Mr Blake and a birthday party

It is Thursday morning at 11:13am. We slept in late this morning with my getting up and going for a Thursday morning beach bike ride - and it was nice! 

 Yesterday's History of Comedy class (11 of us in class, 50+ on Zoom) covered vaudeville and burlesque in the development of American laughter. After, I dropped off a pound bar of Belgian dark chocolate at Chase Bank, ordered a cake at Whole Food for the birthday party we were going to, had my weekly bowl of soup and rice from the Chinese-Thai take-away (with tables), got some ink drawing pens from Blick and then went next door to the Laemmle Royal art house four-screen movie theatre (with a museum-quality wall of Laemmle memorabilia!!!!) for a French comedy starring John Malkovich (as Mr. Blake) - who spoke his role entirely in French! Would I have normally gone out of my way to see this movie? Probably not but hey, with a $7 senior citizen's first showing of the day price combined with ease of getting to the movie by bus and a choice of low cost food alternatives prior to the film, how could one not take advantage of setting this up as a weekly routine??!!

Fred Chasen(our neighbor)'s mother Barbara and father Everett, based in northern Virginia, come to visit a few times a year.  They discovered a great private home (with ADU) to stay a mile away from us.....and yesterday was a birthday party for Barbara - and Marsha, the owner of that home.  They brought the food (great brisket tacos!) and we contributed some dessert cakes - especially a Whole Food vanilla sponge cake decorated for the 4th of July.  

They are doing another, follow-up party on 8 July to which we've been invited and to which we will happily attend.  

It is nice to partake in neighbor's activities.......it is nice to feel comfortable in this aspect of American culture.   Tomorrow, while being only the second 4th of July for Katherine in the U.S. but the first where we will partake in some of the day's festivities.............it is nice.........

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