Suzy Says

I didn’t love being woken up at 5:30 on a Sunday morning, aka the only day of the week I can sleep in.

Audrey, however, is uninterested in the sloth of Staff, and in fact deplores it. There are standards to be kept up and doors to be opened, and Her Majesty does not appreciate waiting.

On the other hand, it gave me time to blog while my detoxing face mask worked on the wine I drank the night before and the sun glowed golden through the dark trees.

Thanks, Audrey?

I headed over to the family estate after work* on Saturday. Rio’s daughter Paloma was visiting from LA, and this was the first time any of us had met her. When I arrived, the guest of honor had not, and it turned out that Rio had given her daughter the wrong address, which made it hard for her to find us.

Find us she did, though, and even Scout the mini cat came out to say hello:

Scout surprised me by hanging around much more than usual. She is generally skittish around humans, especially in the great outdoors. She is hard to photograph because she tends to run away when approached, so this is the best I could do:

Jonathan was grilling onions and peppers while Megan picked plums and zucchini for me:

and remonstrated with me for not shopping at the family vegetable emporium more often.

As I peeled the peppers and Jonathan chopped them up, he realized that he hadn’t grilled the chicken yet. So he did that while Megan and I chatted and drank wine with Rio and Paloma. Finally, dinner was served at the giant picnic table Jonathan built. With the grilled chicken and veggies, we had black beans and fresh basil grown on the property, all wrapped up in tortillas. It was delicious, and we all had a wonderful time. It was a great end to the day – and the week.

*My favorite visitors that day were a young couple from Connecticut with their three year old, curly haired daughter Lucy. They had just come from Montgomery Woods, where some of the tallest and most magnificent redwoods can be found. Lucy excitedly told me that they were taller than her father (who was quite tall himself), and her father said that he was still in awe of what he had seen there. “I had to wonder if I was a good enough person to have seen it,” he said. It’s a magical place.

A YEAR AGO: Unexpected showers and traffic incidents. You never know what you’ll find on the Hooterville back roads!