The Holidays: Ramayani

Though sweaters and scarves seem distant memories on an 80 degree day in San Diego, it's time to begin the recapping of our holiday travels--and get back to more regular posts.

In December, Matt and I spent a few days up in the LA area before heading to the East Coast via a red-eye on Christmas. We stayed with Matt's folks and had good quality family time, including ingesting copious amounts of food. We also made it down to LA proper, where Matt got a massage, I met with my witchy-poo doctor, and we had dinner with our good friends.

Abe, Frank, Tyler, Shawn and Eric met us at Ramayani in Westwood for an Indonesian feast. The place was Frank's suggestion, and reminded Abe, Frank, Matt and me of our Indonesian dinner in Amsterdam way back in 2007. The dinner was chaotic with rapid repartees, inappropriate interruptions and concurrent conversations adding a schizophrenic soundtrack for the passing of the plates. At one point Tyler had to ask if he was going to be allowed to answer a question before someone else hijacked the conversation. We just looked at him in bewilderment and proceeded as usual. It was blissful. Tyler did, eventually, get his relaxation when a few of us went back to Abe and Frank's for after dinner drinks and Christmas cookies.

If these photos aren't enough, here are some more (and better) from Frank's album.


Frank, imbibing, and Abe, posing and pretty. Abe and Tyler conversing between spoonfuls of soup.


Love this photo, especially the family photos in the background and Abe's expression. Shawn quickly closing her mouth before the flash.


Eric and I sipping our vanilla lime sodas. Tyler ingesting and Matt receiving.


Some posed shots.


At Abe and Frank's festive condo, Abe spun tunes on the Victrola and Frank tempted us with his homemade treats.

The Making of a Holiday Card

My idea was to do something in the 1950s/60s style. I started with Julius Shulman's photo of Pierre Koenig's Case Study House #21.



Since our couch is a similar style and the same color as the cushions (and we have the cushions), I did a self-timed photo shoot in my 1950s cocktail dress with the cats. Since the cats weren't always the most cooperative (the whoosh of my skirt as I quickly sat down tended to scare Titchou), I had to do several takes.



A cat added here, a head added there and several deletions of parts of the original image later, I had our first test card that I ran through many Photoshop filters to get a designed vs. photo feel.



Next was making the card festive. I recently saw a black and white photo of the modern metal hanging Christmas tree that Matt's Dza Dza (Polish for grandfather) made decades ago. Matt's father scanned the image and sent it to me.


Since it was black and white, I went in search of color images of ornaments like the ones on the tree.

Then of course we needed presents to open.


The final touch was downloading a 1950s font. I was happily surprised to find a plethora of free fonts in this style. I went with Fontdinerdotcom Sparkly and was very pleased with the results.

After 10+ hours of Photoshopping, photo shoots and perusing images on the web, here's our holiday card.

Lesser Goldfinch

This Lesser Goldfinch hung out long enough on the bush in Matt's parents' front yard for us to be able to get the camera and take an embarrassing amount of photos. It would be nice if all of the birds Matt and I tried to identify were so accommodating--showing us all their sides so we could get a view of the nape, scapulars, median coverts, greater coverts, tertials, gonys, and eye rings. In case you are wondering, I copied those terms out of the guide book--I haven't memorized them yet, let alone used them to identify birds. I do have head, bill, leg and wing down! I'm hoping to volunteer counting birds this winter at Cabrillo National Monument in Point Loma, as they provide training in bird identification. I hope they are master trainers, else their counts might be wildly off this winter.

Not Exactly The Feel Good Experience I Was Expecting

Blurry shot of one of the Habitat condo buildings, and my fingers after a half day of work.

I've been trying to volunteer again for Habitat for Humanity since I helped out one day in August. While I did not have the funnest or cleanest task on that day, seven hours of caulking, I did enjoy the experience. Why did it take so long for a slot to open up? Well, I learned that it's much easier to schedule a group of people to volunteer--a corporation, a church, a community organization--than it is to fill a day with one volunteer here and one volunteer there. Finally, I was able to get a slot right before Thanksgiving, and I set my sights on getting power tool duty.

I drove the 30 miles to the beach community of Carlsbad to work on a two building, 11 condominium development, only to find out that the group that I was to be joining had canceled. The site manager had decided to only have construction run for a half-day as he thought no volunteers were showing up (the more experienced paid workers or permanent volunteers with construction experience were still there). I was assigned to help a fellow put part of the roof in place, but I must say it was precarious standing on the ladder. I would have either given up or hurt something if I hadn't been working out my arms over the last few months. I was definitely a bit uneasy.

I then got transitioned to help nail in some small pieces of wood with vent screens onto the roof. I was happy to be helping a retired Navy officer who was very encouraging to my newbie hammering efforts. I must say, my hammering was atrocious. My partner said that it was difficult to successfully hammer the large, heavy duty nails with the cheap hammers we were given--that's why he brought his own. Poor fellow had to do twice the work as more than half of my nails had to be pulled out due to bending--he was the one pulling them out!

