Starbucks in the 'hood

Mr. E and I are thrilled that a Starbucks has recently opened in our neighborhood, at 12th & R, just 2+ blocks from home! The new location looks beautiful, all light and airy and industrial with a sort of mid-century modern feel to the furniture.

I know some folks aren't fans of Starbucks, but Mr. E and I are definitely loyalists (not to mention stockholders), so we're quite pleased with this newest addition to the ongoing development of the R Street Corridor.

Mahalo Moment: Patio Flowers

Two of our patio plants sprouted small blossoms recently, including the Mosquito Plant (top photo), which neither of us remembered as having flowers in the past! It's a member of the geranium family and gives off a citronella scent, which in theory helps to ward off the mosquitoes.

I can't remember the name of the other plant (bottom photo), but it was looking VERY scraggly and unhealthy, so seeing the blooms emerge was definitely a lovely surprise!

Weird Weather

The beginning of 2018 has brought some very unusual weather to Sacramento, starting with a heavy hailstorm in February that created a faux snow-scape in downtown Sac. These pictures are the view from my office of the street and sidewalk after the hail had finished falling:

We then had super-strong winds for multiple days in a row in March and April, followed by another mixed-up stormy day a week ago that included rain, hail, and thunder & lightening. This particular round of hail caused damage to the table cover on our patio!

Very weird weather...

Mahalo Moment: Corgis!

Short little legs, close

to the ground,  like Miss Muffin,

but in canine form.

When I run around Downtown and Midtown Sac, I often don't have a specific route but instead take a course that aligns with the traffic lights or avoids too much pedestrian traffic. My morning run today took me towards McKinley Park, and at one particular decision-point, I noticed a woman with two dogs farther up the block. I initially thought I should turn to avoid needing to squeeze by on the narrow sidewalk, but then I realized that the furry critters were corgis. My favorite! So instead, I continued along my way and was able to greet the adorable canines as they accompanied their human on a morning walkabout.

Corgis were one of the first dog breeds that I could recognize and call by name. When I was younger, I attended St. Margaret's overnight camp in Duxbury a few summers in a row. One of the neighbors had corgis that they raised as show dogs, and they invited the campers over for a demonstration. I immediately fell in love with the plump, low-to-the-ground, sweet-faced little canines.

Later, when I met my wonderful Muffin cat in Portland, I realized that corgis are the canine version of Muffin, particularly when she was in her "Rubenesque" stage of curviness. Mr. E may love his German Shepherds with their Frito-smelling paws, but I'll stick with the corgis!

Mahalo Moments: Westin "Amenity" & Special Swim

I'm attending a CalSAE Leadership Retreat at the Westin Mission Hills in Rancho Mirage, and the entire staff here has been absolutely amazing, from the Front Desk to Events to Catering. This evening, I received a lovely "amenity" of fruit, macarons, and mini champagne:

In addition, I made a comment during the fabulous reception this evening about how it can be disappointing for someone like me who swims for a workout when resort pools don't open early in the morning. Laura, the Senior Events Manager, then took the initiative to go chat with the security folks to arrange for one of them to meet me tomorrow morning at 6:15am at the pool closest to my room so that I could indeed do a swim workout. Wow. Totally going above and beyond. Amazing. I'm so appreciative!

Definitely mahalo moments worthy of recognition...

Mahalo Moment: Jackrabbit Sighting

West Sac Riverfront:

My morning run. Lots of geese.

And five jackrabbits!

 

(They look like this. Such big ears!)

Mahalo Moment: Colour-Changing Lucky Cat Aloha Mug

I stumbled across this when browsing in Lahaina during our recent Maui trip:

Notice how the colour of the mug changes from the first photo to the last? Yep, that's right, the mug transforms according to the temperature of the contents. So when it's full of hot coffee, the pink floral background is displayed. But when it's empty or the coffee is cold (boo), then the background returns to all black. So fabulous!

Mahalo Moment: Cyclamen

When we moved to Sac in 2004, we went to San Francisco around the holidays and were both struck by the vibrant and vivacious cyclamen in many of the planters along Market Street. Both Mr. E and I come from colder climates, so seeing flowers in full bloom in the midst of winter was quite a novel experience!

Since then, cyclamen have become one of my favorite flowers, and we have our own planter of them out on the patio (top photo). We discovered that they can be perennial plants if you let them re-seed after the blooms are done. I also recently discovered that they can apparently re-seed if you throw the seed pods over your patio fence!!!

