Watering the Flowers in the Gran Piazza

The winery/deli/ gran piazza called VJB down the road in Kenwood, is rapidly becoming our new Peet's. We probably won't go there every morning the way we did at Peet's coffee in Berkeley, but it opens early for coffee, and when the weather is nice it is a delightful place to sit, read the paper, and watch the direttore watering the flowers.

There are lots of beautiful large pots filled with honeysuckle, roses petunias and pansies. There is a fountain, an aviary of finches and a scattering of people. A tenor singing arias, interspersed with Dean Martin and Frank Sinatra songs provides the musical backdrop. The coffee and pastries aren't as good as the wine and deli foods, but the ambiance is hard to beat!

I spent the rest of the morning and a good part of the afternoon rehanging lots of our pictures according to instructions from Pam yesterday. I am looking at a group of seven on our bedroom wall which were really hard to hang perfectly, but the result makes me happy. The poor wall…not so much. It is riddled with holes and blemishes from my little hammer!--mostly covered by the resulting collage.

You may write me down in history
With your bitter, twisted lies.
Youmay trod me in the very dirt.
But still, like dust, I'll rise

-Maya Angelou, "Still I Rise"

Listen to yourself and in that quietude you might hear the voice of God.
-Maya Angelou (1928-2014)

She was a woman of gravitas and stature whose voice was stilled yesterday, but whose words will live on in our hearts and minds.