Baby Boy Nickolas

Tuesday December 22, 1992

I am trying to get ready so I can go to Frank's carving class to see the art and have a snack. I'm having alot of trouble with the sweats. I can't get ready when I'm sweating so. I'm finally ready at 11:15. It's a nice exhibition.

We go to lunch with Shirley and Jim Turner at Maverick's. By 1 p.m. we're on our way to Palmdale to see Paul & Judy's new baby boy Nickolas. He's one week old. We enjoy seeing Anita, Judy's Mom, too. Tayler is feeling much better. Baby Nick is so cute. He looks more like Paul. Judy looks great.

We arrive home about 6 p.m. and go out for Italian dinner. Now I'm tired.

I don't have any photos of Nick as a baby, but I did find the one above taken in 2000 when Nick is 8 years old. Mom was right. He looks like his Dad. Tayler, his older sister, looks just like her Mom.

Italian Feast

Thursday November 12, 1992

I feel much better today. I have alot of energy. We go grocery shopping for a couple of hours of coupon shopping. I'm surprisingly not tired. We rush home to get the spaghetti and cheese bread ready to take to the potluck tonight at Shirley & Jim Turner's house. There are 6 couples. We have a great Italian feast and share vacation pictures. It's a great evening and I feel fine but am very tired when we get home about 11 p.m.

It certainly didn't take Mom long to recover from her surgery. It appears she was trying to spend as much time with her friends and family as she possibly could while she was still able. This evening sounds like so much fun!

Sick and Tired

Thursday August 6, 1992

I awake at 2 a.m. and cannot sleep soundly the rest of the night. At 7 a.m. I'm sick and vomiting. Frank brings me a fudgecicle and I feel better. But I'm so tired. Frank colors my hair for me about 10 a.m. and I go back to bed. I sleep most of the day. I'm up and cleaned up by 5 p.m.

Frank goes to the market for vegies and I make a salad. At 7 p.m. we are at a potluck dinner at the Turners. It's good. I handle it well. I don't have the energy to square dance so all 8 of us watch the Olympics. We're the first to leave at 10:30.

Always pushing herself! If it lifts her spirits though, I guess it's worth it to go to a party when she's sick. She had a bad reaction to the chemo she took the night before.

Cherry Picking in Leona Valley

Wednesday June 24, 1992

Up at 7 to leave at 9 a.m. with Jim and Shirley to pick up Robin and Delores in Mission Hills and drive to Leona Valley to pick cherries. It's a long crowded ride with six big people in our car. We go up through Bouquet Canyon, but come home from Palmdale. When we get to Leona Valley we get a map of all the cherry pickin places. We find a place to pick apricots also. The lady at the place where we pick cherries is really nice to us and we stay awhile to visit. We stop for lunch where we got the maps, a small hometown restaurant. We have great hamburgers and peanut butter pie.

We are home by 3 p.m. so at 7 p.m. we go to a movie and then come home to have dinner and watch TV.

I have had terribly gas and pains all day. It's probably all the new vitamins I'm taking.

And I'm thinking it was probably too many cherries and apricots! I had never heard of Leona Valley, but looked it up on-line and saw that it's on Elizabeth Lake Road near Palmdale. When I was a teenager my parents often took my brother and I to Elizabeth Lake or Lake Hughes, both of which were in that area of Leona Valley. I remember lots of signs for cherry picking. The fact that Leona Valley has maps of the cherry farms almost makes it sound like wine country where I live and you can get maps to hundreds of different wineries.

My dad liked Lake Hughes so much that he and his second wife actually bought a cabin there many years ago as a weekend getaway.

Square Dance Party

Thursday June 18, 1992

Still tired and slightly nauseated in the morning. Pull myself together and go to the bank and market.

Baked an angel food cake and make jello, strawberry and whipped cream for topping.

At 7 p.m. we go to the Turners for a potluck and square dancing on their patio. There are six couples there plus Shirley's brother and wife. I think I'm too tired to dance but find I'm as energetic as anyone else there. We have a good time and are home about 10:45. I'm so tired I yawn all the way home. I'm in bed and asleep as soon as we get home.

I think it is wonderful that Mom and Frank not only share a passion for square dancing, but have found an entire circle of friends that share their passion and have social get-togethers that involve dancing as well as other activities they enjoy. For more than 3 years I have attended a water aerobics class at my gym 4 times per week, and I guess you could call it my passion since it is one of the few exercises that I really enjoy. For the past year Ric has joined me in the class. But the members of our class don't socialize outside of class, with the exception of the short time dressing in the locker room. There was one potluck several years ago, and that was a great way to get to know some of the people in the class better. Maybe we will plan another potluck at our house this summer.

My other passion is my faith in Jesus Christ and I have many friends from my church that I have made over the past 9 years who share my passion. Unfortunately, my husband does not share my faith and is not at all interested in getting to know my friends or their husbands, even though there are many social opportunities to do so. Ric is what one of my friends calls a CEO: Christmas and Easter only. He generally doesn't sit with me even those two times per year, preferring to arrive late, sit in the back, and leave early before anyone has a chance to greet him.

