Our Hen Party in Grass Valley

My weekend was like a fine wine; full bodied, elegant color, and fragrant bouquet but with a rough finish for me, which I'll get to explain for you later this week.

Saturday morning Barb & I were up & at 'em at the crack of mid-morning, racing around in slow motion, sipping tea & coffee, and nibbling fruits & cheeses for our breakfast. Eventually we made it out of the house & off toGrass Valley a little before noon - not the fast paced start we'd hoped for but on the other hand what was the hurry? The drive up to Fran's is just an hour. There we found Fran bustling around her back yard rinsing off the lawn chairs. Ingrid made it up on Friday and was off at the grocers. Fran and Mark's back yard is beautiful and spacious & I sunk immediately into an Adirondack Chair and stayed put for a long time, listening to Barbara & Fran happily talking teacher - they teach kindergarten & first grade respectively. After a bit Ingrid returned and shortly thereafter more hens; Lady Welling of Berkeley (Robbie), Lady Smith of Windor (Rhonda) and Seniorita Nancita del la Sacramento (Mommy Nancy) arrived. Earlier in the day they had rendezvous'd at Nancy's . As it turned out we really did have a Hen Party because Mark decided to stay away all weekend and use the time for his advantage to get in some golfing - a wise move no doubt - too many chicks for most gentlemen to easily contend with.

So the seven little hens were all together again for some prime fluffing and preening. I guess we have known each other for the better part of 25 years, since we were students at UC Davis. Our group of friends had gathered annually for most of the 1980s and into the 1990s for three day weekend camp-outs over Labor Day weekends. Eventually camping got kind of old for us all so these days it is only the 'hens' that get together once a year, leaving hubbies and kids behind and we gather at each other's homes. Somehow there is always a missing hen or two but if we don't see them at one hen party, we get them at the next.

 On the lawn in the side garden - the hens flock

There was a lot to catch up on & here is a teeny scratch on what's up with the hens I see the least. Robbie, Bill and daughter Julia are going to spend about a year in Shanghais China. Julia will get an interesting year of schooling, Robbie will learn some Mandarin, Bill will manage other computer programmers and I might get to visit them in China! Ingrid's jet-setting daughters have spent time now studying at university in South Africa and vacationing in Spain. One of them, whom I know we are all proud of, is a budding activist who took part in a modern freedom rider bus journey to support the rights of gay student rights at several fuckwit college campuses like Bob Jones University and Brigham Young University.
There was far more news to share than the eensy bit above but that is all I care to write up just now and you know I'll feck up the facts anyway so let me just say there was loads of news and happenings so Saturday was all chat, chew & chuckle into the wee hours.

Robbie, Ingrid and Fran making magic happen in the kitchen

Not to dwell on food (fooood!) but we ate well. Fran prepared what I consider the best salmon I've ever tasted and that is saying something - baked salmon with a crust of Dijon mustard, breadcrumbs and herbs. Robbie baked a rich chocolate cake made with almost no flour but loads of bittersweet chocolate, folded into beaten egg whites - to die for! Ingrid smuggled exotic citrus fruits to us and in addition to all there there were several varieties of crusty breads & local cheeses. There was loads of wine on hand, but what whimps we were; between the seven of us we only finished one bottle of red wine and we daintily sipped on a wee bottle of sweet ice wine from Niagra New York.

 We dined like the princesses we are

By Saturday morning we were hard at it, swapping tales, enjoying competitive family confessions as comparisons were made on whose family was the most uh.... challenging to grow up in. That discussion was followed by lively demonstrations of towel folding from those who grew up in the lap of luxury and O.C.D.

Fran demos a particularly tricky towel fold

Two days and still the weekend ended way too fast. Early Sunday afternoon we had our final photo op in the great room and after hugs and reassurance, everyone headed back to their lives - ok, except for Barbara and myself. Some guests are just plain hard to get rid of! We lingered then eventually trooped off with Fran for a little drive and some wine tasting at the Nevada City Winery.Rhonda, Robbie, Nancy, Ingrid, Barbara and Fran It seemed strange being there without winemaker Mark there to spoil us with a personal tour. But we made do - sampling and purchasing some lovely dessert wine and an Alpen Glow for presents.

