Nine-month old Nina hanging outside in our friends’ backyard.
It was an arduous few days, but we’re on our way to getting settled into the cottage at the beach.
We packed a day early. My husband magically managed to fit into our car all our stuff — his office equipment, our suitcases, cooler and bags of stuff I didn’t want to buy on vacation, like condiments, paper products and our Keurig and coffee.
We hit the road early and dropped in on two clients, one for lunch as we passed through our old hometown.
Then we met long-time friends for dinner in their hometown. They were celebrating their 45th anniversary and we got to treat them. We hadn’t seen them in at least 10 years. It was so much fun to catch up and we talked late into the night.
We ended up driving close to six hours on day one. Day two was a little easier with only three hours to drive. Strangely, those three hours seemed to take all day long!
Then arriving at the cottage, we spent hours unpacking and getting organized, grocery shopping etc. I slept that night like the dead.
Our first morning began with a beach walk with our friends and Nina, the rottie. They invited us over for omelettes after the walk.
View from our friends’ backyard.
Now it’s time to relax! One challenge for me is we have more friends in our vacation area than we do in our new state of Arizona. Through COVID, I got used to having lots of downtime. I need to be balanced with our friends here and not over schedule our social life.
The last few days reminded me of Lenny Kravitz song “Fly Away.”
Do you need to have downtime in your weeks, too? Or can you be super social and enjoy it?
I have never seen this cactus bloom before, let alone in August! Must have been our recent monsoon.
I’m wondering what happened with the week? It rushed by. Usually the dog days of summer in the desert are slow to pass. But not this week.
What was I up to this week?
On the weekend, we made dinner for newish friends of ours. We cooked an all American meal of ribs (my husband), potato salad, corn on the cob and cherry pie (me.) We met these friends at the funeral of our friend who introduced me to my husband 40 years ago. He died suddenly from Valley Fever after we moved to Arizona. Our friends we had over for dinner were his brother and wife who moved to Arizona from Seattle. A circle of new friends all bought homes in Arizona, including us and another couple from Kirkland, because of this one friend. We’ve all pledged to keep his memory alive and get together several times a year.
The next busy moments came Monday morning meeting to brainstorm with my newsletter co-hort to write and layout the quarterly HOA newsletter. I’m proud to say that after 30-plus years of “newslettering,” I returned to my roots. We initiated a new process this issue that worked and the President of the HOA approved.
I compiled all the copy in a word document and sent it to the board to approve — prior to spending hours laying it out. This was similar to my early PR days, before desktop publishing and Mac computers. I would drive copy to the typesetter and then get it approved before giving copy to graphic designers to layout. Or, do the layout myself.
This is saved me countless revisions. It was annoying to have the newsletter all ready to go, and then have five board members give their two cents worth on what to change — one by one.
Other than the newsletter, which took up most of Monday and Tuesday, I had my first hair appointment since April. My hairdresser, who I love, went on maternity leave and it wasn’t worth it to me to try someone new for a one off appointment. It was fun to learn how my hairdresser is totally amazed and feels blessed with motherhood. She wasn’t expecting the dramatic love and emotions she’s experiencing now.
Thursday was a doctor’s appointment for my husband that I drove to. It was his final cataract appointment. He has new-fangled lenses that can be adjusted post-surgery with a laser light. It meant four or five extra appointments, but it’s supposed to make vision sharper.
Now that it’s Friday, we’re meeting friends who moved here from Palm Springs for dinner. But I have the day free to relax, read and comment on posts. I might visit the library, too.
I feel like one of my husband’s older clients from decades ago. My husband would call them to come into his office for an appointment. Often they’d respond, “Oh I can’t make it Wednesday. I have a doctor’s appointment.” Those were the days I was volunteering at school, taking kids to piano lessons, packing lunches, making dinners and volunteering at swim meets. I always wondered why people thought they were busy doing one “main thing” a day. Now I know!
How did your week go? Did it flash by quickly or seem slow?
We had a great time revisiting Salt Lake City. The little big city has a special place in my heart because of my daughter’s four years living there for college. It’s filled with memories from our many visits. Plus, we saw my husband’s best friend from fourth grade through high school and his wife. We wish we had many more hours talking and laughing together! Every second was full. Our friend showed us a paper he wrote in fourth grade where he referenced my husband. Then he gave us a joint project they wrote together! Priceless!
Oh yes, Matteo’s restaurant owned by a former international student from Italy and swim teammate of my daughter’s at the “U” was amazing! The food and service was incredible. You can look at Matteo’s menu HERE. (Matteo is the handsome guy in the middle row photos that I linked for the menu.)
