A California Online Magazine with Local Focus and Global Appeal
Have you ever seen a feral cat and noticed the tip of one of its ears is missing? That’s a good thing. It means someone has loved them by taking the time to humanely trap them and take them to be spayed or neutered, vaccinated, and treated for parasites. Love for the unloved kitties is what Project Purr is all about.
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Alfred Hitchcock came to California in 1939 to film his first American production, Daphne du Maurier’s Rebecca (1940) starring Joan Fontaine and Laurence Olivier. Most people know he lived near Hollywood in Bel Air with his wife, Alma, and daughter, Pat, and it is well known the he found inspiration in and around the Bay Area as a backdrop location for several of his films.
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Bookshop Santa Cruz is a locally owned and operated independent book seller since 1966. It’s a Santa Cruz favorite, a hub of literary activity and community events, and has provided the standard for other independent book sellers. They offer new and used books, a large magazine collection, cards and gifts, and host events that feature both local and national authors.
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Chocolate and I have a love affair that goes back as far as I can remember. From my first cake, to the time when I was five and my mom had to restrict my Hershey bar intake to one a day because I just couldn’t handle myself. All the way through to adulthood I didn’t go a day without chocolate.
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When I first moved to Santa Cruz, Marianne’s on Ocean was the place to go for locals and the obligatory stop on the way home from a long day in the sand and sun for tourists. That was 30 years ago, and it’s still a hot spot with a line out the door day and night. Joining that wonderful institution is a new breed of ice cream shop.
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Walking through the doors of the Stanford Theatre in Palo Alto, California, is like entering a portal to the splendor of another era. The opulent neoclassical styled movie palace whisks you back to a time before technology, television, and even home radio, to a pre-depression America where entertainment and distraction were sought outside the home. Beautifully designed and decorated with larges lobbies and mezzanines with chairs and couches where friends could sit and talk. Before Hitchcock’s Psycho, movie goers would show up to the theatre without much thought to showtimes. It was common to walk into the theatre mid movie.
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In the quiet town of Scotts Valley there is a place where dreams come true. Cutesy Cupcakes, a cupcake shop. Walking through the doors is like walking into a destination spot on the Candyland game board. A feast for the senses: sweetness envelopes and rows of decorated cupcakes as far as the eye can see.
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Nick and Amy find each other in NYC. He’s a journalist and a small town southern boy, sensitive and genteel. She is the bright and confident daughter of writer/parents who used her as the inspiration for their best selling young reader’s series, Amazing Amy. She also does a little bit of writing on the side.
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Santa Cruz offers many wonderful ways to get in the holiday spirit this year. We may not have snow, but how many places can boast a Nutcracker ballet performed by trees? Victorian carriage rides, Holiday light trains, and Nutcracker ballets are just a few of the many fun activities going on this season.
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Santa Cruz has something for everyone when it comes to celebrating Halloween. Whether it’s participating in a family friendly costume parade or partying half the night away with the local undead-look no further. Take your pick of spooky train rides, walks through the cemetery, join a Thriller flash mob or do some pumpkin painting on the Esplanade.
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The Santa Cruz Beach Boardwalk…just mention the place and I can smell the cotton candy. Around here we all have our own special memories of the boardwalk; walking the strip at dusk hand in hand with your sweetheart, being lured into indigestion by the intoxicating smells of the funnel cakes and garlic fries, getting stuck upside down in the cage ride and having all the change fall out of your pocket onto the cages below, running into almost everyone you know on dollar night, bringing the kids and eyes reliving your own childhood fun all over again through them.
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Earth Day is a big deal around here. It’s not just one day out of the year to raise awareness and make new environmentally friendly resolutions, it’s a celebration of a way of life and proclamation of deep convictions. We care about the planet and believe every individual’s actions make a difference.
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When you’re first introduced to a successful person’s work, it’s hard to imagine them as anything but a success; confident in their gifts and unquestioning in their abilities. What I have found, though, is that it is not an immediate recognition of their obvious talent that brought them success, but it is their perseverance and almost blind determination to push past rejection and failure. To keep on going even after years of negative feedback and discouragement-fueled by a passion for what they do. Instead of taking rejection as a “no”, they show us how to embrace it, learn from it, and keep moving forward. Stephen King is one of those people.
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It was 1928 and Agatha Christie was on her own, newly divorced and traveling to the Middle East on the Orient Express. It was a kind of test for herself; she wondered how she’d do without anyone else to help or keep her company. Once there, she met some new British friends, the Woolleys, who invited her to stay with them and made her promise to come visit again the next year.
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Agatha Christie spent her Christmases as a Child at Abney Hall, a picturesque, grand estate in the North of England. The entire family would come together to celebrate. She recalls it as a very happy time. The cousins would have a contest to see who could eat the most at Christmas dinner and they could have their fill of candied fruits and chocolates. The grounds of Abney Hall were a wonderland with gardens, a stream and waterfall, and all kinds of places to explore.
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Self- proclaimed coffee “connoisseurs”, “geeks” and “aficionados” abound in Santa Cruz. They don’t just want an expertly crafted and unique cup of coffee, they want an atmosphere in which they can savor both good coffee and good conversation. Santa Cruz offers several different experiences for those who want it all: a thoughtfully designed space and a unique or maybe daring take on their most favorite beverage.
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