Mahalo moment = wandering white cyclamen growing against the outside wall beyond our patio gate (bottom photo)

Mahalo Moments

As mentioned in my Maui blog posts, Mr. E bought me a beautiful new honu pendant necklace for my birthday. Each of the honu pendants is a unique hand-blown glass creation by the artist, Amy Wakingwolf, and each is named for a honu that she has met while swimming with them in the ocean. My chosen honu is Mahalo, which represents gratitude. The pendant comes with a color photo of the honu that inspired the artist as well as a description of the meaning behind the name:

Mahalo: Gratitude

Aquas & Emeralds

When you are grateful for everything you can illuminate your world, you shine light into all darkness. Mahalo reminds you, to remind yourself, how lucky you are.

When I read this, I realized how perfectly I had chosen my honu, as I'm always saying to Mr. E that we are so lucky and have so much to appreciate and cherish and be grateful for! And this has inspired me to be more actively aware of the various "mahalo moments" in my life, to be more present and observant.

I'm going to start using my blog to capture and share some of these mahalo moments. Perhaps not daily, but definitely on a regular basis.

So to kick things off, here is a mahalo moment from this morning... Catching the scent of jasmine wafting in the air near the Capitol as I rode my bike to work.

What's your mahalo moment? Share in the Comments!

Maui (Day 6 -- End of Trip!)

Tuesday, March 20: Power Outage, Ocean Center, Frank Lloyd Wright (!), Iao Needle, Whole Foods, OGG > SFO > SMF
I began our final day with a shorter run south along the Beach Walk, passing lots of other resort properties along the way. I finished with some side lanai Zumba, yoga in the room, and a quick dip in the pool.

Mr. E's day began with a sudden loss of electricity while he was in the bathroom!!! We learned later that the problem was wide-spread throughout West Maui, including up to the shopping areas in Lahaina where we found our breakfast destination Starbucks closed. Uh oh... Luckily, by the time I browsed the nearby Walgreens for books, the power had been restored so we grabbed food and coffee at Starbucks and then headed a bit farther down the road for "second coffee" at Maui Grown Coffee Company Store. Unfortunately, the power was still out at this site. But as we were debating what to do, the lights came back on -- yay! We shared a sticky bun on the wraparound lanai as we waited for the coffee to brew so we could sample some of the different roasts.

We then returned to the hotel, and Mr. E went for a run while I started packing and took care of some tasks on the computer. We departed around 12:30pm and made a quick stop at the scenic overlook along the highway, which provided a great panorama over the ocean, including Molokini Crater and several islands.

We continued on to the Maui Ocean Center in Maalea, where we both had a fresh mahi mahi and veggie stir fry at Beach Bums restaurant overlooking the same harbor where we'd boarded our Trilogy boat yesterday. After lunch, we toured the Ocean Center for nearly two hours, admiring the various sealife, including several young honu. We also encountered another location of The Honu Collection kiosk and were able to greet the same woman who'd helped us with the necklace purchase a few days earlier. We finished up with some final souvenir shopping at the gift shop and then were ready to begin our journey northward across the isthmus back to the airport in Kahului.

Thanks to the Lonely Planet guide, we made a stop at the King Kamehameha Golf Club to tour the Frank Lloyd Wright (!) designed clubhouse as well as the Hawai'ian art collection housed within the building. The structure is quite impressive and looks almost like a salmon-ish colored space ship in the moddle of the hillside. So incongruous!

The final sightseeing on our agenda was the Iao Needle. Several of the pathways were closed off due to lingering damage from flooding in 2016, but we still got to see the needle and walk around the taro garden area.

We followed a scenic route along the coast to the mall in Kahului, where I scored with a $2 paperback at the Friends of the Library store. Then we went just down the street to Whole Foods for dinner before heading to the airport around 7pm. Since we were quite early for our 9:50pm red-eye flight, we found a spot for cocktails and a few rounds of Rummy 500 before boarding and settling into our comfy First Class seats. Yay for the regional upgrade thanks to Mr. E's status on United!

Oh -- and we solved the mystery of the OGG airport code! As we walked towards our gate, we noticed a display along one wall about a man named Captain Hogg, who was instrumental in the development of commercial aviation on Maui, so the airport abbreviation was derived from his last name.

And we'll be back to the islands in January 2019... Maybe we'll be able to do a helicopter tour from the Big Island across to Maui to visit Haleakala???