Holidays in the Bay Area are not what I have been accustomed to in New Mexico. Early December shows off tall palms waving in the sea breezes, while the streets of Mountain View are a riot of color with trees glowing warm in their fall hues. There may be snow in some mountains, but down here one is sheltered.
Lots going on this season, starting well before Thanksgiving when my daughter became engaged to Someone Very Special — our friend Paco Rendon. AKA Francisco James Rendon, who lives in Fresno at present.
Her loyal mother agreed not to mention the matter via social media till the couple had finished privately telling family and friends, then made their own announcement. So here we are!
Now I am longing for the mid-January wedding so this weekend commuting (nearly three hours each way) between Fresno and Silicon Valley by Jericha and Paco can be done with. Just a teensy little wedding in the works with, oh, not more than a hundred dear friends on hand to witness it.
I was hoping for not more than six people, including the couple and parents — but that was shot down as a miserable excuse of an idea. He grew up in the Bay Area, she’s lived here for years, and both are outgoing with lots of friends. Silly old mom.
Elf and Opus are fortunate that Jericha, who has lived in Silicon Valley for quite a few years, has friends willing to pick up dog walks when she is out of town. And they love their outings with Paco when he’s here. He’s 6’5” and gives those short little legs a great workout.
Here are Jericha and Paco in a not-too-long-ago photo, mugging it up at One Infinity Loop, Cupertino, California. We were visiting Apple’s old campus because of my desire to see it before the big move over to their new donut building on the other side of town. Which won’t be for many months — we also checked construction there. I, too, am off to Fresno shortly and may not get back to this area any time soon.
Our seasonal holidays have been a bit unusual so far this year. There was an early Thanksgiving dinner since Paco needed to be in upstate New York for the actual holiday.
And so, being my daughter of the familiar old habits (not obsessive, but definitely driven) Jericha spent the actual holiday (bracketed by days around it) dyeing her wedding dress in our teensy galley kitchen, till she achieved just the shade she was going for.
I’ll show only the beginning and finished colors (before the dress dried rather lighter than in the photo). This was a long, drawn out and messy process, and Jericha loved every moment, boiling water and all. The dogs… maybe not so enthusiastic since no food was being dropped.
She also set up a living room production line for creating big, colorful paper flowers. Yup, lots of dyeing and drying involved with these, as well.
But those holidays won’t be ignored. Our roomie, Shirley, is involved in theatre and other thespian events, and she gifted us with tickets to a long standing, popular San Francisco tradition, the Dickens Fair. That’s a recreation (of sorts) of the kind of Christmas that inspired Charles Dickens to write his best loved book, A Christmas Carol. Scores of actors in period costume put on shows, sing, run a Punch and Judy booth along with various other shows. Some promenade about the enormous Cow Palace while speaking in tongues … Er, in Dickens style English. With English, Irish and Scottish accents.
Mr. Dickens even makes an appearance from time to time, and met up with my iPhone camera.
Jericha was so enchanted by a jewelry concession that we spent about three fourths of our time there in choosing a wedding ring. They are ordering Paco’s ring separately from a design that he picked out.
There is news — for a different blog — about my new wheelchair van, but since it had not arrived in time for the Dickens Fair Jericha was pushing me around in my manual wheelchair. As we journeyed through the immense, darkened, old London-like Cow Palace I propped my iPhone on my lap, popping off photos of people in costumes going about their business as they would have when Mr. Dickens wrote his Christmas Carol.
The last photo of the day was of Mr. Dickens himself, who graciously posed in front of me even though he did not realize I was taking photos — at least, I don’t believe that he did.
So here are a few favorites from the ones that turned out well enough to survive the mass deletion process. Click on them to enlarge.
Fall colors in December, sailboats bobbing on San Francisco Bay off Shoreline Park, moving boxes everywhere in our condo, a daughter venturing into a new married life, Elf, Opus and me into our separate headquarters nearby — and a whole new-to-me part of California to explore, now I have a wheelchair van. Man, am I dizzy!
Paco is a journalist in the music industry. He probably wouldn’t pick this song for right here any more than Jericha would. But whose blog is this, anyway? I like Ho Hey by the Lumineers and it is about being in love. 😉 This video features seasonal type lights and was filmed in a darkened building reminiscent of the Cow Palace at Dickens Fair time, so there you go.
Rising Over the Smoke 
I love that song, too! 🙂 I think I was breathless from reading everything you packed into this post! Fantastic all the way around!
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