Weird Cloud - Saturday 6/6/2009

No, Weird Cloud is not my Native American name, thank you very much.

It's this thing that was hovering over Palmdale on Saturday morning. I'm pretty sure this formation is caused by a lee wave. If you Google "lee wave" and click on Images, you get photos of things that look like this.

The View From Behind the Band - Friday 6/5/2009

We were invited to lead a Songmakers hoot on Friday night! It's a fun responsibility and honestly an honor to be invited to lead a hoot. Basically, all we had to do was open the evening with a song (in this case On the Road Again) and make sure everyone gets a turn to play and/or sing.

Kat's singing. Bobbie, Kay, Jim and Nina (clockwise in the background).


Frank takes a break on the dobro. Terry rests and listens behind him.

I don't have the energy to make up nicknames for everyone, and there are no innocents to protect here.



Except maybe Hydra.



Joel dreams up another witty remark.


Barry!


The very cool way that Barry adds some shimmer to his cymbals. We seldom have a drummer at a hoot, and he's really great at reading the tone of each song and adding the right amount of percussion.

What We Have Here is a Failure to Communicate - Thursday 6/4/2009

So I went for my fancy-schmanzy haircut in WeHo on Thursday. It was a lot of fun, and the stylist was very sweet and entertaining. He's in town for a couple of days, but is in the middle of taking care of the Divine Miss M during her current run in Las Vegas.

Yes, the last person before me whose hair he styled was Bette Middler. So that makes us sisters under the follicales or something, doesn't it?

All I know is, I can't stop humming "Boogie Woogie Bugle Boy."



The before shot, in which I consider myself a blank canvas, ready to be transformed into a sophisticated woman-about-town ala--- I don't know, New Yorker cover art?



The after shot, which frankly doesn't look much different to me. The way he blow dryed it, it had a lot of bounce and curled up at the bottom.

Do you think I am ever going to be able to get it to do anything remotely like this again? Forecast is very iffy on that one.

I ended a twenty-minute bout with a curl brush and blow dryer in tears the other morning. It just wasn't happening. I was so frustrated and upset.

"Jeez, it's just hair," you're thinking, right? Well, it's just hair and I'm going to my 30th high school reunion in a couple of weeks. And you know, this cut was supposed to take 10 years and 20 pounds off my face.

I spent a few days moaning about this to anyone who would listen, thinking that what I should have said was, "Give me the most flattering haircut you can and I will make it work," instead of the more subtle, "I won't cry if you cut my hair short." I think when he asked why I let it grow out and I said to make it easy at the gym, he decided not to take much length off.

Please note that objects in foreground appear larger
than is actually flattering

I've been feeling like I blew my chance to get something different and exciting. But you know, this fellow deals with a lot of high-maintenance clients whose long hair is part of their careers. So he can probably do without the drama of a too-short cut.

Besides which, if I can't make his most simple cut work, how would I have fared with the makeover cut I had vaguely in mind?

As Los Angelista advised, I could go back and ask him to fix it. But you know, there is no chance I'll be spending $200 to see him again. And he's out of town for the next few weeks, tending to The Divine ( I feel I can call her that now).

So this morning (a few days later still) I wet it and let it go. He said the cut would release the curls if I decided not to blow dry.

This is my naturally wavy self. Maybe I should woman-up and just go with the natural thing my hair wants to do and fashion be damned.

Sigh.

Moove Over! - Wednesday 6/3/2009

My Moo Cards arrived today! Even the packaging is fabulous.

I found out about these at the Toma Leche blogger event when Los Angelista pulled hers out and we all oohed and ahhed and chose our favorite design.




These are about half the size of a traditional business card but more sturdy, and they come packed in a nice little plastic box. I ordered the small orange card holder, too.



What's really cool is that you can order up to 100 different designs in a pack of 100 cards. You can use the nifty designs they offer on the site, or you can upload your own photos and crop them to fit on the cards.

I used my own photos and I really like the way they turned out. I used 14 different images. My contact info is on the back. Just my email address and my blog address. I can write my telephone number on it if I decide I want to.

If you're interested in getting your own Moo cards, email me for a discount code!

Dinner, Again - Monday 6/1/2009

Cooked up the last of the garbanzo beans. Steamed them and added a little very good olive oil. Wonderful farmer's market tomatoes and fresh basil. Fresh baby artichokes sauteed with onions and garlic and topped with a little Parmesan cheese.

I found the recipe for the baby artichokes at Simply Recipes. I'd never used fresh baby artichokes before. It does take a while to clean these, but they don't have well-developed chokes, so you can just eat the whole trimmed artichokes.

I love artichokes, really I do.

Hydra's Heights and Fresh Garbanzos. - Sunday 5/31/2009

So of course, the first time I decide not to accompany Hydra on his hike, he goes and scales his mountain! That's him waving his crutch above his head after calling me on the cell phone to alert me to his feat.

Boys cannot be trusted!



Tomato and artichoke progress, just so you know.


I just heard Evan Kleiman sing the praises of fresh garbanzo beans on Good Food recently, and what should I find at my local Vallarta market?

The very thing I was looking for!



