Waiting for.....

What are you waiting for?  Spring?

and what will you do with yourself in these doldrum days until it arrives?  Maybe this?

Or head over to this:  John Singer Sargent from the Tate Gallery in London and probably shortly to appear at the National Portrait Gallery.  More about that here.  (Kind of exciting I think.)

And could this video inspire you to take off in quite another direction altogether?  The pleating technology is so low tech but amazing...it's the kind of thing that makes France great, no?  

Oh, and the colors are wonderful, no?  What could you do with a thousand hand tinted ribbons?

Happy February!

More Italian in Altadena, Roma Italian Deli

An unassuming storefront.  In a little strip mall.

On a steep street.

Leading to the mountains.

Outside, it looks like California.  Inside.......

It's 1000% I-T-A-L-I-A!

Roma Deli will sell you bread that is bigger than your head.

And pasta longer than your arm.  I haven't tasted it ALL but I'm sure it's all delicious.

Roma Deli assumes that you have a VERY BIG ITALIAN family to feed.

If you don't have one, you're going to wish you did.  Mangia, Mangia!

P-L-E-N-T-Y

Is it too early after the holidays to do a post like this?

(Probably L.A. Times)

Is it too early in the week to load up on visual multiplicities?

(Bellochio via SFGirlByBay)

Is your brain ready to embrace all this stuff?

These pics have been accumulating in my files.

And somehow they all seemed to

(AugustWren)

cluster together and make sense to me, together.

(Becca Stadtlander)

I mean, as an expression of

Medici Fountain, Luxembourg Gardens

PLENTY.

(via Mieke Willems and Renilde At Swim Two Birds)

Some people have more of it than others.

Some want more of it than others.  Yes, me, I have ALWAYS wanted a collection of mantilla combs.  

Have you also noticed that it's also possible to enjoy abundance and to amass in a spare and restrained way?

Which would describe you?  A more is MORE type of person, or a ALOT of a little, goes a long way kind of person?    And is it a lot of outdoorsy kinds of things like the top pictures that you would prefer?  Or are you one of those.......magpies.......who wants to stockpile all those lovely things in your nest at home?

(None of the rest of these photos are mine.  Sorry not able to credit them at this time.)

For A Cheery Friday and the Rest of Your Weekend - A CAT POST!

They seem to be popping up everywhere.

Most of these pictures come from Cat Town Cafe, in Oakland, CA

which I think I first read about in the New York Times.

But especially in Asia.  There are cafes where you can visit with

goats, and even owls!  Such a great idea. (Click for link.)

AWWWWWWWWW.........So great for bringing down your blood pressure.  No?

Have a wonderful weekend!

Nuccio's in Altadena on a Saturday Flavored with Amore

Last Saturday, we went on some excellent adventures of an Italian flavored kind.

They involved flowers and food.  (Are you surprised?)

The bonus of the day was this groovy mobile home we happened upon en route to......

Nuccio's Camellia and Azalea Farm in Altadena, just a hop skip and jump from where we live.

But who knew?  It was a little heaven on earth.  Nestled at the base of the 

San Gabriel mountains.  (Since like the 1940's!!!!!!  They'd been in Alhambra in the '30's)

A lovely man greeted us who reminded me of my Dad's cousin Jack.

He had snowy white hair and was dressed in a cheery outfit of well worn old school heavy duty jeans

red checks, and I'm sure there was a bandana involved somewhere.  He was very chatty and so helpful and of course knew immediately exactly where the camellia was located that I was after - the one in the top picture.  The greenhouses and plantings are vast.  And so peaceful,  looking down and across to downtown L.A.  (I think I'm in love and I'm going to run away from home to live there.)

Mr. Nuccio seemed to think it was a very good idea that I wanted to espalier my camellia.  He already knows a thing or two about espalier-ing.  So my own is still not planted but he tells me that camellias are very easy to grow here in California.  (Something that surprised me, because my frame of reference for such flowers is the Delaware/Maryland/Virginia region of the U.S. and England.)  

I now just have to be patient some more because my plant will take TWO YEARS to flower!  But it will be worth it.  Any other camellia fans out there?

(I found out about Nuccio's and my particular camellia via Matt at: Growing With Plants - also on the blogroll.  He's a great resource!)

The food part of our Italian themed Saturday comes next week.  Watch this space!

Another New Blog Discovery - Tales of the Nightingale

So yes, I did a lot of vegging out over Christmas

and had a nose around cyberspace

looking for goodies.

This blog, Tales of the Nightingale, is lovely I think.

Andrea, whose blog it is, made the beautiful tart in the first picture.

I think she has a "bellochio" (beautiful eye)!  What do you think?  And I guess, after my holiday in the Savoie, I'm still dreaming of the simple life in the mountains.

Hmmm think I'll go pay her a visit right now!

How is everybody?  Well, I hope!

Close to Home

These days I don't even want to leave my neighborhood.

(Which is why you're seeing so many OTHER peoples' pics on my blog these days.)

I have a new garden.

Well, I actually have an empty lot to make a garden in.  (We bought the lot next door last year.)

I have succulents that I had been growing on my deck for years

that I plan to plant out.

But I need:  Better soil.  A wheel barrow.  And probably a gardener to help me!

Meanwhile I dream.  And I obsess.  I count the lupines "volunteering" in wet soil from our recent rains.  And I pull at the hundreds of weeds out that are crowding 'round them.

I plot and strategize, while nibbling on potato pie that hubby made us.

I'm trying to decide how much I like this marigold variety.  And I wonder if I should just plant gazanias.   

I don't want to leave home anymore.  I just want to stay here and talk to my flowers:  "GROW GUYS, GROW!"

How was your weekend?  I saw "Selma" last night.  It was a beautiful, graceful account of a very ugly time in American history.  I recommend it!  It is very relevant to the world we live in today because sadly, not enough has changed.  Some people are challenging some of the film's factuality.  Here's a response to that from someone (who I believe to be hero) who survived that time and was a participant in that history, Mr. John Lewis, a U.S. Congressman.

HAPPY MARTIN LUTHER KING DAY.

Someday, Spring. Meanwhile, David Hockney

Don't you wish you could do this???????

O.K. maybe some of you wouldn't.  Especially since it's very cold and snowy at the moment where you might be.  I would only want to do it as he does - with lots of assistants about, or in waiting in some nearby pub - to help with the setting up and taking down, to grab hold of the wet canvases in just the right way before a stiff wind can blow them right off across the countryside.  To tidy up the paints afterwards.

But what I meant to post about is spring.  It's on its way.  It might not seem like it now.  But soon it will arrive.  Even here in L.A., I dream about it.

Maybe you'll get a little soupçon of it, a bit of a thaw.......some little moment soon.

I'm so glad that David Hockney has moved back to L.A.  Even though I never run into him.  

But you never know, I just might.  One has to be hopeful......no?  Don't ask me what I would say to him.

Meanwhile.  HAVE A GOOD WEEKEND.  

What will you be doing???????