Happy Eighty-four!

 Last week was a blur of happy memories as I celebrated  not one but three happy birthday parties. At left, from friend Carol's deck. a shared birthday desert party. At right, lunch at Sea Thai Bistro with my sorority sister roommates, Shirley and Dolores, from the University of Washington sixty-six years ago. What stories we can still tell!
We took a vote and decided Shirley looked the youngest. I am the oldest by a few months. Perhaps that's because Shirley has been raising her grandson since he was knee high and he now is starting college. What energy!
Dolores just lost her younger sister of pancreatic cancer. One of the things old friends do is help one another in times of grief, so we worked together on writing her sister Dorothy's obituary. obituary.

Here in the Valley of the Moon they are beginning to harvest the lavender. Tuesday I went with my photo group to the Matanzas winery near here where they were just starting to harvest it .After it is cut it is hung in the old barn, shown above, to dry.
The owners have made the vineyard a magical place but I'm not sure those tools adding to the ambience are as old as we are.