Poppies...

California's answer to Britain's bluebell woods. The appear, unbidden, every year and, rather than blooming in woods, they bloom along verges in vineyards and on open hillsides. Their sunny color has been particularly welcome this dismally grey spring. There is actually a bit of red  in the lower right hand corner of this shot which is, in fact, a little bit of my red car from which I took this photo, because I couldn't get out on the narrow lane.

Today, we are seeing the sun for the first time in a couple of weeks. It punched its way through the clouds at about 11am and is still with us as I write. The temperature has also finally climbed out of the 60F/15C  range and reached the heady heights of 70C/21C. I even took off my sweater...briefly.

I carefully worked my way through Pilates today. The cortisone shot finally kicked in after about a week and helped a lot, although careful alignment and core strength are still needed to prevent referred muscle and nerve pain. Although a few things hurt, I did them anyway, and felt a lot better as I walked out of the studio afterward. There is no telling whether that will come back to haunt me later.

I had to abandon my little sewing project yesterday when the power inexplicably went out in our bedroom and the office/sewing room yesterday afternoon. We really couldn't blame PG&E or the solar system so it seemed to me that it could only be a circuit breaker. John and I peered into the breaker box (which John still calls a 'fuse box). Somebody had labeled each circuit in writing that was either illegible or an incomprehensible acronym. We even tried turning a few of them off and on again (the usual fix for computer based problems) but nothing happened.

David, who we haven't seen in many months, came to the rescue, went down in the garage to a whole different breaker box I didn't even know existed, flipped a switch and all was restored. We no longer even feel any shame about such lapses, although John was muttering something under his breath about forgetting. We gave David a beer and had a pleasant catch up with him and I was able to return to my little project today. 

The only other thing I have done all day....