Where did the grass come from for Super LX and other questions.

Q: Where did the grass in Levi's Stadium, site of Super Bowl LX, come from?

A: West Coast Turf in Livingston, CA. 

Q: Where the hell is that?

A: About 10 miles southeast of Turlock. (Does that help?)

Q: When was the grass for Super Bowl LX planted?

A: 18 months ago.

Q: How many square feet of sod was sent to Levi's Stadium from Livingston?

A: 80,000 square feet in 570 rolls with each roll weighing about a ton.

Q: How did it get there?

A: 32 trucks.

Q: How far did it travel?

A: 100 miles.

Q: How long does it take from harvest to delivery, unrolled onto the field?

A: Less than 24 hours.

Q: Where did West Coast Turf originate before expanding to Livingston?

A: Indio, CA.

Q: Who are some of West Coast Turf's other clients?

A: The list is extensive but it's very likely you're familiar with West Coast Turf even though you didn't know it.

Q: How can you read more about grass?

A: I thought you'd never ask!

• SFGate: NFL tears up entire 49ers field ahead of of Super Bowl
• Los Angeles Times: Rain-soaked field gets turf trucked in from Southern California to repair it in time for NFC championship game between Cowboys and 49ers
• West Coast Turf

While Supplies Last

My local Costco still has Assorted Ghirardelli Chocolate Squares for sale which is significant because they are not available all year long. This assortment usually comes out during the Christmas shopping season and consists of Milk Chocolate squares, Milk Chocolate Caramel squares, Dark Chocolate Sea Salt Caramel squares, and Dark Chocolate Mint squares.

The bag says the serving size is two squares. Yippee! And, there are about 24 servings in each container. I wonder why "about." Are there sometimes 23? Or 25? I guess it depends on how many one eats at a time. I only eat one so I guest that means there are about 48 chocolate squares per bag.

There are about 73 days left until April 15, not counting weekends. So I could be working anywhere between 73 and about 85 days in the coming weeks (if you include the weekends).

Meaning, there is no way one bag of chocolate will get me across the finish line.

I better get two.

And, soon. They're on sale for about twenty bucks ($19.99 while supplies last).

Back to Work

For real. I'm going back to work starting next week doing what I did before. Taxes. (Different company.)

I literally applied for this gig voluntarily which is insane. Why would anybody do that?

Why would I do that? I guess, at the heart of it is boredom. I've be out of the work force for three years and I've enjoyed it. Treasured it, actually. While I thought I would write more (I clearly haven't), I did read more and walked more (having completed several half marathons). I picked up knitting and baking and I spent a lot of quality time with my grandkids whom I absolutely adore.

On the other hand, summers can be long and boring here in the southern California desert. When it's 90 degrees outside at 6 am, you just can't go outside for much of anything. That's when I order my groceries online because leaving a car in the sun for even a few minutes drives up the car's interior temperature well above 100. Door handles are too hot to touch. Seatbelt buckles are a hazard. There's not much to do unless you can do it inside where it's air conditioned.

It's not bad for short periods but for months on end, it can get a little tedious. A summer job or a part time job would be great solutions where I'd have something to do and could earn a little money.

But tax preparers are in demand in the Spring. So, what started as a search for something to do turned into a full time job (albeit a seasonal one). Go figure. The job will end just about the time I'll want to find something to do indoors.

I think I'll enjoy the work if I can manage the stress. Knowing there's an end date helps. (The gig is only 10 weeks long.) I've already reached my half marathon goal for 2026 so I can scale that back until next winter. The job is paid hourly and I will be working from home. For those reasons, I'm hoping it will be flexible enough that it won't interfere with my time with my grandkids.

And if it doesn't work out - if it doesn't make me happy - I don't have to do it. That's the beauty of it. Also, gobs of stress does produce some funny material for me to write about so I may end up writing more after all.

Wish me luck.

(I already have a supply of chocolate on hand and plenty of coffee.)

Monday Morning Walk

This is what my walk looked like this morning:

If you are using an Apple Watch to record your workouts (running, walking, biking), you can use your phone to see a map of the route you took.

1. Open the Fitness app on your phone.

2. Scroll down the the section labeled Sessions. Click on the (>) located to the right of "Sessions."

3. Scroll to the workout you want to review.

4. Scroll until you see the map. Click on the word "Map" or the map itself to enlarge the view. From there you can share the map via text or email or you can save the image to your phone so you can post it on your blog! 

5. You can close the map view by clicking on the X in the top right corner. That will bring you back to your session's Workout Details. There is a lot of information you can review there.

