on those less than silent nights

[ursamajor]

Sitting in the most beautiful Apple Store (really! I'm staring at all sorts of historical facade detail work right now) with some downtime; popping in to say hello. :)

Since my last update:

- Celebrated another trip around the sun; made myself this chocolate-green curry cake off my bucket list bakes. First four-layer cake made by me! (I now understand why a turntable needs to make its way into my kitchen paraphernalia.) Everything played well together for the most part, though the frosting was just a bit too sweet for me, even with the green curry paste in it. The cake looked balanced from an aesthetic perspective, but I probably could have done with 25% less frosting from a cake-frosting-ganache ingredient distribution perspective, and maybe more chocolatiness?

- Finished up choir for the year. The concert was a rousing success, the crowd on its feet dancing and singing along for all the Whitney Houston songs, which is always the goal. We made it through the Magnificat and the new Break Bread arrangement, and the Hallelujah Chorus is muscle memory at this point.

We've also got the minor complication of not knowing who our director is going to be for the rest of the season, so that will certainly make things continue to be interesting, heh.

- We decided to put off the built-ins for another year, and took 48 hours to acquire and build a bunch of Billys. So now the cookbook library has a proper home, and I can update my library database and figure out exactly what holes I have in it. And think about a cozy chair for the library, and fantasize about acquiring this polar bear rug to go underfoot, and frame art, and and and ...

- We took the long road down to LA for the holidays this year at a meandering pace. Spent two nights in Paso Robles, which meant we actually had an entire day to walk around town and explore. Ate a fantastic nduja pizza at La Biga and mango and chocolate gelatos at Leo Leo (so of course we had to text him with that picture) in the Market Walk a bit outside downtown; brunched on BBQ the next morning at Jeffry's after stumbling across it in a random alley.

When in wine country, do a tasting, so we meandered into Serial, which we'd been admiring for the decor for several years now. Tried a decent assortment of reds, but went home with an intriguing syrah that honestly behaved more like whiskey to my nose. Or cheese. Seriously, it smelled earthy, like mushrooms, and paired amazingly with dark chocolate. An afternoon wandering through the antiques stores, finding things like old Magic: The Gathering cards, wooden birdcages, and geodes. Dinner at the Alchemist's Garden: cheesy fondue fries and marrow on toast and burrata with pomegranate and squash and candied green papaya, and then frozen delights as a nightcap for the second night in a row - chocolate sheep milk ice cream at Negranti Creamery.

And it wouldn't be me if I didn't find the only bookstore in town. Cute, cozy, a good assortment of used and new books, and I fell in love when I saw how much effort they put into their "blind date with a book" packaging. Oh, my gosh. I'll upload pics as soon as I get my phone back.

Interlude: the reason I'm at the Apple Store right now is because my phone reinstall went rogue. Le sigh. At least things are progressing well, but on a four-year-old phone with some newly-discovered physical damage, I know it's probably new phone time sooner rather than later.

- The next morning, fueled by local donuts (chocolate old fashioned for me, maple bar for hyounpark), we took a beautiful foggy drive over the Santa Lucia mountains to the coast for a tour of Hearst Castle's libraries (and beautiful pools that nobody can swim in). The right kind of foggy drive, with the fog clinging to the mountains around us, but not the road we were driving on :) Of course I took plenty of pictures of their library built-ins, inspiration for a much smaller scale version at home down the road. The tours are quite regimented - no wandering off on your own or staying behind to spend extra time somewhere long enough to, say, browse the library, alas.

Mediocre and overpriced fried fish lunch on our way down the coast, a long walk along the beach near Morro Bay to get ourselves out of the food coma aftewards, but the cinnamon rolls at Old West more than made up for it. H was still sugared out from the AM donuts, but I got a cinnamon roll with cream cheese frosting and cherries, and it looked like an ice cream sundae.

Then we pulled up to our hotel in Santa Barbara, and for a last minute search deal? Oh wow. Two blocks from the ocean, room with a balcony overlooking the pool and hot tub, vintage in the best way. When we got back from dinner, I relaxed in said hot tub, cool ocean air wafting over me; then after a quick shower, I came back downstairs and curled up on the well-loved leather couch in front of the fire and read.

For dinner, we walked around the neighborhood (apparently the Funk Zone? I half expected to stumble across an old-school arcade based on that name!) and ended up at Loquita for tapas. I'm not much of an olives person, but when you call one of your bocaditos "El Bulli" as in the famous restaurant I'll never be able to go to, and it's a "spherified castelvetrano olive"? You bet I'm going to try it. A burst of almost buttery olive oil, but still briny enough to be the bridge in my mind between the olive oil I like and the olives I'm picky about. The rest of the tapas - croquetas, lamb chops, piquillos stuffed with goat cheese - were yummy, too.

- And then we knew the storm was coming, so we finished our drive down to LA the next day. Of course there was traffic two days before Christmas, but at least we were coming down the coast and from barely 100 miles away. Leonard and Sara took the valley road, which is faster, but they were driving the whole distance from the Bay in one day, and had to go over the Grapevine, and there were literal tumbleweeds causing crashes. But everyone made it safely; Jane and Uhmuhni's flights came in without too much delay, and we celebrated with curry plates at CoCo Ichibanya.

Still feeling like I want to send out New Year's cards, re-establish contact with those I've lost touch with. Still need to see whether my reach exceeds my grasp here. Still have LA and San Diego to write up. Still aspiring to be in better touch with people, as always, and trying to navigate how to best do that in 2026 with the shifting sands of everything. Miss you all, and here's to getting to hug you in the new year.