Chapter 435

In order of appearance: 

Happy Birthday to Carissa

& 

OUR VERY OWN RICHARD!

While out with Darla, I went to Starbucks to get a drink (passion tea, easy ice, no syrup) and found this sitting casually sitting at a table.

Given today's climate and political tension, I wasn't sure if I should go in or continue to walk by or call call the FBI. In the end, I determined that since the nose cone was sitting on the table in front of the guy, I probably had time to quickly dart in, grab my tea and run. The caffeine-hyped missile builder was also studying a huge pile of blueprints...way more, I thought, than a missile might need. It's too bad I couldn't just admire his chutzpah for hauling a 6' rocket into Starbuck's and was worried about the political implications instead.

I've been asking Bob to make some patio art for years. While I was gone, Bob made a couple of things for me just to get me to be quiet. His first was horseshoe hearts that I hung on the fence,

and the other was the guardian angel heart that I have tattooed on my foot for Grama. I think they both look great. The flaw in his plan, however, is now that I know he can do it so well, I want more. *evil chuckle*.

Also while I was gone, we had some strong wind that resulted in our white trash garage becoming less resistant to aforementioned we just needed it to get to-done a bit sooner.

The plus side of this project is that we combined the frame from the last two canvas carports we've replaced and made a greenhouse frame. Now all we need is some plastic and we're ready to plant!

Walking was such a part of our San Francisco trip that I figured I'd put my old Fitbit on Nitro to see how much he walk/runs every day. As it turns out, I get waay more activity in than Nitro does. 

Now my question is, just what constitutes a step on a Fitbit on a cat's neck?

What do you wear when playing with your Mom's vintage Fisher-Price toys? A Spiderman mask and Lighting McQueen slippers. What else?

Remember those old black snakes we used to light up and make black marks on the sidewalk? Reagan and I tried to make one in the backyard. It took a long, long time to get it going, but once we did, we got us a big one and it got much bigger too!

Saturday, we had a combo birthday party for Richard and Carissa here at the house. Reagan wrote a heart felt birthday message to Richard on our sliding glass door. She's doing really well for 3.75 years old!

Reagan also picked (ripped up) some of the first flowers of the season for our birthday table centerpiece. I used glass nuggets to hold all the different length stems upright and we had a darn good looking centerpiece.

Once again, I forgot to take photos of the birthday dinner, but I did get one of Richard and Chelsea checking out some vintage ViewMaster slides. I enjoyed this set as a kid, our girls loved them just as much so I kept them. Hopefully someday Reagan will enjoy them as much as Richard and Chelsea were last night.

Reagan loves to play in my thread cabinet. Each time we open it, she has to find herself on the map (that used to be the photo in the used frame I bought for the door). It's kind of hard to locate Gamble Bay on an Old World map, but we just try to get it within the correct land mass. I'm gonna be in trouble when she starts questioning this.

Reagan is also learning one very important skill: Using a jewelry loupe to magnify valuables before you accept them. In this case, it was just a spool of thread, but she's gotta start her diamond and gem training sooner than later!

After mixing up my carefully color-sorted thread cabinet, Reagan moved on to the racing set that used to be Carissa's. She was wearing her "red race car" slippers and that cracked me up. If you want to check out the videos of her using the heirloom race cars, click here and here. It's a two-part video and I don't know which one is the first one. It doesn't really matter.

While Mary Lou and I were in San Francisco I kept seeing these random huge brick circles in the streets and wondered what they were. Our hop-on-hop-off bus driver said they were underground water cisterns and these were their the answer to San Franciscans having their buildings carbonized and their citizens terrorized every few years.

There are about 200 of these colossal water cisterns built over the years and stashed throughout the city with capacities ranging from 10,000 to 243,000 gallons in each cistern. Somehow they are earthquake resistant and all were intact after the recent major earthquakes in the Bay Area. There are also fire-fighting tunnels built underground as well. I love old underground city stuff and will have to look up the tunnels next.

Fighting The Great Fire of 1906 was seriously hampered when the water lines were severed by the earthquake and there was no water to fight the resulting raging fires. I find old civil engineering, including these cisterns, fascinating. How is it that I've never heard of them before? At the cost of housing in San Fran, it seems like this under-street real estate could sell for expensive condos if they weren't already full of water!

 This kid do love to dress up. I'm glad I made a pirate apron rather than a pirate costume she could outgrow.

Look at those darling little snowshoes! I'm fairly sure they are smaller than my ladies size 13 shoes.

Reagan should be able to get her parents trained with a minimum of fuss according to her research.

Spring is coming and it's time to clean up outside so once it warm up, the toys are fully playable.

Hey! Isn't this Mom's job?

Have a good week Everyone!