Here are a few views from our getaway in Salt Lake City:
No trip to Utah (in my opinion) is complete without a Freshie’s lobster roll. We’ve been to their Park City location, but now they have a Salt Lake City restaurant a mile from the hotel we stay at — the Little America. If you’re wondering how lobster rolls could be a thing in Utah, read this archived article “Utah restaurant stomps coastal competition, takes home ‘World’s Best Lobster Roll’ award.” Every bite of lobster was a major chunk from claws to hunks of tail meat. There was no sketchy filler. The roll was drizzled with warm butter, garnished with perhaps parsley in a grilled bun. Oh my!
Photo of the Little America tower I took during a morning walk. The Little America has two-story buildings surrounding the tower with garden and courtside rooms. (FYI, The Little America was founded by Stephen Mack Covey, grandfather to Stephen Covey of “7 Habits of Highly Effective People,” who in turn is grandfather to Britain Covey of the Philadelphia Eagles.
An example of the two-story buildings surrounding the tower that I borrowed from their website.
View of the Wasatch mountains from our 12th floor room. The apartment buildings below did not exist last time we visited Salt Lake City.
We walked to City Creek Center from the hotel. It was about a mile away. It’s an indoor-outdoor shopping center downtown and fills two city blocks. To get from one side to another you can cross the street, or use their skybridge. (We were on a mission to get new earbuds for my husband’s iphone at the Apple Store there. A story for another day!)
View from the skybridge walking from one City Creek Center building to another. Notice the train tracks lined with yellow? That’s TRAX, the light rail system that makes getting around SLC so easy and convenient. It’s free downtown.
Our daughter said she took TRAX from campus to football games, to downtown or wherever — all free as a student. She’d swipe her student ID. How convenient would that be going to a football game at the Rice Eccles stadium that seats more than 50,000 people and is sold out for every game? Or for everyday life? We used TRAX this past weekend.
City lights from our hotel room with the pool and garden and courtside rooms below.
The view of the Grand America from our deck. That’s the grander sister hotel across the street.
Thanks for coming along for highlights of my weekend.
Where you live, do you have a light rail system like TRAX? I wish we had that in Scottsdale!
Do you have any favorite go to places where you live or visit — like Freshie’s that I visit in SLC?
Desert view from a morning walk outside the McDowell Sonoran Preserve.
I was asked a few months ago if I’d like to join the Board of Directors of the women’s group I belong to. The focus of the group is to raise funds for a residential facility for women who have been sex trafficked. We also clean out our closets, donate our clothes and purchase any items they need like deodorant and new underwear. I’ve written about the Dream Center HERE and HERE. The center provides medical care, eye care, clothing, psychologists, education and religious services if wanted.
The sad thing about my group of women is the club used to have 250 members. Now we’re at about 35. There’s not a whole lot of money raised by 35 people. What happened? COVID shutdowns plus an aging membership. I’m one of the new and young members — in my 60s!
In the end, I said yes and a neighbor friend also agreed to be on the board. Our first meeting was last month and I immediately knew what I would do. I agreed to be in charge of communication. My first project was to create a new brochure. Now I’m working on a sponsorship packet. After that it will be press releases. Back to my old career in the PR Biz.
I could see that communication was an area that could be improved. I’m glad I have experience and who knows? Maybe we can grow our organization back to where it will have a greater impact on the human trafficked teens and young women.
Then I saw this article:
42 arrested in Scottsdale human trafficking operation
SCOTTSDALE, Ariz. – A human trafficking operation in Scottsdale led to the arrest of dozens of suspects, police said.
View from the apartment where we stayed at the beginning of our trip and final night.
We left the wilds of the desert Thursday for vacation on the East Coast and returned home Tuesday. It was a trip to visit a friend in NYC. It was smoldering hot with a heatwave in Manhattan. After going out for a delicious Italian dinner across the street from the apartment, we drove with our hostess to her weekend home in the country where it was peaceful and a tad bit cooler. It wasn’t the bustling Manhattan I had envisioned for our trip, but so delightful — and much more my style.
How’s that for a change of scenery from Manhattan? It was serene, peaceful and beautiful. We spent the days in deep discussions, reading, and touring small towns in the countryside of Connecticut. We had fabulous meals at affordable prices in quaint buildings. (I wrote last week about my disappointing restaurant meals HERE. Every meal on this trip was excellent.)
Unlike Scottsdale, everywhere we went had history going back to our nation’s founding.
Here are a few phots from a graveyard, lake, art show and restaurant:
One of several quaint, delicious restaurants we visited. Huge portions at ridiculously low prices.
We stopped at beautiful Candlewood Lake.
These were all the outside booths of the art show. There was a building with more booths inside. Small but mighty. So much talent.
One of the highlights:
The last evening of our vacation, we returned to NYC. I met LA of Waking Up on the Wrong Side of 50 in person! We recognized each other on the spot. We hugged and could have talked for hours or days. I felt like I discovered — as Anne of Green Gables would say — a kindred spirit.