There are 1-2 beans per pod. Usually one.

They aren't beige. They're green!


See them in there? They're yummy fresh or steamed and drizzled with some good olive oil. On the radio, they said that people roast them over grills.

The pods are fairly tender, but not tender enough to eat. Not bad shelling... I pressed on them till they popped open like little balloons and then took out the beans.

Floral Derangement - Saturday 5/30/2009

I finally planted the rose bush we bought last weekend in the planter Hydra built when he built the wall a few years ago. Wow, it's a gorgeous color, huh?



African Daisies on the street side of the house. One of the plants died. Why? There was enough water. Sigh.


The star jasmine smells great.

Right about here, I got some sort of gunk on the lens. Boo!



The moon bird feeder.

Sun birds also welcome.


What a lovely profusion of star jasmine, huh?

Beep! Beep! - Friday 5/29/2009

This roadrunner brought to you courtesy of my Nikon D80. This has been much-cropped.

Maybe because it happens so rarely, I always feel that it's great good fortune to see a roadrunner. It might even be a good omen.




Hydra on the trail again. Good man! See the road runner at about 5 o'clock?



Elusive... He's the V in the grass.



Baby toys where they shouldn't be. I have this thing about lost things.



This lost feather is not as out of place.

Hydra Hits the Trail! - Thursday 5/28/2009

Look at that intrepid explorer! Just 10 days after surgery to repair that meniscus tear (Ooh! Look, ma! No spellchecker!), he's on the trail again. They write songs about stuff like this!


Admittedly, the going was about half of our usual pace, but really really good for a guy who had a camera and a knife in his knee joint so recently! Beautiful day for it.


Around the far side of the neighborhood... Is that fire road looking a little long to anyone else?



As I was taking photos of these cactus flowers, bees kept diving into them and burying their faces in the middle. Can you see the one that took a header into this bloom?


Oleanders down by the mailboxes.


The neighbor's coreopsis. The neighborhood is lit up with flowers these days!


We arrived home to discover ground squirrels nibbling on the tender cucumber sprouts I planted. And this container has herbs in it that I started from seed. Herb soup. Sigh. Hopefully I saved some of them.



Found about six ounces of beef in the freezer and used up the carrots, celery and some of the red potatoes making this soup. Also called in the help of Better Than Boullion to flesh out the soup, so to speak. Used fresh thyme and mint for seasoning.

Hint: When using fresh herbs that have stems in soups and stews, don't bother nipping off all the leaves. Just put the whole sprig in the soup. The leaves will cook off and you can easily pull out the stems before serving.

Field Trip to San Gabriel - Wednesday 5/27/2009

Oh, the things I do in service of my writing. I mean, really, it takes a lot of commitment and research to write a blog. This is part of the wonderful Vietnamese meal Braveheart, Antipasta and I shared today. We wrapped these meats and veggies in rice paper and dipped them in various dips. Yummy!

Wish I knew what the name of the restaurant was. It was on Valley Boulevard in San Gabriel and "pho" was part of it. If you've been to San Gabriel, you'll know that this doesn't help much.

Before this, Braveheart and Antipasta introduced me to Chinese-Style Herbal Foot Soak! I'd never even heard of this, but Valley Boulevard in San Gabriel is packed with foot soak/massage places... and noodle houses. A little bit of heaven!

We went to a place called China Tibet Foot Soak, where we sat in big reclyners. The attendents brought out big wooden buckets filled with very hot water laced with fragrent herbs. I put my feet on a little platform in the bucket, the massuesse put a towel over my legs and the bucket, and I steamed for a while. Really hot!

Then cold water was poured into the hot water until it was tolerable to soak in and I soaked a while. Although Antipasta said last time she was there, the television was on, it was nice and quiet today.

I had my first professional reflexology foot massage. (I think my brother, Texaco, tried to give me one a long time ago after he came home to Indiana from Vietnam or California, but I'm pretty sure it tickled too much to be effective.)

When my massuesse started pounding on my legs but Antipasta and Braveheart's weren't doing it yet, I almost laughed out loud. It just seemed too funny that one person could get really rough treatment and the others not. But sure enough, they both got a drubbing too!

It was really really intense, but I decided to let her do it as vigorously as she wanted to, to see what the experience would be like, and to let the reflexology work if it works. It wasn't very relaxing because it was pretty much painful. Next time I'll forgo the intensity and just get a nice wimpy foot rub.

Next was the neck and back rub, which was terrific. A person can really whale on my back and I love it.

All this took about an hour and 45 minutes and cost only $35.

Braveheart pointed out a place where you can get the same treatment for $15!



This one's for you Boise. Even though it's blurry, it's the best shot I could get of an L.A. kook on the move. Can you see this?

It's a guy riding his motorcycle on the transition from the 5 to the 14 at sundown, wearing a leather top hat and carrying a big white German shepherd on his lap.

Yeah, that's right, a big white dog. Who didn't look very comfortable, and who kept shifting back and forth, making the bike wobble beneath them both.

I was about to call the police on them when they exited the freeway. It's really not fair to the dog or to the people that might have the terrible experience of running over either of these fellows.

