May, 2017 at Urban Home Blog

Here are our plans for the blooming month of May at Urban Home Blog:

• Celebrate Beltane by opening all windows and doors to welcome the sun. Leave offerings of fresh fruit on the rock wall, and dedicate the first pour of wine at the roots of the California laurel tree.
• Attend May Day celebration at Plummer Park. Bring candles for memorial service.
• Celebrate Rudolph Valentino's birthday by attending solemn ceremony at Hollywood Forever. Place roses at his grave as well as Lady in Black's.
• Host annual Valentino Dumb Supper after cemetery visit. Serve Blood and Sand, baked rigatoni, green salad, and chocolate cake. Screen The Sheik and Beyond the Rocks.
• Complete spring cleaning checklist by polishing wooden surfaces, shining glass, and cleaning and conditioning leather upholstery.
• Condition and shine leather belts, shoes, and bags.
• Have sneakers cleaned, and tennis rackets inspected and restrung as warranted in anticipation of summer games.
• Go through household emergency kits (first aid, earthquake, auto) and replenish and update as necessary.
• Bundle up the last of the winter/spring magazines and take to local elder care facility.
• Go through bar fridge to discard cold drinks that have expired. Replace mixers (club soda, tonic water, juice, soda) in anticipation of Memorial Day entertaining.
• Inventory wine collection in preparation for summer weekends in the SYV.
• Make simple syrups: sugar and lime.
• Turn in article about attending RuPaul's DragCon.
• Spend the first May Gray weekend marathoning McMillan and Wife and making Chicken Cacciatore.
• Drive to Santa Monica to spend day onthe pier. Musts: Zoltar at the arcade, shark from souvenirstand. Walk the beach, and end day with Manhattans and burgers at favorite seaside bar.

Reading List: Matinee Idols, David Carroll; Forever LA, Douglas Keister; Diners, Drive-ins, and Death, Christine Wegner
Listening List: Break Every Rule, Foreign Affair, Private Dancer, Tina Turner

May, 2016:Blood and Sand, vegetables, Homekeeper's Library
May, 2015: steak sauce
May, 2013: bee conservation, salsa, canning and preserving, Urban Bar
May, 2012: decorating, Weeknight Dinner, salad, dessert
May, 2011: Wines for Steak, baking, sewing, canning and preserving, Weeknight Dinner
May, 2010: From the Vault, cooking, Urban Bar, Weeknight Dinner