Action Footage! - Friday 12/7/2007

As a news photographer, I am definitely lacking in skills.

We were working in our office this afternoon when we heard hooting and honking. Lookit! The WGA right outside my window.

Well, almost.

It's actually at the corner of Pass & Riverside, which is very near.

Interesting, as we were just heading into our weekly meeting to discuss just how much work is left to do. Not much.

Oddly, this morning was quite fun at Bob's Big Boy. One of the Three Musketeers was there when I arrived! I'm usually there before him, so I had to give him a little bit of a hard time. He told me his name and a nice little story and the names of the other two Musketeers. T, N and H.

I had a printout about Bott's Dots for them because yesterday they asked what I thought those road bumps were called. I thought Bop Dots. I was wrong. T said he and his daughter always call them Road Braille. LOL.

Weens Sure Has a Nice Pear - Thursday 12/6/2007 BONUS!

Weens' hands are small, true-- But this is a whopping big Korean pear. It was like fishes and loaves when she cut it up to share around the office. Everyone left satisfied.

Tastes like a cross between a pear and jicama, if you ask me.



This amazing cloud was hovering over the horizon as I drove home last night. So glad I carry my camera everywhere!


I pulled off Sierra Highway by Agua Dulce Vineyards to get these shots.


Just another view. Just a few months ago Mom and I were looking over the vineyards of Champagne. Sigh.

My Reason for Living - Thursday 12/6/2007

In an effort to maintain my status as a viable contributing member of society, I am transcribing my entire card file of fictional business and product names into a searchable WordPerfect file.

The television series that I work with all shut down weeks ago. The movie I'm working on isn't producing a lot of requests (no rewrites, for one thing.) I've been helping out co-workers most of the week.

And working on adding all my precious information to the document OneL created over the course of several months, from her card file. It'll be helpful for all of us.

Today when I started I was up to "cemeteries." Hmm.

Meanwhile, the little bits of information leaking out about the WGA strike negotiations are not terribly encouraging. Those pesky writers actually want to talk about all kinds of issues, not just a few. Based on what happened in 1988, they'd better do just this; get it all on the table because the AMPTP has proven that it takes drastic action to get issues like reality television writing, etc., discussed.

Nikki Finke's Deadline Hollywood Daily is a pretty good source for level-headed reporting on the strike. I forgive her for jumping the gun last week with optimism and practically reporting that the strike was over.

Remember "Dewey Defeats Truman!" my darling.

My Lunch - Wednesday 12/5/2007

Truth be told, it also involves a piece of pain rustique (bread), a small amount of Asiago cheese and a toaster oven.

Avocados are only a buck at the grocery store right now!

Holiday Bob - Tuesday 12/4/2007

Large festive balls hang threateningly over my table.

"Write about us," they whisper, "Write about Bob's Big Boy and the fascinating array of waiters, waitresses, regulars and novices. You know you want to."

I refer to my notebook, hunch over my keyboard and try to focus on the scene I'm working on. I know what I want to accomplish in it, it's just a manner of concentrating.

It's a party scene. Hey, maybe it's a Christmas party. Maybe there are gigantic decorations hanging threateningly over the heads of the revelers.



Maybe our eccentric antagonist has decorated his home like a fifties diner, complete with happy statues!

Naw.

Scratch that.

Dodger Takes a Bow - Monday 12/3/2007

He's pretty proud of himself for helping me in my first foray into YouTube broadcasting.

This morning The American in Toronto sent me a link to the following WGA Strike video.




And I-- Well, Dodger and I were moved to respond to this call to arms, which involves animals refusing to be cute on YouTube until the strike is over.

I would just like to note before you watch this that we just shampooed the carpet in anticipation of hosting Christmas and the house is torn up because I have today off (one of my part-time layoff days due to the strike) and I am deep cleaning. Which always involves random boxes, etc.

Okay. Now you can watch this video of Dodger not being cute. That's Charanga Cakewalk's Loteria de la Cumbia Lounge CD playing in the background.