I was actually glad that it was only a half-day, as my fingers and ego had suffered enough. I was strongly encouraged to return--and practice my hammering in the meantime.

Momma Bastian Visits

Mom in front of the old Point Loma Lighthouse and awaiting our harbor cruise.

My mom was out for a week, and I don't have any pictures of the two of us together! There are a few on her camera, but we weren't able to download them while she was here. At least I have photographic proof that she was in San Diego.

The rest of the photos are pretty similar to ones from previous postings, as I took her to Point Loma and the Tijuana Estuary Reserve. Although Mom usually likes to take a two or three day trip when she visits, we kept it local this time. Even though she wasn't feeling so well for the first few days, we were able to fit in quite a bit while keeping a leisurely pace.

Momma Bastian's Itinerary

*Tried some new restaurants--Ritual Tavern in North Park for gourmet pub food including gluten-free beer and gluten-free shepherds pie (which unfortunately did not get along with my digestive system) and Casa Quadalajara in Old Town for surprisingly good tourist-focused Mexican food. Luckily Matt survived the Camarones Diablo.

*Took the ferry to Coronado to purchase some pricey produce at a weekly farmers market.

*Explored some shopping areas in North Park and South Park

*Spent an afternoon at the San Diego Zoo

*Attended a presentation of A Midsummer Night's Dream at the Old Globe Theatre in Balboa Park.

*Cruised the southern portion of San Diego Bay on a tourist boat where we learned the scale of the Navy's presence in SD and the shipbuilding industry. Now Matt and I know where all the black grime on our window ledges comes from (well living two miles from the airport probably doesn't help either).

*Scoped out the Oracle BMW America's Cup Trimaran.

*Got manicures and pedicures--what mother/daughter trip would be complete without a little pampering!


Great Egrets, Crested Caracara (unusual/rare sighting) and a perching Black Phoebe at Tijuana Estuary.


The threatened Western Snowy Plover and the ever present (on this day) Navy bird at Tijuana Estuary.


Oracle BMW trimaran at dock and about to pass a Navy ship on its return to the SD Bay.


There was lots of Navy flight activity during the week Mom was here including cargo planes and jets.


Snowy Egret in the Cabrillo/ Point Loma tidepools-which were at low, low tide as it was a full moon the night before.


Black Turnstone at P.L. tidepools, and a Heermann's Gull accompanying me on the harbor cruise.


Ship building and Navy boat yards in SD Bay, and a sunset shot of the Coronado Bridge.

Not Using Those Unsolicited Holiday Cards?

In the mail I recently received some animal holiday cards from a charity that would like to make me a donor. (I'm guessing that the San Diego Humane Society gave them my name.) I didn't want to use them, but I also didn't want to throw them away. I called up a local community center for the elderly, and they said they would be happy to take them and make them available to their clients. Now if I could only find a use for all those unsolicited return address labels that charities love to send out.

Election Night

Election night was a cathartic experience. I actually started crying in my car when I heard that Ohio went for Obama. It started sinking in at that moment that this--Obama being the next POTUS--was really going to happen. When "President-elect Obama" came up on the restaurant TV screen during dinner, the tears came back. The sense of relief and hope I experienced was almost tangible--as though I could feel it moving throughout my body, as though I radiated it.

On a less weepy note, I was lucky to spend the night up in Los Angeles with friends. Abe, Nico, Eric and I had dinner at a new restaurant, Desert Rose, in Los Feliz. The dining experience was a bit odd--amazing service in the beginning, followed by no service at all. Also, Abe was brought the wrong meal, and the correct one wasn't brought out until the rest of us were finished. They didn't even offer him anything to eat for the 20 minutes he sat there watching us chow down. There hummus was amazing though.


Abe, Nico, Eric and me with our lovely Nico-made glass paperweights; and people celebrating along Sunset Blvd.

After the meal, Abe and I went to see Diplo spin at the Echoplex in Echo Park. Along the way we passed cheering people gathered on street corners holding up Obama signs. We honked our horn in support. Our friend Shawn was supposed to join us for Diplo, but she bailed on us, as Diplo wasn't going on until 11:30pm. Even with tickets, we had to wait in line a bit. We didn't mind much, as everyone was so energized by the election results (people in line were even talking about California's different ballot initiatives) and Obama attended the show. Well, it was actually a life-sized Obama cutout, but it still made dancing more fun to look up and see the new POTUS's smiling face.

11-4-2008 Diplo @ Echoplex-1
Originally uploaded by -RYAN

I had no luck capturing the magic of Obama, Pizza and Diplo on my camera, so Flickr helped me out.