Celebrating our 40th Anniversary Part 1

Yesterday morning Mike told me he had taken the day off and that we should leave the house around9:30. He had packed a simple picnic and we were going to drive south on Pacific Coast highway to my childhood favorite beach Corona Del Mar. I've talked about this many times. He says it's his favorite beach now. The morning was cool and overcast. We sat on the bluff and had our picnic. Later we hiked down the hill to the beach area and then we headed home around 2:00. The girls set up a zoom for 5:00 so we will get to see our daughters, son in laws and our grandchildren very soon. It will be the Long Beach, Dallas Australia connection. They had told us long ago to save tonight for a special dinner that they would arrange. We don't know what they are up to but "the elves have arrived and I can hear activity in our backyard. (They said close your shades and don't look in the backyard starting at 3:30.) I told Mike I don't care what it is we're eating I'm just so touched by their thoughtfulness.  

Our 40th Anniversary

 

 August 23,  1981

"Love, soft as an easy chair
Love, fresh as the morning air
One love that is shared by two
I have found with you

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The beginning 46 years ago...

  1975

 

 "But it was you 

who let everything

into my heart,

and it was you 

who once again

awoke my spirit." -Sigur Ros

Little Did We Know

 

 

 

This is probably the first photograph of Mike and me together. It was taken 46 years ago around February 1975. I think the title of this could be “Little did we know.” We are sitting in my very first solo apartment. It was a two bedroom furnished apartment close to the Mormon Temple in West Los Angeles. The rent was a whopping $250.00. It was walking distance to Westwood and the UCLA campus where I had graduated the summer prior and now was working in the Physics department full time. Mike had just turned 22 and was entering his 2nd quarter of graduate study in that department. We had just discovered we lived a couple of blocks from each other. We did not know each other well at all. Sometime shortly before this photo Mike had walked over to my apartment from his place and knocked on my door. The door had a little window that you could open to see who was on the porch. I opened it and there stood Mike. He said, ”I thought we could have dessert together.” Thinking he meant we should go out to get dessert I said, “sure” and opened the door. There he stood with two paper plates, two plastic forks and two slices of ice cream cake. I stuttered “Oh you brought dessert” and I let me him in to my apartment for the first time. I have to admit it was that day I started to fall in love.

Today we celebrate our “40th” Anniversary. “Little did we know” how far we would travel through life together and the many rewards that travel would bring. Life continues to be filled with many discoveries that I hope we can enjoy together.

Happy 7th Anniversary Athena and Mat

Having a Coke With you

is even more fun than going to San Sebastian, Irún, Hendaye, Biarritz, Bayonne
or being sick to my stomach on the Travesera de Gracia in Barcelona
partly because in your orange shirt you look like a better happier St. Sebastian
partly because of my love for you, partly because of your love for yoghurt
partly because of the fluorescent orange tulips around the birches
partly because of the secrecy our smiles take on before people and statuary
it is hard to believe when I’m with you that there can be anything as still
as solemn as unpleasantly definitive as statuary when right in front of it
in the warm New York 4 o’clock light we are drifting back and forth
between each other like a tree breathing through its spectacles


and the portrait show seems to have no faces in it at all, just paint
you suddenly wonder why in the world anyone ever did them
I look
at you and I would rather look at you than all the portraits in the world
except possibly for the Polish Rider occasionally and anyway it’s in the Frick
which thank heavens you haven’t gone to yet so we can go together the first time
and the fact that you move so beautifully more or less takes care of Futurism
just as at home I never think of the Nude Descending a Staircase or
at a rehearsal a single drawing of Leonardo or Michelangelo that used to wow me
and what good does all the research of the Impressionists do them
when they never got the right person to stand near the tree when the sun sank
or for that matter Marino Marini when he didn’t pick the rider as carefully
as the horse
it seems they were all cheated of some marvellous experience
which is not going to go wasted on me which is why I’m telling you about it

 

-Frank O'Hara

Summer Concert Night

 Mike and I watched the beautiful sun set as we listened to a great concert in the park on Thursday night. We wished we could have been sitting with all our friends but we decided we needed to be away from the crowds. We set up our chairs under the stadium sign and had a great view of the passing boats, the glorious sun set and great tunes from the movies.

 

 

My Little Rocco Almost 11 months Old

 

 

Precious one, so small, so sweet Dancing in on Angel’s feet, Straight from heaven’s brightest star, What a miracle you truly are.

 

11 months on August 22, 2021

Morning Glory

 

On one of my morning walks I saw the most beautiful shade of purple on a morning glory and I thought "what a perfect name for this flower".