San Francisquito Canyon - Friday 11/2/2007

This is Power Plant No. 2 in San Francisquito Canyon. Those pipes are 6-8 feet in diameter each! I wish I could have gotten better pictures of the amazing architecture of this remote building, but in this post-9/11 era everything to do with utilities is hard to get to.

Mom and I took a drive today. Headed out Lake Elisabeth Road from Palmdale and ended up on San Francisquito Canyon Road, heading south.

I've had a long fascination with the Saint Francis Dam disaster of March 12, 1928, probably because the dam was built to contain water brought here via the Los Angeles Aqueduct from the Owens Valley. I dunno, I find big public works very moving... While they are impressive, they usually occasion great loss for a few people while creating something intended to provide a greater good to a large population (usually by investors and public officials who get to put their names on plaques.)

Anyway, it's called the greatest civil engineering disaster of the 20th century. More than 400 people died in the flood after the dam broke. Waters raged toward the ocean from this spot about 15 miles north of Saugus, through what's now Valencia, Fillmore, Santa Paula, all the way to Ventura.

Well, you can read about it yourself through the links above.


The thing that astonished me was that San Francisquito Road itself has been rerouted since I was there last! Has it been that long!?

I was driving along looking for this live oak tree and fence. That's where we used to park and walk back to the left of this shot to get to the fallen "tombstone" remains of the center of the dam. I really liked knowing how to find it by that tree. It's a wonderful canopy with a lot of space underneath...feels like it would be a great place to camp, if you could camp there.

We were there some time after the Copper Fire in 2002 and saw more of the dam exposed than we'd realized was still extant. Here are the old directions to the site.

Here are new directions to the site. This map and other information are posted at the fire station just south of Power Plant No. 2.

It was interesting to be out and about for the day. Pretty tiring. I guess the stamina is building bit by bit. I think returning to work next week is going to hit a little hard! Ah, but it's life!

Sand Castle - Thursday 11/1/2007

My cousin, Bells, sent this cute sand castle from the Florida Keys, along with a get well card! What a nice surprise.

Thanks, Bells! It's been so wonderful e-mailing back and forth. We must keep this up!

The photo is a little puzzling. I was experimenting with some black velvet I bought to create a backdrop with.

Felt good enough to venture into Palmdale for some errands, building up energy again and all that, and got a great deal on the velvet. The only thing we could find on the racks at the fabric store was $19.99 a yard. I was about to give up and buy some faux suede when I saw this velvet on the cutting table. It was only $4.00 a yard. More like it!

But now I wonder if I should have sprung for the more expensive cloth...this has a sheen on it in direct sunlight. I got this tip from Malc by way of FrannieGirl on 43Things, as a way to photograph flowers in natural light. But the cloth is a bit reflective.

Maybe not such a good deal after all??

Body Count - Wednesday 10/31/2007

I managed to get up a few decorations in time for trick or treating... just a couple of strings of ghosts lights and this inviting fellow.

We had 110 pirates, princesses, fairies and Spidermen between 6:30 and 8:40. They were impressed that I gave them a handful of candies. We still had some left over at the end of the night.

The most puzzling costume was a stout little boy in a shirt and tie, with lots of gel in his hair and a couple of pieces of green card stock in his shirt pockets.

"What are you? An executive?"

"I'm Drew Carey."

"Oh! Good! The hair gel really makes it work."

What I don't get is the moms dressed as pirate-hos, princess-hos and...just hos.

Whoo Hoo! - Wednesday 10/31/2007

When I checked my e-mail this morning, I found a small honorarium waiting for me from the online journal Raving Dove. They bought a photograph I took some years ago of barracks being moved back into the Manzanar National Historical Site! (Although I also placed photographs in the Acton/Agua Dulce Country Journal and Houston Literary Review this year, this is my first paid photography publication.)

I'm proud of this one... Raving Dove is all about promoting peace and humanitarian actions. And they advertise in the classified pages of Poets & Writers magazine which for some reason adds a little cache in my mind.

