Late Night Love

Happy Late Night, my Darling,

I hope your day was good. Not much to report for me, although I did watch a great movie from the Dracula Legacy collection : "Son Of Dracula" starring Lon Chaney Jr. as "Count Alucard" (Dracula spelled backwards). This one was really well done for a B-movie, with a really weird plot and creepy atmospherics. As far as I'm concerned, some of these sequels - in all the Legacy collections - are as much fun as the films they originate from, if not more so.

Other than that, just a regular Monday. The super hot weather is overwith for the time being. Now it's back to being just regular hot (90 degrees). Next week, school will start at CSUN, bringing back an extra 35,000 commuters to The 'Ridge, and the hustle and bustle of the neighborhood. The "sleepy town" part of Summer will be over, but not the Season itself. For us, that lasts til about Halloween.

Well, that's all for now. I Love You and will see you in the morning. xoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxo  :):)

Sweet Dreams....

Sunday Evening Love (super duper)

Good Evening, Sweet Baby,

I am just getting home from Pearl's. 'Twas mega hot again today, but no hike cause of church & choir, a fair trade off. We sang good this morn, always enjoyable ("sang good" - yep, nice grammar skills there, Ad). :)

I hope you had a nice Sunday, and I liked your post of the handmade wedding dress, very beautiful indeed (hint, hint).  :)

And your friend Morgin's doggie, too. What a great face on him or her. Doggies & wedding dresses are two things that are always a winner with me!

I am gonna catch up on my reading for a little while, and maybe watch another Dracula Legacy movie, or perhaps an "X-Files". Gotta finish up Season 8, and then do Season 9 before year's end so I can be ready for the new mini-series in the new year.

Anyhow, I just wanted to check in and say hi, see how your day was.

I Love You and I'll be back at the usual time, later on at Pearl's. Enjoy the rest of your evening!

xoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxo  :):)

12:10am : Happy Late Night, my Darling. All is quiet at Pearl's, and I am actually reading Shakespeare! Yeah, I'm obsessed, I know. I think what happened is that once I began to understand the dialogue, after seeing "As You Like It" for the second time the other night, I wanted to go all the way and fully understand it. So, as reported in a previous blog, I ordered a Complete Shakespeare from the Libe and started working on "As You Like It". I'm just doing a page at a time, but some of it I'm even reading aloud, to Pearl & The Kobester, because I like the way the words sound when spoken.

Just call me The Instant Shakespeare Fan. Well, almost instant - I saw my first play last year.........

But just a page or two a day is good enough, especially with everything else I am reading. Mom didn't know what she was starting when she took me to the library as a small child.  :)

Man, Sweet Baby...........it was still super duper hot this evening. One of those nights when it didn't cool off. I love it in the daytime, but at night I prefer some coolin'. Guess what the temp was in Palm Springs today?

118.

Good Lordy Moses.

Now, Palm Springs is way out in the desert, about 120 miles from here. Death Valley is out that way, too, but further. It holds the record for the hottest temp ever recorded on Earth : 134 degrees.

That might be even too much for me. :)

Or maybe not.

But I am just glad we are finally having some True Summer here. I hope you had a nice day, too.

I Love You and will see you in the morning.  xoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxo  :):)

Sweet Dreams.........

Golden Valley Ranch

Hi, my Darling,

Happy Late Saturday Night. I hope you had a nice day today. As you probably saw on FB, I made a discovery of a new Open Space in Santa Clarita called Golden Valley Ranch. It's on Placerita Canyon Road, not far from Walker Ranch as it turned out, so I found it and had an awesome hike, super hot like all my best hikes of last Summer. It was 106 today, so you know I loved it, lol.

This particular piece of land is just beautiful, and while the trail is not long - only about a mile - it leads to yet another Open Space called East Walker Ranch. So I made two discoveries, actually, and when I go back next time I will check out East Walker.

