‘D Day’

Monday was the day to get our D – vitamin D, that is. Monday marked Steve’s 60th birthday. Unlike years past when we had big parties at our house, Monday was a quiet day spent at the beach with some of our family. It was with confidence that we loaded up the cars and made our way to Zuma beach. But as we crested Kanan Road, I wondered if D was in our future. The coast was bogged down with fog and it didn’t seem likely that the skies would clear.

I shouldn’t have had worried. By 1 p.m. (just as I was nodding off on my beach blanket) the sun had burned off the cloud cover and the temperature immediately shot up. Vitamin D was indeed in our future. Adding to the delight of the day was the sight of dolphins playing at the breakers’ edge.

Kudos to my daughter-in-law Elizabeth who pulled together a wonderful beach lunch enjoyed by all of us – we even got my granddaughter to eat! Dinner was local favorite In-N-Out Burger, a treat to be sure (I’m licking my lips at the oh-so-fond memory).

What a difference from birthdays gone by. As time ticks on, the large celebrations take a back seat to spending time with family. I was particularly happy that our second son, Matthew, was able to delay his flight by a day back to North Carolina so he could go to the beach with his “old man.”

It was a fine time – which leads me to share that this is the last week before The Finest 2019 is launched. I cannot share a lot of details with you but let me just say that at 60 pages it is one of our largest Finest publications ever and boasts some of the best – or should I say finest? – in our valley.

What’s exciting, too, are the number of new faces and places that will be featured in the magazine. While many are, I’m sure, familiar to CV Weekly readers and Finest voters, they may not have found a place in our past Finest publications. Let me be the first to offer my congratulations to those who put in that extra effort to earn a place in the 2019 magazine.

Finally, let me give a shout-out to my staff that worked their fannies off to make sure that we hit the deadlines that we needed to in order to get this year’s magazine into the hands of our readers … all the while working on the CV Weekly. No additional staff was brought in to oversee the Finest magazine; we all pulled double duty to make sure that the newspaper was ready every week while working on the magazine to ensure that it was beautifully executed and something to be proud of. nough teasing; you’re just going to have to wait until Aug. 8 when The Finest 2019 hits the streets.