I'm really pleased to have found a home for this lucky photograph. It was taken a few years ago with my first digital camera, a Nikon Coolpix with something like 3.1 megapixel capacity. It probably couldn't have gone anywhere but to a website like this because the resolution is low. The light was amazing on that mid-November day.

Thanks to all of you who read and especially those of you who comment. I started this blog a little over two years ago to see if I had the discipline and interest I thought I needed in order to warrant buying myself my beautiful Nikon D80. (You can hum "Give Me That Old Time Religion" while you read this because, yes, that's got something to do with a Midewest version of the Puritan work ethic.)

It's turned out to be a much more interesting and rewarding journey than I ever could have imagined.

This Is What You Get - Tuesday 10/30/2007

I asked Hydra to pick up a few hard candies the other day.

Ahem.

Being somewhat of an over-achiever, he brought home four huge bags of lollipops, mints and cinnamon drops. They won't all fit in my biggest bowl.

So tomorrow night, the kids get hard candy. Ever since we moved here and I was soooo thrilled with all the trick or treaters, we've given miniature chocolate bars. We've had as many as 154 little beggers in one year.

Maybe this--and the fact that I'm not up to putting up the usual amount of decorations--will knock back our numbers a little.

I'm usually very very thrilled about Hallowe'en now that we give away candy. This year's events have taken a bit of the edge off. But it'll be fun. I love the kids who are about 5-10 years old.

Salt Shaker - Monday 10/29/2007

This is an unmatched salt shaker I bought at a yard sale years ago because I liked the old fashioned style of glaze.

Behind it is a teapot Braveheart gave me, which I am growing donkeytail succulents in. Those are alder cones from my stay at Hedgebrook, an amazing writer's retreat for women.

I guess these wee tableau around my house are like little shrines that make me feel good when I contemplate them.

Walked around the neighborhood a little today. Gaining strength and energy.

Can't believe how little I am eating/wanting to eat! 100 calories worth of juice and crackers was about it on the day of surgery, 300 or so the next day. Worked my way up to about 1200 today. If I could just move more...

Bath Day! - Sunday 10/28/2007

The approach. Beak into the water. Then one foot will go in. For some reason he won't bathe in the wide horse-feed tub we bought, but will use a mug full of water in the center. (Makes for some interesting moments when we get water out to drink every now and then...)


Foot dip!



Winged Victory keeps clean.


The open-winged dip.



Can you see the water flying in front of him?

Yeah, that's what it's like around my house lately. The big excitement is watching Dodger take a bath! He gets water all over the place. Then when the level drops below about two inches he says, "Water?" until it's refilled.

Cool thing for me is, I have these holes in my stomach, so no one asks me to bend over and wipe up the floor when Dodger's done.

As an update...getting more energy, feeling less pain. Running out of Vicodin, but that's okay. The incisions cause little creepy pulls in my tummy when I stand up--which I am doing more and more--and I even took a short walk outside today.

Tribute from the North - Saturday 10/27/2007

One of my all-time favorite Canadian-Americans took time out of his busy schedule to send me a message of good will!

I was dozing on the couch yesterday--big change from the bed!--when the Fedex man came a-knockin'.

Mom got up and answered, and what!? A box from my friends and long-distance co-workers The American (mother of the adorable lad above) and Bella.

They also sent a charming pillow and cards. I put the pillow to immediate use!

Post Apocalyptic Pastels - Friday 10/26/2007

Another shot over the neighbor's house. Braveheart says they're getting gorgeous sunsets from the smoky skies down in Los Angeles proper. We're getting these soft dawns.

In all the hubbub of going down to the hospital in Panorama City again yesterday for my post-op appointment, I forgot to take a photograph. Harumph. Ah, the stories I could tell. The queasiness I could invoke....

I will just say now that I am through it, the Kaiser Permanente Hospital in Panorama City doesn't engender a lot of confidence by its level of cleanliness. The patients bathroom in the pre-op area was FILTHY and I'm going to let them know what a bad impression that makes. Really, overflowing wastebasket, absolutely dirty floor. Shocking.

