Maple's Place: Merry Christmas and Welcome to the Whirlwind

Let me begin by wishing everyone a Merry Christmas. And if you don't celebrate Christmas, I hope you are having a wonderful time doing whatever you are doing.
<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<
No, I did not get a picture of a hummingbird. But Lorne did.

Lorne calls the bird Herbie. I do think Herbie is a girl due to her lack of colors. But I'm sure she doesn't mind the moniker.

(((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((

Speaking of wild life, Mom and I have been battling Attila the Cricket tonight. Since I was barefoot, I needed something to squash him. I dropped the three ring binder that contains Mom's 8,053 computer passwords on him. Three times. Each time he gleefully leapt free. Finally resorting to Raid, I squirted him and Mom said, 'That's all you need.' I went back to the comfy chair and settled in to watch more Doc Martin. Scuttle, scuttle, scuttle and out comes Attilla from the closet. He ran around yelling, "neener, neener, neener" at me and sat glaring at me next to the TV. Mom comes back into the room.

Me:      'That's all you need,' she said.
Mom:   Well, he's dead.
Me:      He's not! He's not dead. He's sleeping.
Mom:   He's not hopping.
   Cricket: Hop, hop, hop.

Mom squirted him again. I think he drown.

%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%
It all began on Thanksgiving -- we got together and celebrated Christmas. We did have a lovely meal at a Mexican restaurant at one point.

*****************************************************
Last night, we got back from Santa Cruz. We left at 9:30 a.m. and arrived back at 8 p.m. Yes, we made a couple of stops which included a leisurely hamburger al fresco. Of course, the line for the food was over 20 people long. Everyone and their brother were on the freeways. A couple of times we were going 20 m.p.h. in a posted 70 m.p.h. zone.

We had been to visit my Uncle Bob who is in an assisted living facility in Santa Cruz. The place is gorgeous, even nicer than Applewood (that's in Amherst). And the care givers seem really invested in their residents. We had a couple of lovely lunches with my uncle and his daughter, Susan.

On the way back, Mom had fun taking pictures with her phone. We both found the rolling hills to be gorgeous.

The hills are very dry and some patches were burned. We saw a large plume of smoke in the Santa Barbara area. That's why we didn't Route 101 (the scenic route): we didn't want to drive through a lot of smoke.

While we were on the stretch of freeway that they call The Grapevine, the sun began to set. Mom got a lovely bunch of photos. The sunset show began at 6,000 feet and was still going when we hit 2,000 feet. I did not retouch these photos at all, so the colors really were that vivid.