Have fun and get outside! 

Obsessed much?

I've been thinking about this. For a long time. 

I think you will have no trouble concluding that, yes, I am obsessed.

When I first rolled through this intersection (below), it occurred to me that the sign that pointed to Quartzsite, Parker, and Yuma had most of the hard-to-find letters in the classic roadtrip game, Alphabet - the one where you look for letters of the alphabet on signs or other vehicles.

The next time we drove through that intersection, I snapped a picture of the Quartrzsite, Parker, Yuma sign. In the background there was another sign, this one for Carl's Jr. Charbroiled Burgers and Drive Thru.  In that one snapshot, I had all but three of the letters to complete the Alphabet game. (I posted a that picture here.) I was missing F, W, and X. 

That got me to thinking: Does a place exist where one can find all 26 letters of the alphabet in one, outdoor location?  

Luckily, we were due to go through that intersection again in a couple weeks. I just knew they all had to be there on that corner. We were in PhoeniX after all, traveling on I-10 West.

Here's a video as we exit the freeway, heading west on I-10:

It's a little fuzzy but on the right side of the intersection is the Quartzite, Parker, Yuma sign I posted before with the Carl's Jr. sign in the background. Then, I swing left, where you can see the sign for I-10 East, I-10 West, and AZ 95 North.

That gave me the W.

If you look closely at the video, you will note the truck that turns in front of us is hauling for HeartLand Express.

That gave me the X.

Then, right at the end of the video, I zoom in. In the background are a couple of billboards. The yellow one on the right is for some king of car protection. At the bottom in a read area it reads, "RV and Off Road" giving me the F.

There you go. All 26 letters.

But I still wasn't satisfied because if the truck hadn't rolled through I would still be one letter short.

So I took another video. (If we haven't already arrived at "obsessed," I think I can say we have arrived now.)

In this video, we are approaching the intersection from the north and the first sign you see points the way to Phoenix and Los Angeles. There you go! I have the X!

From there, you will see the I-10 West sign, the Quartzite, Parker, Yuma and Carl's Jr. signs, finally followed by the Off Road sign.

Ta dah! All 26 letters! 

But not from one vantage point. The search continues.

Retired for another year.

 

Ah, yes. Another Christmas is over and I get to relax. Being grumpy is a lot of hard work so I deserve to take it easy for a while. At least until next year.

Now, it's time to wash the suit and hang it to dry. Besides, Hubby turned the heat on in the house. The green suit is too warm for my comfort unless it's rather chilly which is usually the case in December. Besides, the suit doesn't have pockets. Where am I to carry lumps of coal?

The days are slowly getting longer. Hopes are getting brighter. These are not ideal conditions for a Grinch. No, I like long, dark, cold nights. 

Maybe I should see about getting a Cupid onesie. Or a Easter Bunny one. No, by April it's way too warm to wear a onesie. And I don't think Cupid wore very much at all. Might be too chilly in February.

Harumph. I guess I'll have to muddle through somehow. At least for the next eleven months.

10 miles

Average walking speed: 13 minutes, 55 seconds per mile. Fastest mile: 13 minutes, 14 seconds.

Blazing!
 

Just a little 9-mile stroll.*

 

This is what a 9-mile walk around my neighborhood looks like. You can see there is a lot of back and forth in some places as I try to maximize the number of miles I can cover just within my community. (I'm working up to 13 miles. Maybe more. Who knows?)

I told my granddaughter that I was going to walk 9 miles this morning. She said, "I ran a mile today and I was panting but you know what? When anyone tells me that I'm short, I tell them, 'Yeah, well my grandmother can outrun your grandmother. So there.'"

I love her.

*By stroll, I mean power walking at an average speed of 14:04 today.

Alphabet Game

If you look closely at this photograph you may notice, as I did, that all of the letters of the alphabet can be found. 

Almost . . . .

All you would need is this truck to roll through the scene and then you would have them all.

Oh, yes. This is the kind of thing that makes me happy.

I wonder if there are places where you can find all 26 letters of the alphabet in one place.

What do you think?

Cards for the Funny People in Your Life

 

Maple Bourbon Glazed Pork Chops

This is available at Jensen's in Palm Desert at this price until November 26. We just had a couple last night and they were outstanding! The butcher suggested cooking them at 350 degrees for 40 minutes. I did it in my microwave/convection oven at 350 (convection) for 20 minutes, turning them after 10.  I then left the door closed and let them rest while I finished setting the table and preparing the sides. 

