Big month, this one. Several events that have been long on my calendar, starting with my 92nd birthday and ending with Thanksgiving in Las Vegas. First event was the installation of a ductless heater/air conditioner that has added enormous comfort to my life and energy efficiency too. I am WARM when it is cold outside.
11/6 Heath and Lolly came for the weekend to celebrate with me, and Heath arrived on Friday afternoon, just as I was on the phone learning about a Burrowing Owl that has taken up winter residence across the freeway (more about this below). Lolly was not due til next morning so Heath and I went to First Friday and to Judy Howard’s photography show called ”Beauty in the time of Climate Change”. It was pretty great, especially several works of David Winston. He chose Emigrant Lake, so low it is a puddle with a tiny creek trickling into it. I hate the way it looks in the real, but he made it beautiful with the help of Photoshop. Jim had some great pieces too (and he gave one to both Heath and Lolly – to their delight). I saw so many people I know I need to go back at a quiet time to really look. We went afterwards to a new restaurant for supper, an English style pub which specializes in meat pies. What a treat, after all these years, as I remember with pleasure the pies and pasties in Eynsham and Oxford. It was jammed and we sat at a table with two unimaginably crummy boors, so bad it was funny. They were pretty lit and thought they were witty, and oh God they weren’t. But the food was yummy, we ordered both beef and chicken pies and split them. It’s the 2nd restaurant of a British chef who owns Smithfield’s across the street, also English but not one of my favorites. We had hard cider too – a real throwback meal to our Eynsham days 50 years ago.
Next morning we were to pick up Lolly at 10:50 so went to Noble’s for coffee and then off to see the owl. Of course that was too much to allow us to be on time but Heath texted Lol that we had a date with an owl and she understood. To give a little info about why this owl was so special, it is a sedentary species with a migratory component that nests in northern Canada and comes south to winter. There have been only occasional individuals in the Rogue Valley, usually around the airport in Medford, and never in Ashland altho there is plenty of appropriate habitat. This one was across the freeway from Ashland. We saw it and also enjoyed the owner. To keep her from being bothered by hordes of birders I posted the info on our local bird sightings message board with two photos she sent me. Of course I’ve gotten a batch of emails asking if I could give out to location. So I’m hoping to take a small number of people there next week, a one shot after swearing them to secrecy about the location. It is on a 40 acre fallow farm with very good pasture and if it were mine I would also keep it private.
We picked up Lolly and went to a show at the Rogue Gallery in Medford of Judy Morris’s watercolors. A local resident who taught high school art here for 30 years, she now lives in Portland and gives workshops and leads art tours in retirement. Her paintings are unique, Google her to see why we were bowled over. She has great technical skills; uses pen or pencil along with paint and gold and silver leaf and we found her fascinating. She has a workshop here right now, but of course I didn’t know about her, or I would have loved to attend. Well, next year. She’s also leading a trip to Cuba that is already wait-listed.
Our celebratory dinner at Coquina that night lived up to expectations. Heath and I had scallops, which Eric always used to order, and a very good dry rose. We split a big salad, and a small cake with 3 forks finished us off. Of course we talked non-stop thru the meal, as we did every chance we got.
Sunday morning I opened my gifts and was bowled over by an elegant Mah Jongg set from H & L, and 4 radically unusual jams from J, and a batch of cards. Lots of good wishes calls all day. We inaugurated the set at our next Friday session and one of the jams. We have been toting a heavy set around as we play in rotation every week, now we have 3 sets among us and it is much easier.
I had arranged to reserve a meeting room at 10 in a new coffee bar in the just-opened building downtown on Lithia Way. It is supposed to be reserved for business meetings but the woman I talked to said she could not resist a 92nd birthday coffee klatch, so we had one! Liz and Hersch, Ann and Bruce, Jackie and Jack, Jim and Vicki plus the 3 of us. Terence spaced out and was kicking himself when he called next day. The room could only fit a dozen so it was hard to choose, I have a pretty big circle here. The goodies were tasty and the coffee very good. It was lively and fun. The building is as ugly as it gets (what’s wrong with Ashland as far as architecture goes???) but everyone enjoyed the occasion.
Heath and Lolly went shopping in the afternoon (a must for every visit) and we met at the Varsity to see ‘Bridge of Spies’, an excellent film about the Gary Powers U-2 incident and prisoner exchange under Eisenhower. Lots of movies these days about actual events. And even tho I lived thru them and remember the events, suspense can be sustained, and is.