Eventually we returned to Fran's house and sat around enjoying the cool of the afternoon. Soon enough though, all good things must come to an end and Barb & I reluctantly headed down highway 49 back to my place in Fair Oaks.

 Yes, it's a first folks! That is me on the far right end.

OMG! Rocky Makes a Statement

GAK!

Woke to a surprise that I ought to not be at all surprised about. I had the porch door open last night so poor Rum-kitty could be sure to get his fill of food because I'm going to be out of town tomorrow night and though I will leave food for him outside the chances of him getting any of it are 50/50. Now this morning I realize the odds of Rum getting his food are zero. Eeep.

I had the door to my room open and Rum pranced up and down the hallway singing to me in his very amusing squeekity voice, with an urgent air to it. Around midnight I'd had enough and I shut him outside for the remainder of the night which means...

Rocky must have come in while I was still awake. This morning I was stunned. No damage, just clear signs of raccoon happiness - the cat water dish which was clean and full when I went to bed was filthy. The Cat food hopper had migrated away from it's usual spot, emptied AND with an inch of mucky water on the bottom. I think a very tidy, food washing raccoon had come for supper.

Wow. This was the first time it was evident a raccoon nicks in for midnight snacks. I'm sure it must be a different raccoon than I usually get because normally the food is gone but there is no sign of raccoon like there was this time, i.e., the water bowl made foul with fur & dirt & dissolved cat food from Rocky washing his chow. Oh well. I'm lucky he/she didn't climb up the cabinet to explore or eat the bananas or trot up the hallway to invade my room and dance on my face! 'Take that human - where do you keep the cookies?!'

In other news, friend Barbara drove up last night. Today we're headed up to Grass Valley for a 5th annual weekend Hen Party at Fran & Mark's in Grass Valley. This morning I'm all puffy & I'm sure Barb will be discombobulated a bit too but I'm sure we'll enjoy ourselves once we get up there. It takes about an hour to get to there.

When Barb arrived last night I was all tickled to finally get to give the grand tour of all the stuff that has changed around here - the new doors, the newly constructed Ikea furniture. Barbara had been pre-warned she would have to help me get the HUMONGOUS new full mattress onto the Ikea bed frame I bought for the newly revamped guest room. It came to my attention I had put the headboard frame on backwards! So out came the tools and I took apart & with Barb's assistance (here! hold this mattress up in the air for me a sec...) I got it set to rights. So Princess Barb got to be the first one to experience the new guest room amenities.

I am so sorry there have been no pictures but I have no way of accessing the pictures on the digital flash card. My STUPID & very new HP printer suddenly started flashing a 'this is not the correct ink cartridge' message & it will not listen to reason. The cartridges are the same ones that have worked for months and there have been no computer virus so go figure. And the fire wire doesn't seem to have any place to plug into the camera so the printer remains the only way for me to download pictures but the damn thing won't do a thing but flash it's incorrect ink cartridge message. So, no pictures of my orchid which is finally blooming after two years of silent protest.

Ok, time to fix some coffee, get a shower in and head up to Grass Valley!

Orchid Photo Update: Hurrah, pictures of my orchid after all.

Orchid Buds

Orchid blossoms - Hurrah - I did it! I got the damned thing to bloom!

An OMG sort of day

Woke yesterday with fat face & fat feet - a new one from the endless collection of maladies of Earth Mother, whose sense of humour is awesome. I suspect the swelling was because I slept with the window open and had allergens blowing over myself all night long. Lovely.

Anyway, what the hell! I took the day off, using up a holiday credit. Mostly I felt like crap but I worked on constructing the second entertainment center tower.

Barbara drove up from Castroville and was exhausted when she got here. From her house to Gilroy (the garlic capital of the known Universe) takes a half hour - yesterday afternoon it took an hour and a half - a bit of traffic. So her drive up was hellacious and she isn't like me, she doesn't really enjoy driving to begin with.

Later this morning when we're up & dressed we head up to Grass Valley, the liberal-hippy-backwoods-survivalist center of California for our 6th Annual Hen Party at Fran & Mark's house. Sitting here pre-coffee I'm just not all that thrilled about it but I guess I'll be more in the spirit of the thing later. There will perhaps be pictures IF I can manage to get them out of my camera (long story there).