And the operating room... About the last thing I thought after I scootched onto the table was that this looked like a set from a hospital movie set in the sixties. They're building a whole new hospital right there, but the old facilities are really pretty barren and primitive looking.

I was crying. The nurse asked what was wrong.

"Just scared." I said.

She told me to think of something nice, so I imagined a beach scene. Running into the waves with Tomasina and Braveheart and Marian just a couple of weeks ago, feeling so alive.

While I was out, I dreamed that the surgeon was there on the beach with us, in full surgery garb. He buried my gall bladder in the sand, just below the high tide line.


Perhaps TMI regarding gall bladder surgery recovery. Stop here if you wish. (This means you, Dix.)

The disconnect between what the doc says the after effects are and what I learned on 43Things (and seems to be the truth) is fairly broad. He kept saying, "no known post-operation symptoms" and all foods are okay "as tolerated." This is apparently a very subtle real world code for stay close to a bathroom once you start eating again.

Zero appetite. Eating fresh fruits, crackers, and broth.

Cheap Shot - Wednesday 10/24/2007

Out my front door.

This recovery thing is taking longer than I expected. Not easy breezy in any sense. I mean, of course. As Hydra reminds me, I have four holes in my tummy.

Tomorrow I get the staples (aaaah! staples! I saw them! Big sissy Sundry!) and drain (I am not going into this on the blog) out.

Today, it's all I can do to find things that I am willing to eat (no appetite) and to sleep.

And yet.

I think of you.

I stumble to the door and let auto focus take care of the photo of the day.

A martyr to my artyr, huh?

Fire In Acton - Tuesday 10/23/2007

I got up long enough to snap this shot from our back yard, over the neighbor's roof. A little fire flared up, but was quickly doused. Seemed to be done by some of the same fire planes we saw on Sunday, along with helicopters.

Hydra's route to work was closed due to fires on Vasquez Canyon Road, Bouquet Canyon Road, and Sierra Highway, so he stayed home with me again, along with Mom. Nice, really.

Watched some of the coverage of the fires, etc., then gave in to the Vicodin.

Flowers - Monday 10/22/2007

Thanks for the flowers from Tomasina and Braveheart and from my wonderful co-workers. They were delivered in the afternoon. Mom noticed the handy barf bin from the hospital between the bouquets, but we decided to leave the photo as is.

I think I was still feeling the effects of the morphine from the gall bladder operation I had this morning when I took this.

We saw fires in Canyon Country along our drive down the 14 toward the hospital early in the morning. They were moving away from our area. Pretty dramatic lines of orange tracing the hilltops, and smoke lit from below in the otherwise dark. (Arrived at the hospital at 5:15, left by about 1pm, sans gall bladder.)

The Big Scoop - Sunday 10/21/2007

We decided to take Sierra Highway back from our grocery shopping trip to Palmdale today because the wind through the pass on the 14 between us and town was very high. On the way back, we saw this water scooping plane at Lake Palmdale (a reservoir.) It and another plane were taking water to the fires in Agua Dulce and Canyon Country.


Never underestimate the strength of having a good driver/partner if you're getting into photography. Hydra drove us right into the hunting club on the edge of Lake Palmdale even though it said it was for members only. We parked and got out and just stood there waiting for the planes to come back!

I kind of doubt I would have had the nerve to drive in myself.



Agua Dulce and Canyon Country are 10-15 miles west of us. We're watching it on the news right now. Hydra drives right through the area they are talking about burning. Sierra Highway at Vasquez (which is also where our favorite veggie stand is), Plum Canyon, Bouquet Canyon.

Clearly, he wouldn't be going to work tomorrow even if he weren't taking it off to accompany me to the hospital.



Taking off to go help. About a 5-minute turn-around Amazing. As I was writing this, we saw footage of these same scoopers diving low over the flames and dumping their water.

