Copycatting a Silver Beauty?

It's well documented: I'm a sucker for silver-haired, beautiful women. I've written about them here and here and here. My hands-down, absolutely favorite Goddess of All Things Silver is probably model-turned-makeup-maven, Cindy Joseph. She is the founder and owner of Boom!, a line of cosmetics aimed at gals who don't look like they're 22 any more and don't give a damn.

Give a darn.

Take your pick.

Anyhow, I adore Ms. Joseph, who looks like this when she's all glammed up for a photo shoot:

Yowza!

Cindy writes on her Boom! website that she was a high school senior in 1969, so that makes her around 62 or 63 years old now. Not only is she gorgeous, she seems to be age-defying.

Even when she's fresh-faced and wearing street clothes, she still looks remarkable:

Recently I got new glasses. And a certain tee shirt from Gap.

Gaaa! It looks like I'm trying to copycat her; I wasn't. I promise!

Cute Pug Pics

Hi, folks! Here for your amusement is a roundup of cute pug photos I've run across recently. (Where I can, I've given photo credit. Please forgive me if I haven't found the original source to credit: some stuff on da Interwebs is reposted so often....)

From a Capital One ad campaign, a couple of google-eyed sweethearts. They may actually be Frenchies, but they look puggish enough to be included in my lineup:

From wickedwitchfromwestchester, this adorable pug in a hoodie:

This pug in jammies has apparently been kicking around da Net for a half year. I just ran across it recently. So, that counts as new for me, right?:

This ridiculously funny-looking loveball, below, is courtesy of Pug Nation Rescue of L.A., our local pug- and pug-mix rescue group. (They totally rock.) I'm not sure what you cross a pug with to get a black-and-white polka dotted cutie like this. Pug x mini Dalmation? Pug x polka-dotted pocket square?:

This image was taken in 2008 and remains one of my favorite pug photos of all time. Okay, okay; I'm cheating. This wasn't anything I saw recently. But I love it, 'k?

pug in bunny ears credit: chuchi carmelo

I don't believe I've ever shared this image before. It's my grand-niece and my pugs. Not a particularly terrific photo, but I adore how the body language and upward gaze is the same on all four chunks of cuteness:

This conga line? Ack. I don't know where I got it. (Sorry, person who captured this adorableness.):

This utterly epic photo is of the ever-patient Lily the Pug, from wombatarama:

This is from glamour.com. I love those baby's hats:

The Hubby bought me a half case of wine for my birthday a few weeks back. The label is based on a watercolor commissioned by the vintner, Pug Wines, in the Russian River Valley. The art is gorgeous and their Blanc is quite tasty:

The photo above is the label for their 2007 "Pug Blanc" wine. For 2008, the Pug Blanc label changed to this:

Cute, but I love the pug in the ginormous pearls best. Runner-up (in terms of artwork, anyhow) is their "Pug Pink":

Elsewhere, I found this tote (below) at my local mall. Adorable, but not practical. Within days, that white canvas would be grimy at the edges, and the cute pink bow on the pug would look a bit tattered, I fear:

But my hands-down favorite pug sighting lately? A photo session with my family and my pugs:

Left to right, that's Lovely Daughter #1 holding Won Ton, The Boy holding Pao Pao, and Lovely Daughter #2 holding Mu Shu.

LoveloveLOVE this. That is all.

Midwinter Citrus

All the fun stuff--Christmas, Hanukkah, New Year's, my birthday--is over, and Valentine's Day seems a long way away. What is there to cheer a person up?

Well, citrus, for one. Here in SoCA, it's practically falling off the trees. Everybody and their uncle has a tree (or two or five) in their yard that's laden with fruit. The squirrels are going nuts with the oranges.

These oranges and limes are store-bought, but the lemons are from my sister-in-law's back yard.

Lemon sorbet for dessert tonight!

Oh, Mexico!

The Hubby and I went with a group of his fellow professionals to Mexico last week. It never fails to amaze me how strong and beautiful the colors are in Mexico:

Of course, there was a lot of delicious food:

And a bit of drinking:

And music:

And taking silly photos of each other. On the left is R.; hanging out with her practically guarantees a fun time!

I didn't step my toe into a pool or go to the beach at all. Nope! My idea of a fun time was to clamber into a minivan with R. and a bunch of others, and toodle around in the countryside all day with Antonio, our guide.

We went to a coconut plantation, where the momma of the family showed us how she gets the sweet meat out of the coconut:

We sampled her home-made coconut candy, which was delish:

Antonio drove us to Patatlan, a small town with a church featuring a statue of Jesus that dates back to the 1550s:

Everybody admired the statue and the architecture, but I was entranced by the lady ironing vestments in the Sacristy. Such an ordinary task, and right next to the altar through an open door. I loved the contrast of the exalted and the humble:

I also noticed something intriguing about the small window over the choir loft:

It has a Star of David in it. I love finding references to Christianity's Jewish roots in churches:

Outside the church, tall votive candles burned:

In Patatlan's main plaza, vendors sell everything from gold jewelry...

To statues of the patron saint of drug dealers!:

Good grief. He even looks like a sleazebag.

Antonio also took us waaaay up a dirt road with cows and chickens and dogs who needed a good face-wash....

Our destination was a family-run brick yard. Antonio recently bought the pavers for his kitchen from this family:

(That's Antonio, on the left, telling us how they use dried coconut husks to fuel the kiln. Clever!)

On our last evening, our whole group went to a hotel and restaurant called La Casa Que Canta ("the house that sings"). As the sun dropped below the horizon, we had a delicious alfresco dinner while looking out across the bay of Ixtapa:

And I fell in love with these pale blue glasses:

Next time, I'm going back with an empty suitcase and a bunch of bubble wrap.