They were perfectly juicy and tender! I served them with mashed sweet potatoes flavored with a little ground nutmeg, and sautéed green beans (fresh from L&G Desert Store).

I highly recommend that you drive over to Palm Desert and get some! (... if we get a break in the weather, that is.)

The Black Magnet

If it's black, my hair is on it. Don't worry about yellow. Or red, or white, or pink. Even blue somehow escapes it. But, black? Black is a hair magnet.

If you have thinning hair, consider wearing something other than black.

Also, stay out of the bathroom. Bathrooms collect more hair than any other room. 

You're welcome.

La Hermosa Mujer

We came across a woman who was wearing a face mask. Nothing out of the ordinary. It looked like she was a worker at our neighborhood restaurant. She was leaving as we were arriving.

Hubby said he thought she looked happy. He gestured at his face, trying to indicate a smile. As if she might be smiling under her mask.

She didn't understand and removed her mask. She was embarrassed. She said, "Soy muy fea." I am very ugly.

"No, " I said. "Él dice que tú parece feliz." He says you seem happy.

She said, "Mi cara marca." My face marks. She pointed to the skin on her face which had some discoloration. I imagine she did her best to cover it with makeup (in addition to the mask) but they weren't ugly. Not even close. 

"No!" I said. "Tú eres bonita!" You are pretty!

There were moments of silence as she gazed at me with beautiful blue eyes, almost on the brink of tears. "Thank you," she said.

As we parted, I made the sign for beautiful saying "hermosa." Beautiful. 

She said, "Tú también." You as well.

We came across a beautiful woman.

Taking Water Conservation too Far

Yesterday, I tried to boil eggs but forgot to put in any water.

Worse yet, I tried to make coffee without putting water in the coffee maker.

I think I need more sleep. (Or more coffee. . . . Alas.)

I just got a new coffee cup. It's a double-walled glass cup with the face of a duck painted on it. The only part you can see with the coffee in it is its yellow beak. It was a gift given with love which makes the coffee taste that much better.

The above photo was from this morning. I remembered the water this time.

And, by the way, the eggs turned out fine.

Spanish flu?

I got the flu vaccine and dreamt that night entirely in Spanish.

Makes one wonder. . . .

1,500 miles is not that far.

I guess it's how you look at it. 1,500 miles is longer than the distance between the southern border of California to the northern border of Washington (state). It would take about 500 hours to walk. Or a year at an average of four miles per day which was my average daily walk in 2024.

So is that a long distance - 1,500 miles - or a short one - 4 miles per day?

I hope to walk farther in 2025 but I'm off to a slow start. I do most of my walking in the cooler months of October through April although it can get hot even then. And while I trained for a half marathon in the early months of 2025, I never completed one. And then, I didn't walk for much of the summer because it was too hot to go outside much less do anything. My daily average for this year is only 3.2 miles per day for a total of about 830 miles. I'd have to do more than six miles per day to reach 1,500 miles by the end of the year. Now, 1,500 miles looks far.

All that being said, it's time to replace my walking shoes so I went shopping last weekend and came home with two pair. One is the (women's) Altra Experience Flow that I purchased from REI. The other is the (men's) Nike Run Swift 3 purchased from DSW.

You might wonder why I bought both a women's shoe and a men's. I typically wear women's shoes but I have run in men's shoes before. They give me a little more room in the shoe, particularly in the toe box.

So far, I've walked three miles in each pair on a treadmill and while I wanted to like the Altras more I'm not sure I do. The Nike pair are closer to the style of shoe from New Balance that I've been wearing the last few years but when I ordered a pair this year, they felt clunky and stiff. I did some research online, decided on some metrics that I wanted to focus on, and went shopping.

I'll do another few miles in each pair of shoes on the treadmill before deciding but either way, I'm getting motivated to get out there and get walking. The weather is starting to cool down providing much needed relief to those of us in the southern California desert but it needs to be much cooler for me to do distances of 4, 6, 10, or more miles. I would love to do a marathon this year and even if it's something I could do, do I really want to? A marathon would take me six to seven hours to walk. And even if I wanted to do that, I have to consider all the time that training to walk that far would take. I've run two marathons before and while that was hugely satisfying, the main drawback was the sacrifice of time.

To be determined.

Whichever way I go on the shoes, I must mention that the customer service and return policy of REI are above and beyond. Even if I rule out the Altras, I won't rule out REI. No matter what you're looking for, if you're looking to get outside, start with REI. They have a lot to offer.