In all, that makes four hiking places along Placerita Canyon Road : The main park, i.e. Placerita Canyon Nature Center, the place I went as a kid, and still one of the best hiking trails of them all. Then Walker Ranch, which I discovered last Fall. Walker is at the end of the two mile trail leading from the Nature Center. Then my two discoveries today, about a mile further down the road : Golden Valley Ranch and East Walker.

The website (hikesantaclarita.com) says that East Walker has a lot of wildlife, including Condors, which would be incredibly awesome to see, like seeing an Eagle for you. Well, I will go back soon, preferably on a Super Hot Day, in order to get the proper feeling.

I know I'm a little nutty. I may have mentioned that before.....   :)

It's funny though, and in all seriousness, I just love that feeling of the Summer heat, combined with the dry feeling in the air, and the look of all those Summer Colors as I  call them. They may not be beautiful in the traditional sense, but they have a rustic look that I love.

As with everything else, it's all about The Feel.

It always is.

That was my day, except for this eve, when Grimsley came over to play me a Van Halen bootleg he acquired, from a 1976 show when they were still a club band, before their first record came out.

Tomorrow is church and singing. That's our club, and we don't have our first record out yet, either, but before you know it, we'll probably be playing arenas just like Van Halen. I mean - you never know, right?

We're called The Choir, by the way. Spread the word.  :)

It's gonna be another Super Hot One tomorrow, 107 so they predict. I say Yippee!

Gotta enjoy it while it lasts, because this Winter - supposedly (and I hope they're wrong) - we're gonna get the El Nino to end all El Ninos. "El Nino" is what they call A Ton Of Rain in California. It actually describes a weather condition arising out of the Pacific Ocean. Dunno why they call it "The Child", but anyhow, when it happens, all heck breaks loose, water water everywhere, and all of that.

At any rate, I hope all projects are coming along well. I hope also that you are having a blast this Summer in general.

I Love You and will see you in the morning, and then after church.  xoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxo  :):)

Sweet Dreams......

Love It! (Smoke & Monsters)

Good Afternoon, my Darling,

I wanted to pop in real quick and say hi, and also tell you that I love your picture! It is super cool that you got to play the old Steinway! I'll bet it sounded incredible. :) That is a beautiful church you are playing in as well. Lots of light coming in! Is that your family church? It has a nice atmosphere. :)

Hey, I have an idea - since you have now played in a church, maybe you can come play with us one of these Sunday mornings. ;)

That would be awesome.  :):)

Well, I have gotta do some shopping, and I will be back later, but I just wanted to let you know that I am glad you got to play that piano.

Enjoy the rest of your Friday afternoon and I will see you in a bit. I Love You!

xoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxo  :):)

12:10am : Happy Late Night, Sweet Baby. I hope you had a fun Friday night. It is Super Hot here, triple digits today, and there was a brush fire on the Simi Valley side of the Santa Susanas, so a bit of smoke was in the air this eve. I saw it over the mountains as I was coming back from Pearl's, and I Googled it right away when I got home to make sure it wasn't Santa Su, the State Park. And it wasn't, thank goodness. :) A bit of smoke in the air made for a mildly unpleasant walk, but the fire helicopters have no doubt knocked it down by now, so all is well.

I watched a classic little horror film from the Dracula Legacy Collection : "House Of Dracula". In it, Dracula (played by John Carradine) visits a doctor who attempts to cure him through transfusions of his own blood. The word must have gotten out about this doctor, because the next thing you know, he is being visited by Lawrence Talbot, the man who is cursed to turn into The Wolfman every time there is a full moon. Talbot (played by Lon Chaney Jr.) also seeks a cure for his malady. Meanwhile, the doctor has also promised an operation to fix his hunchbacked nurse, but he gets sidetracked by a discovery that Frankenstein is buried beneath his laboratory.

Now, I have to ask you at this point : Is that a classic story, or what?

It's Monster City.

