Saturday, August 1, 2009

santa barbara, santa cruz and san francisco


i am enjoying my big tour and working vacation. the columbia river was so beautiful to drive a long for a few hours til i headed north to spokane, washington.

ha ha, too bad that tree was moving. there was no place to stop when i was most enjoying the view. and i also enjoyed seeing a moose standing up to his armpits in a stream next to the highway.

going back to catching up on where i've been on my tour, after leaving los angeles, i treated my s.elf to 2 nights at the immaculate heart retreat center (http://www.ihrc.net/) in santa barbara. it was restful and beautiful. my room was the old nanny's quarters in the beautiful old main house of the estate. i enjoyed meeting other women on group or personal retreats.the food was tasty and healthy, with lots of fresh foods from the organic garden there.

after my personal retreat, i came down from the mountain to my house concert at perry and doug's house in santa barbara.

perry is an artist and perry and his husband's home was an art piece.


perry's friends were fun-loving and ready to laugh and sing along and come up the the "stage" and share a talent. mita was my amusing side kick and impressed us all when she played a blade of grass very loud. it was great to see don carlos, formerly from 29 palms, and some other desert friends.

the next night i had a house concert arranged by petrine michum and it was hosted at the lovely ranch of John Poitras, who has been interested in having house concerts. i felt like a queen staying in petrine's cute guest house and i made her a green smoothy the next morning. here i am at john poitras barn/concert hall. i really enoyed meeting petrine's friends and the wonderful dinner conversation (and dinner).

my favorite flower is the california poppy. i had to stop to take this picture.



after the concert at perry's house i was on the road to santa cruz to have a house concert and relax and make some art on the porch of linda roseman and kate simmons. they had a bunch of really fun loving friends, too, some of them sharing their talents. perry and doug told some of their friends in santa cruz to come, and bruce, who was at my first house concert at my cabin, was in town and brought his cousin.

linda's friend opened the show with a cute love story about her car.

here is linda and kate, with "i can see your aura" mermaid, linda sang a great song with that title, both at the house concert at my cabin and at her house concert in santa cruz.












here i am making art on linda's porch, i am a big fan of porches, i guess they are a bit like gazebos, which i mentioned earlier that i do not like, maybe gazebos seem to lonely to me out there in the middle of the yard. : ) i really loved my clown that is living with perry and doug in santa barbara now, so i had to make another dog with his clown.

i like santa cruz, and even got my new car ran into in the parking lot by a sweet little old lady. i tracked her down, some nice folks had witnessed her rubbing her car against mine as she backed out, and as i was shopping in trader joes. i ended up going to her house and finding out she also used to play guitar, and sang and is very crafty. we had such a nice visit that we decided she ran into me for a reason. linda and kate plan to visit her, as she lives alone and her husband died a couple years ago and she has no children. it was a very heartwarming visit, inspite of the new dent on my car. since i am into art cars, maybe i'll decorate the dent.

my next show was in san francisco, in lady bee's garage. lady bee has wonderful friends and i enjoyed meeting them. i was delighted when matt venuti showed up and played his hang drums for us!
matt and i met at the TED conference in 2003 and he did a wonderful version of my song "some thoughts on if i should die, some day" for my tribute album. i know matt is way over qualified, but he played the sewing machine and delighted us all.

















my next stop was san rafael to see my dad and my step mom gwen. we had a great visit, and i got to make a green smoothy for gwen's sister and her husband. they loved it, and it has been so fun to put fresh greens from people's gardens in my smoothies, george and gayle had mint and sorrel and plums and some other stuff i forgaged for in their garden.

my friend alicia bay laurel is the vegetable fairy and when she visits, she loves making veggies for her hosts. i like making green smoothies, but not everyone is into them.

here are some fresh finds from joanne licardo's garden in portland:














well there is another blog entry. i hope to get better at this. : ) i really am sad about michael jackson and have always been interested in his music and life and once read his autobiography in the 80s. it was cute because he was being so nice to everyone and i feel like i kinda sound that way. not that i'm not nice or have something mean to say... i'm just feeling like i'm learning to ride a bike with this blogging stuff.

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