Taft Gardens in Ojai = Heaven on Earth

A month ago we got a good rain storm.  This is the aftermath...

We're in Taft Gardens in Ojai.  A garden of Eden to be sure...

The older gentleman is John Taft.  He took us on a tour of his land that he bought in the 1970's and made it a conservancy so that no one can build on the land.  There are a couple of buildings that they have weddings at but it was mostly nature.  Beautiful nature.

We're in this gorgeous nature and Vince finds a rusty old truck to photograph:

Here's Vince's photo of what he's taking a picture of in the above photos:

The Buddha in the garden had such a peaceful feeling...

I'm the photographers photographer:

 All of the above photos I took on my phone.  Here's some of Vince's photos that he took with his camera.  (show off! :)

Recording in the age of covid

 The show must go on!  Even though I had to stay home with my germy covid I still recorded two demos today!  First one was with Dustin Nguyen.  I swear we just recorded the next Tic Toc sensation with his "It's Asian Men" sung to "It's Raining Men."  So funny!  

Dustin went to the studio, Kevin recorded him and I directed over Zoom.

Next up was Bayley Brunnmeier who has the cutest raspy voice, just love her:

Trapped by a furry beast

This is how we started our morning.  Topaz likes to be boxed in so he's leaning against me and has his feet on Vince.  We sat there for at least a 1/2 hour making this connection.  What a sweet boy he is.

Shades of Grey

 I love how our outfits all match.  It looks like we're in a band.  Ha!

I guess the party isn't over after all...

Had a lovely lunch at Perch today.  Still celebrating my birthday.  Love it!

The Party's Over - 2022 is here!

 I always feel a bit sad when we De-Christmas our house.  Another year has gone by, another Christmas and birthday has been had. 

Moving on!

A great birthday!

 Had a fantastic birthday.  Talked to friends and family in the morning and then headed out to Westlake for lunch at Lure.  After our pig out we drove over to Malibu Canyon State Park to enjoy nature, including lots and lots of water!  We bumped in to an old work friend that I hadn't seen in 25 years.  What a trip to see someone you know in the middle of nowhere.  And he lives about 75 miles away.  Meant to be :)

Water everywhere!  What a treat to see the streams full.  Thanks to the rain we had last week everything is turning green.  So pretty.

As we were walking down the path Vince says, "Is that David Eccles?"  And sure enough it was.  Haven't seen him in over 20 years but I recognized his walking gait right away.  We used to work at Klasky Csupo together and he was the voice of Krumm on "Ah Real Monsters."  So fun to catch up with an old friend.

This makes me so happy!

 One of my Christmas presents from Vince was he bought me a new record player and said he'd clean out my music/art room and make space for everything.  Well when I tell you that was the best present!  It took two full days of taking everything out of the closet, wiping it down and putting it back.  We thought we'd throw away a lot of stuff but it turns out that we have a lot of collectors items stuffed in to that closet and we couldn't bear to get rid of too much of it.

Here is the best part - my old record player works and it was like hearing heaven for the first time in years.  No more tiny desk-top speakers but the real ones that sound amazing.  When Vince put on an album I almost cried at how wonderful the sound was.    If you're listening to music on small speakers I'd love to recommend that you listen on your good speakers.  You can hear every note, every nuance, every part of the songs that go missing when you listen on small speakers. 

I now have a record player, cd and cassette player.  And everything is organized!

Our original intention was to get rid of everything but instead we're keeping it all.  I have so much insanely good music and now that everything is working I'll never go back to small speakers.

Collectors Items that were stuffed in the closet.  Still in the bag Squirrel Boy toys.

We couldn't bear to throw away these production video tapes even though I'm sure we'll never watch them.  

And if I threw away my cassettes I might never hear these albums again.   Keepers!