In the meantime, walk on.

Suddenly September

Just a couple of weeks ago, I was bored with summer. Nothing to do, too hot to go outside, I started looking for a job. That's how serious it had gotten.

Now, I can't seem to keep my desk cleared, the emails from piling up, keep up with my diary, or post to my blog.

Although, I am getting pretty close to finishing this . . . .

Modeled by the beautiful and elegant JW.

And for some inexplicable reason, I waited until it was 110 degrees outside to embrace baking. First, I cleaned the oven which filled the house with hot air. Then, I learned to cultivate a sourdough starter. Since then, I have made sourdough bread, rye bread, biscuits, and countless cookies. Also, I knit blankets.

"You live in a desert," my granddaughter helpfully pointed out.

Yes, but I won't get any use out of a sweater, hat, or scarf. At least, I can cuddle under a blanket in the cooler evenings a couple months from now. 

That is, if I'm not cleaning the oven.

Is it bigger than a breadbox?

"Why do you put your bread in the microwave?" my grandchildren ask, looking for signs of dementia.

"Because I don't have a breadbox," I answer.

They stare blankly, then ask, "What's a breadbox?"

I can't help but smile at the obvious answer, "It's a box you bread into."

They think I must be crazy or from another planet. "But why?"

Frankly, I don't know. "That's how my grandmother kept her bread."

I suppose I could just keep it on the counter but that would look messy. Breadboxes, if they exist at all, are rare and would make my kitchen counters appear cluttered. (Keep in mind, I keep my coffee maker in the laundry room for this very reason.) Other people keep bread in the refrigerator but aficionados argue that dries the bread out while keeping it in the pantry can potentially promote mold (if there is enough heat and humidity).

Meanwhile, the microwave is a cool, dark, and airtight place to store bread and recommended by King Arthur Baking Company in "The Best Way to Store Yeast Bread." In fact, that's all I use my microwave for: storing bread. Ditto for the oven in my RV back when I used to own one. I never used the oven for cooking and it made the perfect place to store bulkier items like bags of chips in a kitchen without much storage space.

So that, dear children, is the reason I put my bread in the microwave.

It just makes sense.

By the way, "Is it bigger than a breadbox?" was a standard question in the game 20 Questions back in my day. Which is to say, we are old enough to know what breadboxes are. (Also, the game of 20 Questions.)

April cannot come soon enough.

If your husband is like mine, he has trouble remembering what day it is. Usually, all he has to do is take a look at his pill box but if he's forgotten to take his meds, then he's thrown off and he has to ask me.

That's why I recommend Day of the Week Boxer Shorts. Of course there is a downside. You may find your husband occasionally looking down the front of his pants to figure out the day of the week. I can think of more than one circumstance when that might be awkward if not inappropriate. Think about dinner with your mother. Or passing by a schoolyard.

But there is an upside. You can mix up his underwear drawer for April Fool's Day. 

That will really mix him up.

Summer out West

 

I never paid much attention to “fire season” except to whatever was in the news. But it turns out there are far more fires than I ever heard about. It’s wild and a little bit scary how much of the country is on fire although nearly all of it is west of the Rockies.

In the fall of 2020, we were moving from the Portland area to Southern California and we were driving our one car plus a van with everything we hadn’t sold. There was a fire raging just south of Portland at the time and, unbelievably, we were allowed to drive right through it. The smoke and flames were so dense that visibility was near zero. It’s as close to what I can only imagine that entering the Gates of Hell is like. 

Imagine driving into flames that are so dense there are no flames, only color. The sky and the air all around us was orange mixed with smoke that was all encompassing like a dark cloud. I don’t know how it’s possible that I-5 remained open and people were allowed to travel through the area. Nevertheless, we emerged on the other side, and made it safely to our destination.

Not everyone was as lucky, however. When we stopped for the night, the hotel was full of people who’d had to evacuate, many who lost literally everything but their lives.

More recently - just a few weeks ago - there was a 50-acre fire just four miles from our home. As neighbors started noticing the smoke, text chains were set up to share information. Many of us downloaded the Watch Duty app for updates, which included evacuation notices. While we were never put on notice, the neighborhood just across the street from us had been ordered to immediately evacuate. It was scary to think about the possibility of losing our homes and made the devastating loss of life and property due to previous fires all too real.

Stay safe out there, especially if you live out West. And be diligent not to start any fires. 

Consider this:

The number one cause of residential fire is unattended cooking. 

The number one cause of woodland fire is humans.