Be careful, guys!

I can't imagine how hard it is for the firefighters and their spouses. All these fires--something like a dozen--started today. If you are hearing about the Santiago Canyon fire in Orange County, that's not near us at all, though Santiago Road, Los Angeles County is.



Back at home, there were several big limbs like this down in the yard. They're about 5 inches wide at the thickest part where they broke.

We saw a big branch down in the neighbor's yard, and Hydra and I thought it might be from our tree. He went over to offer to drag it out (good man!) but it turned out to be from one of their trees.

Now we're watching fire coverage. There was a story on Sixty Minutes about how fires are getting bigger and bigger. One firefighter said that there are no doubters regarding climate change on a wester fire fighting force.

Getty Villa - Saturday 10/20/2007

It was a beautiful day to visit the Getty Villa. It's the "old Getty," which was closed for several years for renovations. Mom and I went to the "new Getty" on something like the 7th day it was open. We'd been here years and years ago. The herb gardens are in much better shape than they were there.


My foot at the center of the universe. Just one of the amazing floors in this reproduction of a villa found buried under ash in Herculanium, Italy.



Detail of a fountain in the east garden. Beautiful colors and patterns.


Detail of one of the trompe l'oiel walls. This is one of those museums where the building is as much of an attraction as the artwork. Which is rather like some of the best European museums.




There's so much attention to detail. Even these electric lamps with Medusa heads molded into their bottoms.

And the displays are of a manageable scope. You can get through the whole thing in a leisurely one and a half to two hour visit and not feel you've rushed or missed anything.



I took this one to show the thin panel of marble behind this statue, which allows light from outside to glow into the room. I remembered this as one of the more magical features of the villa from my last visit maybe 15-20 years ago, but there was no mention of it in the room. I wondered if I'd just dreamed it.

But no, I asked one of the docents, who was delighted to confirm that the sheet of marble here is only about 1 inch thick and that it's lit only by sunlight.


Perhaps my favorite work of art today. If you are lucky enough to visit the family room when there are no kids around, you'll feel comfortable doing as we did and decorating one of the vases that's there.

The figures in the middle of this vase were drawn in by Hydra, who has the advantage of a lot of knowledge of ancient art under his belt. Pretty cool, huh?

My lion was pretty sad. Mom did some nice patterns, but erased hers too quickly!



Cool Thing: We stopped at Patrick's Roadhouse for a bite to eat to kill time before the museum opened. We made great time. It's a fun little place I'd go back to on purpose, especially knowing the history now. The Arnold Swartzenegger chair is no longer pulled up to a table, but that's really okay by me.

World, Meet Larry - Friday 10/19/2007

Larry, meet the world.

I saw this dog hanging out at Priscilla's a few weeks ago, and thought about asking his owner if I could take his picture, but then chickened out.

Not today, though! He and his owner were sitting on the bench next to my car. She'd spilled ice cubes onto the sidewalk for him and he was busily lapping them up. I told her my husband grew up with an English Bulldog and he'd love to see photos of this fine fellow.

She was delighted!

It has amazed me lately how many people are willing to let me take photos of them, their pets, their kids. It's worth asking. I had a nice chat with this woman and we exchanged names. She lives in the neighborhood and is down there again.



Larry likes skateboards. He likes them so much he's learning to ride one himself!


Hey, where'd they go?


Another discovery I've made from taking a photo everyday: If you have a nice camera and are willing to squat in public places people will assume you are legitimate. (You don't even need to back it up with a clipboard, but I'll bet you could get into some amazing places wielding both!)


As I was squatting on the sidewalk, a friend of Larry's owner's came up and was a bit flustered.

"Oh, I'm sorry," he said after having walked up and hugged her. "Are you taking photos?"

"Yes, but it's okay."

"I mean, are you having like a photo shoot?"

Hee hee!

No. But I could be!

And Now for Something Completely Different

{Image from the Internet}

Cool Thing: We'll get back to our regularly scheduled parade of photographs soon. For now, check out this movie my friend Truly made for me. Click here and turn up the volume.