Somehow, all the Monsters found out about this doctor and his special treatments, and they all want to be cured!

Except Frankenstein. He just goes with the flow......of electricity, that is. He seems to always want to do some major damage, but The Wolfman - and even Dracula - seem to have some semblance of a conscience.

Unfortunately, during the transfusion process, the doctor is infected with some of Dracula's blood, and at that point all bets are off.

But man, what a Monster Movie! And they did it all in only 67 minutes...........   :)

Speaking of brevity, I also got at the Northridge Libe a copy of The Complete Works Of William Shakespeare, so now I can read the plays I have seen. I was surprised to find, however, that they average about 30 pages in length. "As You Like It" is a mere 28 pages. Those pages are filled with dialogue, however, and I suppose if a page reads out at an average of four minutes, on stage, then that would account for a play of apprx. two hours.......

So that was my evening : a little fire, a little smoke, a bunch of Monsters and some words in yet another book.......

Tomorrow it's supposed to be 107 degrees. I suppose I'd better take advantage of it, or I'll feel guilty. Perhaps a drive out to Mentryville is in order......  :)

Sweet Dreams, Sweet Baby! I will see you in the morning.

I Love You.  xoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxo  :):)

Shakespeare & Sugar

Hi, my Darling,

Happy Late Night. Tonight at 6:30, I drove out to Woodland Hills (yet another Valley community, as I may have already said), to see a second performance of "As You Like It" from Shakespeare By The Sea. Warner Park is the same one I was at a couple weeks ago for the Ticket To Ride show. It's about 10 miles from here.

As you can tell, I am absolutely hooked on Shakespeare as presented by SBTS, and so I had to go, as it was their last local performance of the year. Next Summer, they will be back, and so will I. The cool thing is that I am getting better at following the plot. I have now seen four Shakespeare performances : "Hamlet", which I found awesome and which got me hooked last year, but which most of the dialogue flew right past me. "The Tempest", which I saw eight days ago, and which I was able to get a grasp of. And then the two performances, last week and tonight, of "As You Like It", of which - having seen it twice - I was both able to follow much (though not all) of the dialogue and to follow the plot.

I love the use of the English language, and it's amazing how so many words can fit into one scenario, and also have a rhythm and poetic structure.

So, that was my day, or rather my evening. My day was just a typical Thursday. I hope you had a good day. I saw your post a while ago, and you are right about the glucose/cancer acceleration factor. I mean, at least from what I have read. The very subject of nutrition and disease is so complex that one could write endlessly about it, and even scientists and doctors have gone back and forth on what's "good" for the body, and so forth.

Again, I say use common sense, and go by how you feel. Know your family history. More than that, know how you feel in your Spirit. Eat a balanced diet that is mainly plant based. Get your "good" fats. Carbs are not gonna kill you, ask any athlete. Just make sure you exercise.

That is Huge.

If I were a doctor, I'd say : 1) Be a happy person. Figure out what makes you happy and keep doing it. 2) Keep your body fit by getting exercise. Not high pressure exercise, but exercise that flows with your Spirit in Nature. In other words, don't pound out weights, or marathons, if you don't Feel It. Feel is everything in Life, because Feel Is Spirit and Spirit is The Real You, and The Real You knows what's best for You.

And after Being Happy and Getting Exercise, if I were a doctor, I'd say : try to avoid three things. Too much sugar, too much salt, and too much bad fat. Starch, as you pointed out, equals sugar. So does fruit, but less so when eaten whole and not as juice. Whole fruit is complex carbohydrates, which is good sugar.

Man, now I am really getting into it, and as I said, nutrition is a subject that you could write (or talk) all day about. But I say, don't put too much emphasis on the science, because the science, as usual, is conflicting.

For yourself, just follow the simple rules described above, watch out for excess chemicals in products, and go forth in life. Shakespeare would agree!

