Merry Christmas Kitty Ornaments

                 Merry Christmas from my favorite Jack-in-the-box kitty ornament

                        Here's the new calico kitty addition to my tree thanks to my sister Lucia

                                   And here's another cutie from a few years back

A Rustic Christmas Eve/Hanukkah Table

Last year Christmas Eve and Hanukkah fell within a few days of each other, so our multi-denominational family was able to celebrate the two holidays together. The Seattle Stein family arrived in town just in time for our annual Christmas Eve crab extravaganza at Ricki's lovely Sea Cliff home. This rare religious coincidence allowed Ricki to pour her creativity into a table depicting the entire holiday season.

She combined winter greenery, berries and pine cones gathered in her San Francisco neighborhood, with elegantly arranged succulents and mosses spanning the length of the table. With flair she placed miniature wooden dreidels, horses, donkeys, ladders and other objects from her years of collecting.

          As usual, the tablecloth, napkins, china, glasses, silverware and serving pieces were perfection. Check out her beautiful  2018 Thanksgiving table Here and her Thanksgiving 2013 table  Here. 

I snapped photos from all angles before we assembled for dinner. Here you can see a miniature dreidel and goat

I can't wait to see this year's Christmas Eve table

Thanksgiving '18 at Ricki's

             Another Thanksgiving---Another stunning table by Ricki. To best showcase the table, this photo is in the original size, so please forgive the sidebars that appear down the middle.

Here are some more decorative details

The Rustic Squash Centerpiece

A place setting with Italian Deruta Dinner plates

Another View of the table

        The table just before we sat down to the first course of Sande's crab, avocado and papaya salad

Kauai's Hindu Monastery

Every time we visit Kauai we discover something new. Last time it was the Lawa'i Buddhist    
shrines. This November it was the Hindu Monastery. The sanctuary was founded by Gurudeva in the '70s and has since become a Hindu center and monastic order for many monks. Visitors are welcomed daily from 10:45 to noon and are allowed to wander through the grounds and gardens. It's a beautiful and peaceful place.

Guests are encouraged to dress in traditional Hindu clothing when visiting. Alternatively, modest clothing is permitted. No shorts, short dresses, t-shirts or tank tops. Dean was wearing shorts so he grabbed one of the sarongs offered at the entrance.

                   This lovely pool, with a Shiva statuette and fountain, sits near the entrance.

                                                               The pool reminded me of Bali

The Kadavul Hindu Temple  is open to all

A view across the valley

Iraivan Temple across the Wailua River

Across the Wailua River stands the Iraivan temple, a mammoth granite structure carved in India by master stone masons and shipped to Kauai block by block. Resident artisans from India are still at work fitting the last of 3000 blocks of stone in place and "erecting an edifice according to ancient agamic mystical injunctions."

Visitors are not allowed to visit this temple unless they take the two hour tour, which we didn't do, but we could see it from the grounds across the river.

After wandering around the monastery for an hour, we visited the gift shop and then headed to the nearby Opaeka'a falls.

Clean Air in Kauai

Hiking the Mahaulepu Trail

                                       Just back from Kauai where the air is clean and bright

View from the Mahaulepu trail-this is where we spotted a manta ray

                                                           And the sea and sky are blue

Excès de Vitesse (French Speeding Ticket)

Look what arrived in the mail yesterday! A speeding ticket sent from France for driving 89 km per hour in a zone authorized for 80 km/h. The date of our offense was Sept. 11th and we were driving towards the Chateau de Brissac, which I noticed when we crossed the Loire on our way to Poissonière.

Chateau de Brissac

Our speed must have been clocked by radar because we were never stopped and we weren't aware of anything until we received the notification by mail.

Here's a closer look

Description of the infraction. Good thing I can read French

Dean is all for not paying, but I think I'll take the option of sending a payment by Visa in the envelope they provided. I'm sure the French traffic administration would keep hounding us with ever steeper fines and then find a suitable punishment if we ignored them. What could that be? Possibly not allowing us to rent a car in France? or not letting us enter the country? It's not worth the 45 euros they are charging. Talk about "the long arm of the law," or the long arm of French bureaucracy.

Room on the Broom

There's always room on the broom for a cat

                                                              HAPPY HALLOWEEN