Category Archives: News & Reviews

Our Willow Glen neighborhood had a group yard
sale last Saturday. One of the items our family put out to sell on
the driveway was my son’s old red chest of drawers. Paul has
grown so tall that his clothes hardly fit into it now. The chest didn’t
sell so I am going to put it on
craigslist next. As my son and I were moving the chest
back into storage, we were startled to discovered a hitchhiker had
crawled into the bottom drawer:

Alligator Lizard in Drawer

Out of the Drawer

Images Copyright 2008 by Katy Dickinson

In my
May 19, 2008 blog entry, I wrote about the large and lovely
brown and black and white butterfly which emerged from its chrysalis during
a meeting in a Sun Labs conference room, then flew into the light fixture.
Yesterday, one of the Engineers found it clinging to a wall and (after I
took a photo) took it outside where it flew up into a pear tree. Even though
there are no visible blue spots, I think this is a

Mourning Cloak (Nymphalis antiopa),
a kind of true brush-foot butterfly found all over California.

Sun Labs Mourning Cloak

Butterfly Chrysalis in Conference Room

Images Copyright 2008 by Katy Dickinson

It is the time of year for Sun Menlo Park to play
host to Canada Geese. Our campus is right at the edge
of the San Francisco Bay, so we see hawks and ravens and songbirds
all year long. In the late Spring, the big loud geese arrive to have their
babies and wander around the lawns of Sun’s Fitness Center.

Sun Menlo Park from the Air

Geese in Front of Fitness Center

Flock on Fitness Center Lawn

Images Copyright 2008 by Katy Dickinson

On the Memorial Day holiday, we joined another family for a beach
picnic at Twin Lakes State Beach, near Santa Cruz, CA. Except for
the constant wind and blowing sand, it is a pleasant and pretty place
with nearby parking, showers and lavatories, and metal firepits for
cooking. There were many crabs, pelicans, and sea gulls but only
small shells.

Beach signs

Lighthouse and sailboat

Crab on rocks

Jessica and Matt’s sand castle

Cooking bratwurst

Kite overhead

Pelicans overhead

Cooking marshmallows

Sand blown onto blanket

Images Copyright 2008 by Katy Dickinson

Twice recently at our Wednesday afternoon

weekly tea in the Sun Labs building in Menlo Park,
we have had guests who looked at our tea cosies and said “what are those?”
We said we make tea in a big pot, take out the leaves once the tea has steeped,
and then cover the pot with a padded cosy to keep it warm. The cosy is like a warm hat.

Both guests explained that this is not how tea is made in China, then
went on to tell us about pot size and materials and how to reuse the leaves
for different tea tastes. We invited them to come back and show us how they
make tea.

In the meantime, for the benefit of those who have never seen one,
below is a picture of three tea cosies. These are my own cosies plus my
two favorite tea pots. You can see that both the pots and cosies
are whimsical in shape and decoration. There are much more traditional designs
but I like having an Aladdin’s lamp tea pot with a Queen Elizabeth cosy to keep it
warm.

Three tea cosies

Two tea pots

Images Copyright 2008 by Katy Dickinson

Last Saturday, we ate dinner with friends at
Caffe Riace Italian Restaurant in Palo Alto, CA. Just as the last time
we went, the food was very good, the service was terrible, but the decorations are
almost worth the high prices. The restaurant tables are outside in
a combination plaza and park with some very large, very odd heroic art. The
longer and closer you look, the stranger these statues are.

Washing Machine Venus

1st Greek Hero

2nd Greek Hero

Venus again

Images Copyright 2008 by Katy Dickinson