What are your favorite parts of exploring a new place?
Sightseeing, eating, spending time with friends or shopping? Or something else?
The stone lantern at the start of our exploration of Rohoen Japanese Friendship Garden of Phoenix which is designed in the hide-and-reveal style. I wrote about more exciting parts of the weekend with Japanese gardens, guests and fire HERE.
Our docent guide was in her late 70s, from Japan and was a foreign exchange student when she came to the US. She laughed and said she was into “rock and roll” and loved the West.
She explained the meaning of the garden’s name Rohoen:
The characters on the brochure are our gardens name, Rohoen (鷺鳳園), and represent the following:
鷺 Ro – Japanese word for Heron, a symbol of Himeji City. Shira Sagi Jou, or the White Heron, is the name of the famous Himeji Castle, a UNESCO World Heritage Site. (Himeji City is the sister city of Phoenix.)
鳳 Ho – Japanese word for the mythical Phoenix bird.
園 En – Japanese word for Garden.
How amazing it is to have an authentic Japanese garden in the middle of a desert? The architect and designers from Japan had to find native desert plants and others that would thrive in a climate very different than Japan. Only 17 out of the 107 varieties of plants are Japanese.
From the Visitor’s Guide:
The Japanese Friendship Garden, Rohoen, is an authentic Japanese stroll garden designed by Mr. Nozomu Okita in the traditional miegkaure (見え隠れ) style. Miegakure, or hide-and-reveal design, is prevalent in Japanese stroll gardens where the entirety of the garden is never visible at once. Instead, the viewer is led to uncover intentionally hidden views of the landscape while strolling along its curved paths. New visual compositions are revealed as one moves through the various garden regions. Each rock, plant, and ornament has been selected and placed with skill and sensitivity.
Kasuga-doro (春日灯籠, stone lantern from Kasuga) are the style of lantern most frequently used in Japanese gardens. They originated at the Kasuga shrine in Nara, Japan’s ninth century capital. Our ten-foot tall Kasuga-doro is our main lookout point, where the garden’s four distinct landscapes are easily viewed. These include the low-lying grasslands, the woodlands, forested mountains, and stone beaches.
Out friends from our swim team days are into gardening. Especially Japanese gardens. They planned a trip to Phoenix from Palm Springs to visit the garden and stayed with us. They have flown to Portland, Oregon to see a Japanese garden. They are planning a trip next year to Japan to see more Japanese gardens and have invited us to join them. We’re thinking about it.
At their home, they have Japanese elements like olive trees pruned in the bonzai style. They are building a koi pond. Also, their amazing garden has mangos, peaches, mulberries, and other fruit and many vegetables.
Our guests brought us fruit from their garden:
Fresh peaches from Palm Springs. I never knew peaches grew there. I thought it was too hot.
Two of the basket of mulberries they brought us. I’ve never seen or tasted a mulberry before. They are super sweet and juicy, and filled with health benefits like vitamin C, iron, and mulberries help reduce cholesterol, blood sugar and cancer risk!
Here are photos from our tour:
Looking back at the lantern from across the koi pond.
A cormorant on a rock in the water.
Shachi, a mythical creature with a dragon head and fish body.
I learned that a true bonzai has to be in a pot. There were many trees in the garden that were pruned in the bonzai style.
One last beautiful view of the garden’s many shades of green. It was so special to visit the Japanese Friendship Garden with good friends.
Where have you visited Japanese gardens? What was your favorite part?
We’re having house guests for the weekend. I’ve been running around, cleaning, planning menus and buying food. Our good friends from Santa Barbara that we met as newlyweds are driving out to see us in Arizona.
Our husbands met each other during training in Princeton at the beginning of their careers with Merrill Lynch. They hit it off and since we all lived in California, they invited us to their apartment in Santa Barbara. We made the four-hour trek from Palm Springs one weekend.
I’ll never forget pulling up to the curb at the place of people I’d never met and my husband’s friend said “Right mates, let go!” (He’s from Australia.) We jumped in his car and headed to the marina where his wife was waiting for us on their boat.
Soon, I learned how to skirt the jib and follow other commands. We were in the midst of a race with the Santa Barbara Yacht Club. They asked if I needed a jumper which I had no idea meant a sweater. Other Aussie phrases I learned that weekend were “G’day mate” and “for sh*ts and giggles.”
That was the beginning of a friendship I treasure. I overheard the friend tell my husband, “The wives are getting along. It doesn’t always work out that way.”
We don’t have anything nearly as exciting planned for their visit as being in a yacht race. But we’ll enjoy each other’s company, hike some trails and check out the water level at our nearby lake.
What are your favorite things to do with friends?
How did you meet your best friends?
Do you have couple friends that both you and your spouse enjoy?
You can barely see my friend’s head over her husband’s back on one of our sailing trips.
