Shea still was under the weather, but I attended a great VGN potluck at Lou’s house again. The turnout was incredible despite the brisk weather, but we’re still very lucky to have this incredible climate with many hints of Spring in the air already (seriously). There are lots of trees in full bloom. No polar vortex here!
Had a great lunch catching up with my sweet friend Ron Baity. It was great to catch up. I’m trying to get him hooked on whaleboat rowing with me and kayaking!
I had a good excuse to be in Hiddenbrooke (a Vallejo neighborhood that Shea had never been to), so we hung out with our dear friends Michael and Antonio. I was picking up a purchase from FB Marketplace nearby. It was terrific to check out their cool digs and meet their pets.
Had an excellent New Year’s celebration with good friends in Vallejo. We debated whether to pajama or not, but most of us took the memo seriously!
We had another opportunity to celebrate the double nickel birthday of my sweet fellow Vallejoan, Noel. We had a wonderful dinner and stroll at Manny’s Steakhouse on the Napa River waterfront in downtown Vallejo. I love the memories we’re creating as we share life with friends who have each other’s backs.
We had a wonderful visit with Nick Dong. He is a world-renowned master designer/artist/genius and a good friend of many years who, like so many, helped me find some resilience and silver linings in the horrible event from last January (my catastrophic house fire and the loss of five precious canine souls). It was a privilege to revisit his custom home and for Shea to get to know him.
Nick inspires me to manifest my dream house with this rebuild and find ways to live my best life. In the footage Shea took you’ll see a reflection of the three of us in a small sampling of Nick’s mind-blowing kinetic pieces. If you ever get a chance to see the work of Studio Dong in person, don’t miss the opportunity!
One of his two amazing koi ponds with the most friendly fish I’ve ever met in my life!
Teena Miller’s amazing fundraising birthday party was for the charity Food is Free Bay Area. What a nice way to raise money to benefit the community, as Teena and JD always do! It was nice to be among many friendly faces here in Vallejo while we celebrated at the Solano County Fairground’s McCormack Hall.
Here are other pictures posted from the event. For this group photo, I had to think fast. I found some reels of packing tape, put them together, and stood on them so that I could almost be seen in the back row.
Congratulations to my friend and HSNB Volunteer (that’s how I originally met her) Tonya Johnson on winning the title of Miss Vallejo Tri-City!!! She’s an amazing and well-traveled young lady with a passion for animals, so I know she is very deserving of this opportunity.
Several weeks ago we ran into each other at a mayoral candidate’s forum.
Attended my tobacco control activist friend Tehra’s housewarming. What a cool home in Vallejo from 1915 with a huge backyard with lots of features and amazing plants. She’s a cool lady (pictures with her thumb up in one of the pictures) and a great public speaker with a story to tell about Big Tobacco and its targeting of the LGBTQ population.
Shea and I got to show parts of the city to Juan and Peter for the first time, although Peter had been here several times before.