Photos I Missed - Tuesday 5/26/2009

This detail from the door of Our Lady of Los Angeles Cathedral is brought to you by the two photographs I didn't take today:

Belongings

Four rounded bags of cloth and who knows what else rested on the sidewalk outside the Studio City Branch of the LAPL. The muted grays and blues were terrific together, small holes providing accents in lighter tones.

I almost went back to the car for my camera, but decided they would still be there when I got back. They were, but their owner was also there, and I didn’t want to bother him. I can’t imagine how he carried them. There wasn’t a cart in sight.

Out Patient

As I drove by about a block from Kaiser-Permanente Hospital in Panorama City, a 30-something man in a blue hospital gown crossed the street in front of my car with a bottle of soda in his hand. The wind rippled through the split in his gown and his flip-flops slapped the pavement as he headed back to the medical facility.

Wonder what he was in for.

How to Become a Redneck in 4 1/2 Hours - Monday 5/25/2009

A) Put your hair up in a ponytail.

B) Go out and do a bunch of yard work on a sunny day and remember to put sunscreen everywhere but the back of your neck.

I don't know why it always seems to take me till the end of a long weekend to think of starting a physically demanding project, but it often does. I decided to tear out the two rose bushes at the far end of my herb garden. They were here when we moved in and I've never liked them.

The blooms aren't particularly pretty, only last a couple of days on the bush, and can't be cut and brought inside-- all the petals fall off.

The first one came out pretty easily, but look at the trunk on this guy! It was something else digging this out.

There were 1-2 inch think roots running all through that end of the garden and even down to the end closest to the back door. It was a lot more work than I expected. I started at 9:30 in the morning and finished getting the roots out, digging in garden soil and planting until a little after 2pm. Don't know about you, but when I get started on something like this, I have a hard time stopping till it's really done.




I did pause, though, once I finished wrestling with the roots, to clip a little fresh sage, rosemary and thyme and put a pork tenderloin in the oven. I was working up an appetite!


I thought I took more photos of the progress. This is after I added in the fresh topsoil.

Man, I had a lot of clean up to do. I'd had most of the tools out of the shed to work on those roots: shovel, trowel, long-handled and short-handled garden forks, small leaf rake, hoe, edger (which didn't really work), flat blade shovel, long handled clippers, hand clippers.

Every time I went into the house for water I realized just how aerobic my efforts were. I had to catch my breath in order to drink. I kept thinking about my pal Los Angelista who was running the L.A. Marathon today (so exciting!) I think I would have felt about as beat up if I'd tried to run the first three miles with her!



See the rainbow in the sprinkler water?

I didn't mind getting wet while adjusting the sprinkler heads. Whew!

All the herbs are in! Good sized parsley, sage and thyme (I never knew how good thyme was till I started growing my own and using it.) Small chives, parsley and basil (I think) that I started from seed are in the little planter.

I also planted three cucumbers that I started from seed. I'm not sure any of them will take. They look really tender and vulnerable, and it gets pretty hot out there. K warns that they take a lot of space, so I guess if only one survives, I'll be okay!

Still didn't get the new red rose bush or the lavender in. I'm not sure where I want to put them!

And I think I want to get some of those stacking brick colored blocks to put around the edges of the herb bed. Or at least dig the bricks that line it out of the grass.

Sundry to Hydra: You got your grass on my dirt!

Hydra to Sundry: You got your dirt on my grass!

Not exactly a Reeses Cup.

Great day. I feel accomplished.

And tired.

Talkin' 'Bout the Car Wash - Sunday 5/24/2009

Zen and the art of getting your car washed.

Me stuck for three minutes with no camera. Had to resort to the camera on my cell phone.


Psychedelic!



It's kind of peaceful in here. I could get used to this...

Daytripping - Saturday 5/23/2009

Cornpop has his own ideas about percussion, and he fits in fine. He makes this thing sing! You can catch him at Arnie's Cafe in Tujunga this Friday night, the 29th.

Usually Hydra and I go camping with our Songmakers friends over Memorial Day Weekend, but since Hydra had that knee surgery it just seemed like we'd be pushing our luck to have him going in and out of the travel trailer with it's high steps and his crutches. So we were daytrippers today.

The weather was perfect. We hung out under a big live oak tree most of the day. Broke for ice cream, reconvened for more music. Yes!



I've always been amazed at the way our friend Fireside makes his fingers dance over the strings of his guitar. An amazing talent!

Do You Frittata? - Friday 5/22/2009

I've been making what I called frittatas for a while, but they were just basically open-faced omelets. What's the difference? You actually finish a frittata in the oven.

Wow, was this easy and delicious! Five eggs scrambled in a cast iron skillet started on the stove top and cooked until almost done but still a little runny on top. I had a mixture of tomatoes, artichoke hearts and garlic leftover from last night's pasta, so I topped it with that and some string cheese (the only mild cheese I had on hand) and Parmesan cheese. Popped it under the broiler for a few minutes until the eggs set.

Served with fresh coffee, toast and the rhubarb preserves I made yesterday.

Mmm, it's nice to have time off during the week!