The Tee Shirt Project - Part Two - Sunday 12/2/2007

Isn't this cheery? I'm not letting go of this one yet. It's one of my favorites to do yard work in. Given to me by a coworker/friend shortly after we brought Dodger home. Of course, he's a much more somberly colored bird, but his spirit is definitely this bright.


Mona! Hydra gave me this tee shirt a few years ago. I love Mona because she is at once high art and high kitch. I have a Mona Lisa soap dispenser, a Mona Lisa salt & pepper set, etc.


From the first year Hydra and I particpated in the Revlon Run/Walk for women's cancers. At the time we were supporting DeeKay and remembering Hydra's mother. By the next year I'd be walking for Gia. This coming May, sadly, we'll have more names to add to our support list.

It was very emotional walking into the L.A. Memorial Coliseum for the first time. Being serenaded byJapanese drummers into the tunnel and then emerging onto the playing field, which has been in use since 1923.




From The Museum of Jurassic Technology, a truly odd museum on the west side of Los Angeles. I think I have to go back as I'm still not entirely sure what happened to me there. Worth a look if you are interested in unique experiences.



Yeah, I have a tee shirt from my new home town, Acton. This is how the town likes to see itself. I like it too.

This project suggests many more projects! The Mug Project. The Matchbook Project.

Stay tuned, Clutterbusters!

Jungle Tub - Saturday 12/01/2007

Decided that the plants had to be moved in off the front porch for the winter. It's been getting down to around 32 degrees at night.

About half of these are cuttings taken from Braveheart's yard. I lost a lot of plants last year because I didn't move fast enough and she gave me lots of starts.

Good thing I'm not much of a bath person. (And we have another deeper tub in the guest bathroom.)



Cool Thing: This amazing database of bird photographs and calls at the Cornell Lab of Ornithology! I just identified the beautiful song that's being sung outside my window this morning as that of a White Crowned Sparrow. (If you go, you can hear a sample for yourself.)

The Tee Shirt Project - Friday 11/30/2007

Tee shirt from the now-discontinued Art of the Wild workshop at Squaw Valley. What an amazing week that was. Very empowering workshops and panels, and I took a raft tour of the Truckee River with a geology prof from UC Davis for my field trip day.

I'm taking the advice of this show I used to watch on BBC America, where an organization specialist went to people's homes and helped them get rid of their clutter. It usually had to do with emotional attachments to stuff not because of the items themselves, but the memories they held.

So. Today I start taking photographs of my tee shirts so that I can keep the image and the memory in a little photo album instead of filling up my wardrobe. Some of them have the collars cut out of them (because they're more comfy for working out, not because they are actually from the eighties) or are stained and can't be donated. A few I'll keep, and some I'll give away.




From the first L.A. Times Festival of Books. I went to the first three. They didn't expect a big turnout the first year, but 50,000 people showed up. Was this the year I saw Charlton Heston read from Hemingway and the Bible on an outdoor stage with no reservation needed? Or maybe the next year. Whatever his politics and talents, that was a very interesting reading.



Yeah, I worked at the UCLA Engineering & Math Sciences library during the Northridge Quake. If there had been people in the stacks, there would have been deaths. When I finally went in to work a week later, we reshelved books that had fallen into the spaces between shelves three feet deep. Mostly bound journals. Very heavy.



I didn't realize that Wolf Lake was Noble County's oldest town till I saw this. This was the closest town to us when I grew up (still is to my Mom), about 5 miles away and about 150 people strong. My dad owned and operated a service station there with his brother. I won a dance contest at this festival in 1978. Boogie down!



I was working at UCLA's Rosenfeld Management Library when it moved from the old building to the new. We moved the rare books from Special Collections across campus on hand trucks. This was the last place I worked at UCLA. During most of my lunches I went to the pool in the Women's Gym nearby and swim. That and discovering the Fowler Museum next door are my two fondest memories of that job.