Needless to say we have free rooms to use in the future. A shame because the hotel and staff were really nice.
I had Board meetings all day on Tuesday, followed by a wonderful Executive Committee dinner, with special guests Diana and Lisa, at Qi – a wonderful Chinese place in downtown Austin. That was followed by a very entertaining after dinner session at Nido – our CFO telling a more detailed version of his first trip to Burning Man.
For some reason I thought a jazz show in San Francisco on Saturday night would be a good idea. Diana was too tired to make it, so Alicia and I made the drive up. An Arcade Fire concert, Opera, and Symphony were all going on at the same time within two blocks of each other. Parking was a disaster. I’m glad Alicia was driving, because I would have given up and driven back home.
My book this week was “All This Could Be Different” by Sarah Thankam Matthews. The wonderful Lauren Groff (author of my book last posting) says:
I finished up “Florida” by the very creative Lauren Groff. All of the short stories in this book are great and I really enjoyed the read. Palmettos make frequent appearances in the book and I asked Diana what they looked like. Had to go to Google as a back up: “any of several usually low-growing fan-leaved palms”:
