Wedding Crashing and Kitty Scratching. Plus a Frog

Today's walk brought us to the Jefferson Street Mansion.  Our first choice was the Benicia Memorial Cemetery, but they closed at 4, so we kept right on walking.  I could have titled this post "One Wedding and a Funeral" except we missed the funeral.  Technically we missed the wedding too.  They were just starting to take pictures of the wedding party and we decided not to stick around.  But I did snap a couple of pics.  It really looks like a great place for a wedding.  The weather was beautiful.

 This is the mansion above.  To the right is a door leading out to the reception tent.

 Here is a view of the front of the mansion.

 To the left is where they were going to hold the ceremony.

 The chairs were set up.  I think the wedding was probably going to be at 5.

On our way back I took a picture of this hideous frog that has appeared near the parking lot of Robert's Chinese Restaurant.  I don't like the way he's staring at me.  He seems upset about something.  Again, we kept right on walking.

At this corner, we hung a right and walked up the alley towards Wellington.  A delightful kitty cat came to greet us.  We think he belongs to the ambulance station along the alley.  He was very friendly and even posed for this picture.

He had a very loud kitty voice.

Homemade chicken pizza for dinner tonight!

What's Making Me Happy

The view from every window.

 A cat that wants to nap wherever I am.

 Little cuttings hoping to root.

 Gnarly orchid sprouts.

 The beginnings of a perfect lunch.

 The anticipation of a perfect lunch.

Any gardening.

Crosswords and  yogurt outside on a perfect day. 

 Watching my boyfriend garden.

 The cat's slow migration around the room.

 A great book lent to me by the daughter.

 More cat migration.

Another perfect day at Wellington.

An Evening Stroll to the Arsenal

We don't walk to The Arsenal very often.  And we don't walk in the evening as much as we walk in the daytime.  This evening we walked to The Arsenal with the little boy, so I had to take some pics.  Above is the photo shop.  Below is the Guard House.  It used to house prisoners and rumor has it Grant spent 30 days in there for being drunk on duty.

Here you can see some ship docked at the Martinez marina.

Just some more buildings down there.  Not sure what they are.

Over by the Ironhorse Furniture store we saw this little stray kitty.

 This one old warehouse building had some nice sort of chimney pots.

I just loved this building.  I don't know what it could have been used for.  It has a very steep roof.  It's very intriguing.

This last pic is not very pretty.  But it's very exciting!  There has been this terrible, boarded-up building on East 5th since well before we moved to Benicia.  They finally tore it down!  I hope they're going to tear down the one to the right also.  It's just as ugly.

It was a really nice evening stroll, as usual.  

Happy 4th Birthday, Wellington!

It was four years ago today that we moved into our lovely Wellington.  Is he just precious?  In honor of his fourth birthday I made Beef Wellington for dinner.  And the whole city celebrated by having the first Farmer's Market of 2014!

Happy Birthday, Wellington!

Ducklings at the Harbor (a Video)

Since the video has been reduced by Blogger, I uploaded it to YouTube.  The quality was reduced there when they took out the shaking, but it's a better quality than this video.  The best part of the video is the sound.  It's so peaceful down there with the birds chirping.  And that little wayward duckling at the end climbs aboard the duckling island with his siblings.  So cute.

 

Find the YouTube version here.

What's Blooming?

Last week The Dot gave these two little rusty metal birdies to The Hub for his birthday.  The one on the right seems to have collected a present for the one on the left.  So cute.

Walked down to the water again.  The tide was low.  It's about 75 degrees here today and absolutely gorgeous, as usual.

Here is the little bird bath and The Hub watering some flowers.  That's the neighbor's garage wall in the background.  Wellington was originally built in 1918 when it was common to build the garages along the lotline in the alley.  It's pretty quaint.

This little wall is looking lovely this year.  The window boxes hold most of my culinary herbs.  Two different mints, two different basils, oregano, thyme, yellow and red strawberries.  There are a couple of sages growing along the wall and of course, rosemary on the ground.  In the picture above this one you can see the bay tree that I bought in about 1995.  It's to the right of the bird bath.  It was stunted because it was in a pot for years and didn't get enough water.  But I love that it isn't huge and taking over everything.  It's much happier in the ground.

A very tranquil spot to relax.  There is a fig tree in the pot to the right of these chairs and an avocado tree in the pot to the left.  Just little dashes of shade.

The cactus in the pot on the ground is blooming yellow-orange.  I'm sure I have pictures of him in previous posts when he was on my kitchen window sill.  He's so adorable in the evening when he closes up his little flowers.

I am in love with this Japanese Snowberry.  Little dainty dangly white flowers, then he gets cute hard seed pods that hang from the branches.

Wellington is full of delights.

Good Morning, Wellington!

On a scale of 1 - 10, how happy am I?  The Dot asked me that this morning.  The answer is apparently 8.5.

This little baby geranium was just a little snippet I plucked from a pot in Carmel last May.  We went there for The Dot's birthday.  I spent a large percentage of the day plucking snippets.  Many have taken.  And this little guy in his little pot on Wellington's front porch is just adorable.

Speaking of Wellington, isn't he just looking splendid?  The answer is, of course, yes.  Maybe you shouldn't love a house this much, but Wellington is one in a million.  And I just can't help but be crazy about him.