Small Office, Big Hearts - Thursday 10/25/2007

OneL learned this week that she has breast cancer. Damn.

It's Stage One ductal. If you are familiar with these sorts of diagnoses, you know that this was caught early and that this is the very most survivable form.

But treatment still involves surgery, radiation and medication. (No chemo predicted at this point.) It's all scary.

Another coworker put these flowers on her chair for OneL to find in the morning. She even had it downlit a lot like this (recreated with software here.)

Sometimes working in a small company has its downsides, like a bit of career insecurity and having to pick up the slack and work long hours some times. But we do care about the business and our work and each other.

Stormy Bob - Wednesday 10/17/2007

The drizzle was almost gone by the time I took this shot, around 6:30 this morning, on my way out of Big Boy.

Yesterday I woke up at 1 a.m. and got so caught up in the book that was supposed to lull me back to sleep (Water for Elephants by Sara Gruen) that I was reading every last morsel of the author interview at the back when my alarm went off at 3:50.

So I drove down to Burbank but instead of going to Bob's I went and made a little nest on the floor of my office and slept during my usual writing time (5:15-6:30). I really needed it.

Today I was back at Bob's, making notes about the current novel as a whole. I recently wrote a scene that changes things and adds to the stakes and I feel good about it, but am taking Tomasina's advice to figure out where to go next rather than just charging happily forward.

This whole structuring thing is a puzzle. But I guess that's what makes it fun. The bulk of the plot as written during NaNoWriMo 2007 is still ahead of my heroine. Where does the new scene fit in? At the beginning? As back story after the original beginning?

Fall Foods - Tuesday 10/16/2007

I love winter squashes. Last year I found one at Food4Less that was really wonderful. Can't remember the name of it for certain.

All I know is that it is not this squash.

The grower told me it was a kabocha, but I don't think that's correct.

I baked its twin, but it was more like a summer squash inside and became a watery mess. I was looking for something textured like an acorn squash.

I will live to find another interesting and delicious winter squash. I will!

Kettle Detail - Monday 10/15/2007

Me and my tea kettle. Brewing up no trouble. Working from home.

Heading Home - Sunday 10/14/2007

Moi, Rona and Jack heading up to the campsite to settle up for the weekend. Hydra took this shot and a bunch that are better, but I don't like to publish photos of identifiable people.

I handle the reservations and site assignments for our group, and Jack's there to decide with Rona (the camp manager) which four weekends we'll be here in 2008. I love coming to the same place because we're here for the music and the company more than the travel aspect.


BB's chair doesn't know yet that it's almost time to go home.



Because our route home was closed down due to the horrific accident on the South 5, we cut across Santa Clarita and Newhall and passed by the Lombardi Ranch on the way home.

These old vehicles were in the background.

The Day Outside - Saturday 10/13/2007

I spent a lot of the day outside in front of the camper copying panels from Craig Thompson's graphic novel Blankets, which I'd just finished reading. Good story about first love and spiritual crisis.

Oh, and Dodger spent a lot of the day outside, too, on the picnic table beside me.



Glen's an amazing fiddle player. Just makes the thing sing. When I took this shot I thought the inscription on the back of the fiddle was "HOPE" rather than "HOPF" (the maker), but I still like it.

We were standing around a campsite, singing harmonies to songs ranging from tunes from Oh, Brother, Where Art Thou? to "Ba Mir Bist Du Shoen" (Andrews Sisters) type stuff.



Hydra practices in front of our rig. Not sure we'll be able to take it out again this year. Already feeling home-away-from-home sick.

Fillmore, CA - Friday 10/12/2007

Sunrise over the Starbucks parking lot in Fillmore. On Thursday night we joined friends to camp out and make music all weekend. Crept into town early in the morning for coffee and chai tea latte and reading, and watching the locals come and go. Perfect.



Another ice house! I'm pretty sure.


A little girl's sandal in the street in front of the ice house.