I Am Not Stealing This - Thursday 3/29/2007

I am just borrowing it.

It's the little container the milk for my oatmeal comes in at Bob's. For reasons I can't divulge due to national security issues, I need to know if it actually holds 2 ounces.

I know that I am only borrowing it. I will take it back.

But.

I go through an elaborate series of moves to get it into my purse, because just the thought of being caught stealing something makes me sweat. So I move it behind my tea pot, then bring up my wallet, and pick up the container in the same hand and--checking to make sure that neither the Three Musketeers nor a server are looking--sweep it into my purse.

Satisfied that I have been successful in my little ruse, I turn to get out of the booth and find the fellow sitting in the booth across the aisle and behind me smiling.

"Good morning," I say.

"Morning," he says, nodding.

I'd forgotten all about him. Random people just sometimes come into my restaurant and sit anywhere they want, willy-nilly.

Snoopy buggers.

Big Boy Update - Wednesday 3/28/2007

My laptop bag rides shotgun.

D came back to work, but he's not talking. He came in and Grumps asked him where he'd been.

"I was playing. Playing, man."

"I heard you were called up."

"I was on vacation. You've heard of that, right?"

A couple of days later, Grumps told me that E, the waitress, had ticked him off so he's not coming back. She complained about where he sits because she doesn't want to walk so far with hot water refills for his tea.

"I don't need that. I can get that at home."

So he hasn't been in since Monday. D said he should have told Grumps that E has Wednesdays off.

I joked that if Grumps does come in, we'll have to tell him that E was all upset, practically crying, wondering where he was and if he was okay.

D laughed.

Nobody would buy that story for a minute!

Under the Weather Front - Tuesday 3/27/2007

It was a wild and wooley afternoon in Toluca Lake today! I took this shot out my office window at about 1:45 this afternoon. The sky to the north was stormy, but the building across the street was reflecting the beautiful day to the south!

A few minutes later, the twain met and we had a brief period of very high winds during which I felt compelled to go around to all the offices vocally recreating the Wicked Witch's Theme from The Wizard of Oz.

Just imagine Margaret Hamilton riding a bicycle through the air and you'll hear the song in your head. Dum-da Dum-da Da-da, da-da, da-da!

One Hollow Pig - Monday 3/26/2007

Last night I emptied my piggy bank. I'm going to take its innards to a CoinStar machine and get an Amazon.com gift card or something. All that's left inside are a Kennedy fifty cent piece, a Susan B. Anthony dollar, a couple of old video game tokens and an L.A. MTA bus token.

There was a space left on the mantel from some removed Christmas decoration, I suppose. I think the pig looks nice there next to the Dia de los Muertos figures and the little theater front model.

That model was made my my tech theater prof, Stewart Sweet for a competition for artwork to hang on the walls of the Performing Arts Center in Fort Wayne. I thought his submission should have won. They were to be larger scale models of the historic theaters of the city.

What we got instead was a sort of abstract clump of metal entitled "Thespian Angel Ascending."

You can imagine the jokes amongst the theater crowd.

A Contribution! - Sunday 3/26/2007

My friend FingerstotheBone sent me this photo some time ago, but I think since I just took a photo of the e-mail it counts as today's picture. I received her cute Year of the Pig New Year's card in the mail yesterday and it jogged my cramped memory! (Thanks!!)

Okay, the whole concept of cat toothpaste is funny. Not so much that kitty might need her teeth cleaned, but that some poor soul has to find a way to actually perform such an unnatural act!

Does it come with kitty soft restraints, I wonder? A clever hammock-cum-four-legged- straightjacket?

I mean, it's hard enough to trim Dodger's toenails and he only has two feet and a fully opposible head.

So...any stories from the trenches on this one? Did you actually brush your cat's teeth? Can the patterns in the scratches on your arms be read like tea leaves?

Tunnel, Light - Saturday 3/24/2007

Hydra and I took Soledad Canyon on our way back from running errands in Santa Clarita and Valencia. For obvious reasons, I never get to photograph this cool tunnel, built in 1953, when I am driving myself.

Fiddlers on the Roof - Friday 3/23/2007

Hydra and I went for a hike in the afternoon. We went straight up his mountain and then around the whole neighborhood. We find it impossible to pass up the opportunity to perform our own private shadow play.


Remains of a yucca.

I found it interesting that many of the junipers that were in the midst of the fire look almost untouched. When I touched one, though, the needles crumbled between my fingers. There were still-live parts of the trees, but a lot of the branches had been completely dried out.



Apparently the ground squirrels were able to dig down and survive the quickly passing flames, which probably didn't have time to heat the ground too much. This looked freshly dug.