Stan’s Obligatory Blog

Just a quick picture from the office. I decorated for the holidays. I started doing this back when I was in my first office here, since it was the first time I’d ever had an office with a fireplace. I don’t have the fireplace anymore, but I still decorate.

The second picture is just something I saw on the way home today. They had the Feddes furniture store done up to look like a TV store and they were filming something there. I have no idea what it was, but it’s always amusing seeing something familiar dressed up to look different. Too bad they didn’t have any snow there.

We had a storm last night, and when we got up this morning, the wind was still blowing very hard. And I just happened to notice a piece of tar paper falling off the roof and smacking into the window. And I thought, “This can’t be good.” So I got the ladder and climbed up to find the roof on our laundry room in shreds. Yick.

So while I was out riding my bike, Cathy and Lucinda went and got a Christmas tree. After we set it up, Lucinda and I decorated it. Even though we’re not religious in any way, it’s still just a fun little thing to do. So there.

The power went out at our house last night around 8:00PM or so. This doesn’t happen all that often, and it’s not all that big of a deal most of the time, but when you’re a five-year-old who’s afraid of the dark, it can be a big deal. We got out all our emergency candles and flashlights, but no matter how you sliced it, it was dark. Fortunately, Pasadena Water and Power was on the ball. They got the lights back on by midnight, so Lucinda could sleep with her night light on again.

We took Lucinda to the Halloween Carnival at her school this evening. They had little games and trick-or-treating for the kids. There were several hundred kids and their parents there. It was chaos. But Lucinda had enjoyed it.

Today is our 16th anniversary, or our 10th if you’re a geek. So we went out for a nice dinner at Traxx. This is the nice art deco restaurant in Union Station in downtown Los Angeles. We rode the Metro Gold Line to get there, which made it a bit more of an adventure, as well as avoiding the legendary Friday evening Los Angeles traffic. As always, it was very nice. The service was good, and the presentation was flawless. And Lucinda is already an old hand at this sort of thing. She knows how to behave in restaurants, and she enjoyed the dinner and especially enjoyed the dessert. So overall, it was a nice outing.

We went to Back-to-School night at Don Benito this evening. This is our first time being parents of a school-age child, so it’s all new to us. We didn’t realize that public school is a lot like public TV. A good bit of the evening was devoted to begging us to donate money. Apparently, the school doesn’t pay for classroom supplies, so the teachers end up spending their own money to get the classrooms outfitted. This is pathetic.

On the plus side, Lucinda’s teachers seem very capable and nice. So we will likely pony up some cash to help out with the supplies.

Being a transplant from Back East, it took me several years to get used to the idea that citrus fruit just grows on trees in peoples’ back yards here. I’ve accepted this. But this evening, I needed a lemon from our neighbor’s tree, and I saw these weird-looking mutant lemons growing on it. You won’t find these for sale in the produce section:
 

Today was Lucinda’s first day of school. Don Benito has buses for the kids, so she decided she wanted to ride the bus. So we walked down to the corner with her and waited with her until the bus came. Then she got on and she was gone.

Lucinda’s first day of school is Thursday. This evening we went to her Back-to-School picnic at Don Benito to see her classroom and meet her teachers. We got her a school shirt and met some of the other incoming kindergartners. There are pictures in her photo album.