Here in the Hills

Thursday, July 24, 2014

Birthday Lunch-PART 2

This Balloon and Flower arrangement was sent to me by a dear friend and his family, from North Carolina.....I met John O'Donnell around 1989, when he was just a kid, really---22 or 23, and was assistant to my very dear sweet friend Rosetta LeNoire.....He was and is the most wonderful young man, and even though Rosetta is gone now, I am still in touch with John......It was such a very lovely surprise, to get this pretty flower arrangement and that very delightful Balloon!

And staying with the Flowers for another moment.....Below,two Beautiful Orchids that darling Will Grover brought me for my Birthday.....

Now....on to our Lunch!

Here is the really simple, but very time-consuming-salad-to-make, a Cobb Salad as in, The Original Cobb Salad created at The Brown Derby Restaurant here in Los Angeles, which no one makes anymore. Almost every restaurant has this on their menu, but.....but, it is never finely chopped as this is, and they all change the ingredients somewhat, too.....You can actually find the "original" Brown Derby Restaurant Recipe on the net, and the original dressing, as well......It is truly delicious!

Everyone seemed to enjoy it very much---I know I did. And I LOVE a really good Croissant! Yum!

And after we were done........

It was time for.......
Yes....!

The Gift Bags.......

HOORAY!

These Caps were a Big Big Hit!
And below, Katy took a picture of the wonderful Dianne who took most of these pictures.....

What a Great Smile! And, she looks fabulous in that Red, White and Blue Sparkly Cap!

(July 4th was just around the corner.....)

In truth.....Everyone looked fabulous in these caps!

The Fabulous Bridget Hanley.....another wonderful smile and looking very glamorous in those gun sunglasses......And we can see some of the bling that was in the bag....

There were a couple of rings....but that HUGE one, was a lot of fun! It lit up....!
And below.....the Beautiful Karen Culliver Parks playing with the Whistle Necklace.......

And what is that in her lap?

It's a Froggy! I always like to have a little soft stuffed toy in the bags, and Frogs are Good Luck and are supposed to bring you money.....And we can all use that these days.

And here below is the lovely sweet Katy Melody Parks......

I love her 'attitude' in this picture....It's like she is holding the whistle in her mouth like it is a cigar.....lol......

And below, the magnificent Annie Guilbert looking for all the stuff in her bag......

And she found a lot of goodies!

You'll have to wait for Part 3 to see what other wonderful things were in the Gift Bags, and some other fun stuff that took place that lovely afternoon......

Life has been somewhat overwhelming these days, so that's why it is taking me so long to get all this up!

Forgive, please.......

More To Come.......

| posted by OldLady Of The Hills at 12:09:00 AM

20 comments

Monday, July 14, 2014

ladies who lunch birthday

To be quite honest, I never imagined I would live to be 83----but, here I am!

I wasn't able to take any pictures this year, but dear Dianne Travis took all the pictures you will see......

My now much more limited physical abilities even kept us from sitting at the round table in the dining room.....But.....we sat in the living room and our lunch was filled with yummy appetizers and a 'help yourself' Original Cobb Salad and the ever present Croissants and butter.....

Of course there were the always present two kinds of cake for our desert----The wonderfully rich and beautiful chocolate cake from Sweet Lady Jane and The Hazelnut Lemon Meringue---to die for, served together for those who love both, which is usually everyone.....

The wonderful Will and his dear dear helper, Mary, took care of all the food needs, I'm happy to say.....

And, of course we had Gift Bags......

But we did not open them until we finished our Salad and before we had our desert.

And now, who was there!

It was, as I always say...'The Usual Suspects', as in that line from "CASABLANCA" when Claude Rains says....'round up the usual suspects'......

The always delightful Annie Guilbert.

Both of us with our Rollaters---it's unbelievable in a way----But the good news is, dear Annie is still a working actress......She was in last season's Showtime's show called "Getting On", and it has been renewed and she will be in it again, this coming season.....One if her adorable Granddaughters brought her and later came to pick her up.....

There they are above, Annie and the divine Ivy.....Such a great smile......
And of course, the lovely and dear, Lee Meriwether---

Lee is always in and out of town a lot----also working! I love that no one I know ever retires.....Well, unless they have health problems. Actors and Actresses keep working as long as there are jobs available to them, which is really wonderful.

Here above are Karen Culliver Parks and Katy Melody Parks---My dear Betty's daughters-in-law, or is it daughter-in-laws?.....Well, whichever, I love having them help celebrate my Birthday----keeping it in the family, so to speak....they are both terrific young women and Betty adored them. I do too!

As you can see, there are some appetizers on the table---we'll see a bit more in a minute-----plus a Gorgeous arrangement of flowers by the wonderful Van.....

And above, two more lovely dear friends, Bridget Hanley and Seemah Wilder.....Do you know that Seemah will be 90 years old on July 26th.....!

It doesn't seem possible! I think she looks so much younger and she has done nothing to her face......no cosmetic surgery or botox or whatever all that stuff is.....I think she looks fantastic!

Above, you can see the table with some delicious edible goodies....

There were some dates wrapped in Prosciutto and a bit of cheese and warmed to perfection.....some incredibly delicious Marinated Tofu.....I know---Tofu?? It is scrumptious! I don't know what Will marinates them in but whatever it is, you could make a meal of that all by itself; And we also had some Crudites, which everyone always seem to love......And that's the back of my head, then Annie, Katy and Karen and you can just see a bit of Lee, way over there to the right.....

I thought this was such a pretty picture of Karen and Bridget.....Both such beautiful ladies......

And here is a closer look at the Beautiful arrangement made by Van.......

There were so very many Gorgeous flowers in this arrangement---my very favorite of all---The Vanda Orchids.....Lavender is my favorite color and there were four of these magnificent Orchids in this stunning group of flowers.....

Part two of my Birthday Celebration will be coming along shortly......Blogger is still giving me incredible problems.....Ugh!

More To Come......

| posted by OldLady Of The Hills at 3:55:00 PM

29 comments

Tuesday, July 08, 2014

more pretty flowers 1979

Here are some more flowers from Ron Rifkin's

English Garden, 1979.

I know some are pansies, but I'm not sure about one or two others......

Like this one above----I'm not sure what it is----at first I thought it was another type of Pansy....but I don't think so now.

Whatever it is----it is truly Beautiful!

Above......that is definitely a Pansy!

And such gorgeous colors......!
And this next one
is most assuredly a Pansy, too!

I love the way it looks like Bird Wings there in the middle........
That's what I love about getting in close on a flower----you never know what you might see until you actually see the slide.
All of these were taken with my Pentax SLR with the Close-up lens, and sometimes even extension tubes.......