My Surprise Party

Saturday May 30, 1992

My Surprise Party

Up early in the kitchen making jello salad to take to the potluck at Shirley and Jim's tonight. I feel real good today. We arrive at Shirley's at 4 p.m. as requested. As we step in the door everyone yells surprise. I look at Frank, surprise who? "Happy Birthday" they yell, Me? No! My day was last Tuesday. I can't believe it! Luckily they are all standing in a half circle so I'm able to go around it hugging and kissing all my old and new friends and Gary and Maria (29 in all). I'm honored and thrilled! I can't believe they would all come for me! And Turners have spent alot of money on decorations and cake all decorated and tri-tip roast on the BBQ. It's a lovely evening I shall always remember.

Gene and Cathy arrive late. We 6 relax and talk with Turners. We leave at 9:00 and head for Gary's. Gene and Cathy want to see his new house. He and Maria are up but nearly asleep. We have a nice visit.

I don't remember ever having a birthday party as an adult and only one as a child. It rained my 12th birthday party away. We had planned to all go to Pops Willow Lake for a swim party. No rain this time. A glorious day--warm--not hot. All my old Valley friends were there, Myra, Jeanne, Linda and spouses, Carol, my friend from second grade on. Many square dance friends and our neighbors Doris and Helen. I love them all.

It brought tears to my eyes to know that her friends loved her so much that they planned this huge party to celebrate what would be her last birthday on earth. She was genuinely touched. To have had only one other birthday party in all her 58 years seems sad. Maybe that's why she made sure my brother and I had birthday parties every year until we were 10 or so. I remember Mom talking about Pops Willow Lake so I looked it up. It was a boating and swimming resort with a dance hall and cafe along Big Tujunga Wash, upstream from today's Hansen Dam. The lake was opened in 1931 by James A. (Pop) Gautier. It washed away in the 1938 flood that devastated the San Fernando Valley but was rebuilt in time for a young Marilyn Monroe (then Norma Jeane Baker of Van Nuys High School) to spend wartime dates there with her first husband, Jim Dougherty.

We Buy Lots of Square Dance Clothes

Thursday December 5, 1991

Up and ready to go to see Dr. Bienstock this morning. I feel great! I have lots of energy. I have cereal for breakfast. I've had only 2 loose stools since I got home. Everything is about back to normal.

We go out to lunch but I don't enjoy the chicken fettucine so eat only half. Then we go shopping and buy lots of square dance clothes. It's fun buying together. From there we go to Shirley & Jim's for a surprise visit. They are so happy to see us. We stay a couple of hours.

From there we go to Marlene's shop to visit with her and Gary and to check on our club outfits. Not ready. From there out for spaghetti dinner. It's great and I eat alot. From there to Home Club. We buy our Christmas tree too early--so what! Finally home at 10:30 still raring to go.

Hah! Looks like Mom is NOT taking the advice of her horoscope yesterday to take things at a snail's pace. Like I said, she has a very hard time taking it slowly.

Christo's Umbrellas

Friday October 25, 1991

Up early. Shirley & Jim Turner pick us up at 8 a.m. We have a great breakfast at Eggs & Things and head for Gorman to see Christo's Umbrellas. Nice to ride and Jim to drive. The umbrellas are wonderful. There are 1770 of them everywhere, all over the hills, valleys, ponds, and mountains. We drive to the bottom of the grapevine, stopping often.

We stop to visit Fort Tejon. It is really an old fort and a national park now. So nice we had the time to finally stop after all these years. Jim knows the area really well so takes us on many side roads going home. It's very interesting.

We have a late lunch at Magic Mountain Marie Callendar's. We arrive home at 4:00. I'm tired but OK, ready to lay on my back to rest my straining incision.

Christo is well-known for his strange artwork that is set up outside. The yellow umbrellas that were set up along Interstate 5 through Southern California known as The Grapevine, were set up for 18 days simultaneously with blue umbrellas that were set up in Japan. Fort Tejon is at the summit of the grapevine, and even though I have passed by it dozens of times, I am always traveling between northern and southern California, so have never stopped there.

After I moved to Sonoma County in 1974 Mom and Frank visited during Christo's exhibit along the coastal hills here called "Christo's Fence", pictured below, in 1976. We actually went up with a pilot in a small plane to fly over the fence all the way to the Pacific Ocean.

I Ache All Over

Wednesday September 25, 1991

Another relaxing day for both of us at home. At 6:00 we meet Shirley and Jim Turner for square dancing. Other friends show up there in Newbury Park also. After the class we all go to dinner at Jessie Cates for fun. We are there a long time. I ache all over when we finally get up to leave.

I can so relate. I rarely go to the theater to see a movie, mostly due to the expense, but also because I find I cannot sit still for two hours. My back aches terribly after the first half hour. I would rather wait until the movie comes out on DVD and watch it from the comfort of my couch or bed.