Susan’s and Ben's church is sponsoring a family from The Democratic Republic of The Congo. Susan is providing some reading material for them!

 
 
 

And wait! Here's Mimi!

left to right: the Scamp, the Cricket, Tom

Me: Tom and I are leaving, but you can go in the house if you need to.

Cricket to the Scamp: Yay! Let's party!

Me: Are you going to go through the refrigerator?

Cricket: Yes. And we're going to eat all your chocolate, too.

The Scamp taunts Cricket with a candy bar I gave her earlier: I already have some chocolate.

The Scamp to me: But we know you have more inside.

 

 

 

Ocean Beach   6:35 pm

Ocean Beach   6:11 pm

Finished.

Happy 25th Anniversary, Barbara & Larry! I am a very slow painter.

 

Ocean Beach   5:34 pm

"Rosie is a spotted sausagey hound"

...that's how the Bulletin of the Center of Children's Books describes her. And she's the star of We Love You, Rosie! which is being released today. Cynthia Rylant wrote the book and I drew the pictures.

(Rosie is a spotted sausagey hound who belongs to a young brother and sister, and who’s the subject of six very short picture-book stories involving concepts and opposites....)

The Coastal Trail   5:29 pm

The wheels of publishing grind so slowly that I dug my scissors and glue stick out of the bottom drawer and made my own book. Actually, it really helps in planning a book to be able to turn pages, rather than simply looking at a book layout or scrolling through pages on screen.

Winter Sun

Ocean Beach   5:38 pm

Sticks

Ocean Beach   5:23 pm

Yeah well so what. We were having an argument in the car on Valentine’s Day.

We had decided beforehand that more than anything else, we wanted to walk on the beach on Valentine’s evening. And that after our walk, we’d pick up some of those fat sandwiches from Ocean Beach Deli. We planned to take them home and open a bottle of prosecco, and have coffee and chocolate for dessert.

I had suggested watching Manhattan. We had just seen La La Land and hated it, and I wanted to watch the same kind of movie – a romantic one – only one that was really good.

But after walking we were both tired and said things to each other that didn’t sound loving. “Happy Valentine’s Day,” I said finally, meaning “I’m giving up on this Valentine’s Day, for sure."

There were no places to park on the street but when we turned up Balboa there was a tiny space right on the corner. We went back and forth about whether the car would block the crosswalk or not. I said I’d stay in the car in case it did. But then I changed my mind because I wanted to go in and take a fresh look at the menu.

When we walked in the deli, there were these six guys squashed into the corner by the window. They were playing Blue Monk. Then they played Nature Boy. Then they played Last Time I Saw Janine. We experienced a spiritual whiplash. Tom changed the status of our to-go order and we sat down with our fat sandwiches and a couple of glasses of Champagne and had a Happy Valentine’s Day.

Sky

Ocean Beach   5:09 pm

Ocean Beach   5:13 pm