11/15 It is now Sunday and last night was the first annual fund raiser for the Amigos de Guanajuato Club. Guanajuato is our sister city and the club is 47 years old. The fund raiser was to bring high school kids here for a year, a program that has lagged for the past few years. We brought in an upscale chef from Guanajuato who did a 5 course meal at the Elks Club for 128 people. And it was a fabulous success. The limit was set at 100 diners, then 20 more added, and finally another 8, at which point the Elks Cub limit was reached. Ann diSalvo, Elizabeth Aitken and I met in the morning to arrange an exhibit of paintings by local artists who have visited – mostly Elizabeth and me. It took us 3 hours to get it together, and my painting of Guanajuato at night was placed at the doorway to greet everyone. The painting was also on the menu and the tickets. And lots of ‘likes’ for it. Ann did two paintings while there in June, and offered one for the silent auction and gave the other to me. I love it.
I drove with Jack and Jackie and on arrival Jack bought us wine and the festivities began.
There was a silent auction and the beginning bids were amazingly low but wound up where they should be and everything went.
After we sat down there were speeches for a ½ hr and Ann whispered to me that every meal they attended in Guanajuato was like that. A very prestigious man – Mexican Senator Juan Carlos Romero Hicks, who got his BA decades ago from SOU (and since has been Governor of the state and president of the university and is now a Mexican Senator) spoke last and briefly and then the parade of servers marched in. Twenty-five Ashland High students in black pants and white shirts.
From reading the menu we already knew we were getting 5 courses, all surprises. And the kids were marvelously efficient. They went into the kitchen in groups of 5 and came out with a plate in each hand and served the whole 128 diners within a few minutes. Then collected the plates, took them to a drop off and returned to theline to serve the next course. Jackie, bless her, took photos of all the courses as I iknew Jenny would want to have explicit info on the dinner. It was superb and the presentation simply amazing. Those kids didn’t miss a step.
The menu was most unusual, having no courses listed Chef Bricio Dominguez from Guanajuato was taken shopping on arrival and made up the menu as he found interesting ingredients!
Here is what we ate; the photos are courtesy of Jackie Markin:
Marinated shrimp and pomegranate seeds
Tortilla Soup
Salad consisting of salmon with tiny
potatoes and asparagus spears Steak (I think rib-eye)
Dessert was a custard with a 
a squash or pumpkin base,
somewhere between whipped
cream and pudding, topped off with
a crunchy raspberry.
The chef was called out for a standing ovation by a cheering crowd of diners. What a feast.
And this was the Amigo Club’s first such venture. It was the most fun any of us had ever had at a fundraiser.
11/25 Off to Las Vegas for Thanksgiving. And a very special occasion. Jenny and Mac have bought a house on Whitbey Island off the Seattle coast, sold their condo and are moving next week! So it was goodbye to Vegas and my long association with it that started in the 50s when we traveled to the Utah parks in summer (and left Long Beach at dark with a cooler full of ice and drove all night as air conditioned cars were still in the future). My experiences there were very different from most tourists especially after Jenny and Mac came to live. The Red Rocks became a favorite place to paint and Jenny’s musical life fun to participate in. This time she was just finishing an 11 month gig with ‘Frank: The man. The music’, a one man show at the Palazzo Las Vegas with impersonator Bob Anderson and a sizable orchestra. Many of the brasses were in Sinatra’s band and were delighted to return for this special gig. I was picked up at the airport by Mac and taken right to the theater for a lovely 2 hours of the songs Sinatra used to sing. Big nostalgia trip. Charlie arrived in mid-performance and afterwards we all had a wine and supper there. Our only encounter with The Strip. It was non-stop talk for 3 days but in between we had Turkey Day at the home of Kim, the harpist. We were 12 altogether and a nice mix of family and musicians. Fabulous meal.
On Friday we went to the Neon Museum, a new Vegas special. Garish old signs in junkyard arrangement reflecting the gambling history of the city.
This photo was courtesy of the museum, delivered right to your email. Me, Charlie and Jenny in front, Mac grinning behind us.
Benny Binion opened Sassy Sally’s in 1951. He was imprisoned for tax evasion in so had to turn the casino over to his sons. It was run by the family for over 50 years, changing names and signs along the way. The Stardust opened in 1958 and was viable for 48 years, then deconstructed to make way for a new hotel/casino.
And then to the new container mall for lunch – on the way ogling the fantastic Gehry building, the Cleveland Clinic Lou Ruvo Center for Brain Health.
We had a super dinner (and arguably the most expensive in my memory) at Vintner’s on Friday. Probably no dearer than my 90th birthday at Chez Panisse or this month’s celebration at Coquina but I can only guess, as I was the honored guest at both of those, this one I helped pay for! Jenny and Mac are thrilled at the prospect of living in the northwest and being near both Alex and Charlie. So am I, and plan a trip in January.
I returned early Sunday to a chilled valley and was delighted to walk into a warm house, thanks to my new heater/air conditioner.