Photo Credit: Kathleen Scavone
Most of us can produce a list of Favorite Things that deepen our living and extend longer than our arm. Anais Nin, in The Diary of Anais Nin, said, “When you make the world tolerable for yourself, you make a world tolerable for others.” As we are living lives in Lake County as shimmering as our local diamonds, we can, merely by looking around us, find our own signature item that makes life oh-so graceful, much like living within a Maya Angelou book such as her Celebrations, where each poem is a cause for festivity.
Here are a few of my faves:
1. Classic Films and the movie opportunities here in Lake County. Movies in the Park, as Trudy previously mentioned, are truly exceptional. What a special tradition that Middletown Square Park has with its free family-friendly Saturday night movies! Just bring a chair or a blankie and enjoy! What generosity the Middletown Area Merchants Association displays in offering this fun summer event! Speaking of fun summer evenings, how many communities offer a Drive-In Movie? Lakeport Auto Movies Drive-In at 52 Soda Bay Road does! Info is found at https://www.lakeportautomovies.com/
I had just viewed a classic espionage film, The Tamarind Seed with Julie Andrews and Omar Sharif when Andrews’ name popped up again at a library book sale table. It was her memoir. Although not my favorite actress of all time, she is a multi-talented entertainer. Who doesn’t love musicals, and, for that matter, The Sound of Music, a true classic film in which Andrews belted out tunes based on Rogers and Hammerstein music from the stage play of the same name. In the movie she sings, what else: My Favorite Things. Raise your hand if you’ve seen the following classics more than once:
Wuthering heights
Casablanca
Gone With the Wind
Lawrence of Arabia
Hitchcock’s Vertigo
The Wizard of Oz
It’s a Wonderful Life
2. I love libraries! I especially love our Lake County Libraries and the inter-library loan system. Each week surprises await me as I retrieve a stack of novels, non-fiction, poetry, art books, and much more! Pick up some gardening books, books for kids, literary fiction, historical fiction, or any genre you crave. Our libraries across the county are veritable hubs of activity, too.
Visit the Library Events Calendar here to find something fun and interesting to do: https://www.lakecountyca.gov/704/Calendar
Clearlake’s Redbud Library holds an Every First Wednesday of the month event serving mocktails and hilarity while offering the opportunity to recreate actual works of art.
Have a tech problem? Bring your device in to any Lake County Library branch, any Tuesday between 10AM and 4PM for free! Lakeport Library holds an Evening Book Club each month. Our libraries are cornucopias of activities and events offering an Adult Literacy Program, Free ebooks, audiobooks, comics, magazines, movies, and more!
Visit the Lake County Library YouTube site and learn Spanish or access Great Courses.
Subscribe to their newsletter or follow them on social media such as FB and Instagram and always be in the know about library happenings, new book releases, and much more.
It’s also fun to frequent libraries when you’re out and about outside of Lake County. I enjoy visiting libraries in Calistoga, St. Helena, Santa Rosa, Sonoma and, well, you get the picture. I love all of their book sale tables! Libraries are havens of perfectly priced fundraising items such as old school DVDs, music CDs, books on tape, novels, nonfiction, and so on! And don’t you love knowing that Lake County has a great Bookmobile schedule for Cobb, Riviera, Kelseyville, Spring Valley, The Oaks, Lucerne and Nice?
Library website:
https://library.lakecountyca.gov/597/Library
Find out about the library Summer Reading Program and sign up at your local branch, start reading, win prizes! Oh! And our libraries offer author talks both online and in person!
3. Living amongst the beauty of Lake County’s biodiversity. Since California is home to more flora and fauna species than any other state, we are considered a global biodiversity hotspot. The profusion of species found in Lake County never ceases to amaze. From the wondrous elk seen out on Hwy. 20 to trail cam footage from various parks that have displayed bobcats, mountain lions, deer, and many more critters. Who doesn’t have a friend who’s spied a bear or other amazing creature on their personal critter cams at one time or another? Don’t even get Lake Countians started on the sheer variety of bird species! Being located on a migratory bird flyway has advantages for bird watchers! Grebes of several species, American white pelicans, a few species of herons, ducks galore, and woodpeckers to knock your socks off! Our wonderful Redbud Audubon is fantastic about sharing their combined knowledge! Thank you, Roberta and Donna and the gang! The diversity of wildflowers as you hike the various parks and trails of Lake County and California takes your breath away! Talk about biodiversity- from vivid orange poppies and tiger lilies to our native redbud and lilac, vibrant wildflowers that thrive upon our serpentine soils such as clarkia, manzanita, and more. What a wonderful world! Wallace Stegner, in his book The Sound of Mountain Water, said it best: “Wilderness can be a means of reassuring ourselves of our sanity as creatures, a part of the geography of hope.”
