Stan’s Obligatory Blog

Being a transplant from Back East, it took me several years to get used to the idea that citrus fruit just grows on trees in peoples’ back yards here. I’ve accepted this. But this evening, I needed a lemon from our neighbor’s tree, and I saw these weird-looking mutant lemons growing on it. You won’t find these for sale in the produce section:
 

After pestering Gene for several weeks, he agreed to do the La Tuna Canyon ride again. So today was the day. We had a big group going out. 13 at the start. We had a lot of stops to regroup when people missed turns or took wrong turns. Still, the climb was fun, and it was a good day for it. The snack stop was a Paradise Bakery in Glendale, where I had two chocolate eclairs and a quart of water. When we got back to the park, I had 46.5 miles, so my neighbor James and I rode just a little bit more to push the total over 50 for the day.

I found another praying mantis in the back yard, so I caught it so that Lucinda can watch it. We caught some spiders out in the garage and fed it. It’s pretty interesting to watch. We also went out in the garden and found the egg case that was laid by the mantis we caught last year. The eggs had all hatched, so maybe this mantis is one of the descendents of last year’s.

Today’s ride was a pleasant flat one. We went south through Arcadia and Temple City to near Whittier Narrows. Then back north through San Gabriel. The snack stop was at Il Fornaio in Old Town. After that, we came home by way of Arroyo and Altadena Drive. 40 miles.

The Wartime President Song:

http://www.jenpet.com/warprez.html

Lucinda came home today with her first ‘homework packet’. Now maybe I’m just getting old, but I remember only getting homework one time in kindergarten. I suppose that’s just how things are done now, but still seems a bit odd to me.

Also, today Lucinda experienced another ‘rite of passage’. She missed the school bus for the first time.

Went riding with Foothill again today. This time, I did a short warmup ride beforehand, so I got in 10 miles before the real ride started. Then we did a ride out through Irwindale and down the San Gabriel River bike path. The way back went through El Monte, Arcadia, and San Marino. The snack stop was at the Coffee Bean on South Lake Avenue. When we got back to the park, I had 48 miles. So I rode just a little bit more before going home, just to get to 50. This is the first time in years that I’ve seen this:

Today was Lucinda’s first day of school. Don Benito has buses for the kids, so she decided she wanted to ride the bus. So we walked down to the corner with her and waited with her until the bus came. Then she got on and she was gone.

I installed Gallery for some of our photo albums. It’s pretty nice, except that there was no link from the top level gallery to get out. So I hacked the ‘gallery.header.default’ file in ‘html_wrap’ to add a ‘home’ link.

Lucinda’s first day of school is Thursday. This evening we went to her Back-to-School picnic at Don Benito to see her classroom and meet her teachers. We got her a school shirt and met some of the other incoming kindergartners. There are pictures in her photo album.