Two authors who know much about nutrition are Paul Bragg (from early on) and Gary Null (more recent).

But mostly, eat as good as you can, be happy and active, and you will do fine.

That's all for tonight! I Love You, Sweet Baby.  xoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxo  :):)

Whitney Canyon + Coconut Oil + Love

Happy Late Night, my Darling,

I did wind up going on a hike today, back to Whitney Canyon in Newhall. I went about 3/4 of the way in, about a mile and a quarter or so, and I love it in there because it may be the ghostliest of all the canyon trails. Probably Whitney or Rice, as far as The Feeling is concerned. It was nice and hot, too, verging on a 100 Degree Hike, so that helped bring back the feeling from last Summer, when I was making all my trail discoveries. I took a few pictures, but didn't get any that I was really happy with, so I'll try again on my next hike. One thing I will also do is to be more careful with the coconut oil, which I've been using for sunscreen this year.

I'm sure you've heard recently about all the wonders of coconut oil, which has been very much publicised and advocated in recent times. One of it's uses is said to be as a sunscreen; Pacific Islanders have used it for centuries, so they say. Anyhow, I decided to try it because I am not thrilled with all the chemicals in commercial sunscreens, and for me, it seems to work pretty well. Keep in mind that I also use other lines of defense, meaning that when I hike I am in long pants and long sleeved shirt (always), not only to keep the Sun off me but also ticks, poison ivy, etc. I always have a hat on, too, and sunglasses. But last year, my sister got me to use sunscreen for the first time, on my face and neck. I was never fanatical about it, because I have brown hair & eyes, and what they call "olive" skin. I have never had a tendency for sunburn. Also, we do need some Sun, for vitamin D absorbtion, and I always covered up pretty well anyway.

But I switched to coconut oil this year, because it is natural. The only problem is that, for me anyway, it stings the heck out of my eyes, and today I put way too much on my face, and not only did it affect my eyes, but it did something I hadn't experienced in ages : it gave me an allergy.

I was sneezing like crazy and my sinuses were all stuffed up until about an hour ago. That was a normal condition for me from childhood until my mid-30s, as I think I've told you. I had really bad allergies for a long time. For the last twenty years, I have had practically zero allergies, really can't think of any, in fact.

But now I know to be careful with the coconut oil.

A caveat on the sunscreen issue : there is, as usual in the age of the Interent, all kinds of conflicting info on how much Sun is okay, and whether sunscreen itself might be a cause of skin cancer. I say use common sense, and especially for you because you have blonde hair/blue eyes (blue/green). In your case, you are Way Up High where the UV Index doesn't generally get up into the 8,9,10 range like it does here. So you have that advantage. Also, maximum UV hours anywhere are between 10am and 2pm, so avoid sun overexposure during those hours. Cover up when you do go out in the Summertime, but........

Try to look for natural sunscreens if you use them. Avoid parabens and those types of chemicals. I can get away with more, because of brown hair and eyes.

I know you know all this, and you are in the North anyhow. Just don't overdo the commercial sunscreen, I guess is the point I am trying to make.  :)

And don't overdo the coconut oil, either! Or you may be sneezing your head off.......  :)

That was really all the news for today, a Nice Hot Hike.

This eve, I read my three books again, and listened to Radiohead.

Now I am listening to KUSC.

Sweet Dreams, my Baby. I will see you in the morning!

I Love You.  xoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxo  :):)

Late Night Love

Happy Late Night, Sweet Baby,

I hope you had a nice day, and you were no doubt working on the video. In your new cover photo, from the shoot, I see that you captured the theme you were going for. Is the girl a model? Maybe the one you posted from the other day? Just guessing, of course.  :)

Nothing much to report on my end, just workin' & reading in-between. Tomorrow I will try for a hike, the key word being "try", depending on a good sleep tonight. So far, all is well.

That's all I know for today. I will see you in the morning.

I Love You.  xoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxooxo  :):)