Across Town - Monday 2/23/3009

The other building at the corner of Hollywood & Highland. It has gargoyles.

I have to make a special trip to get good shots of those. Maybe with the right lens, from the balcony of the shopping mall across the street. These photos were all taken with my Samsung cell phone camera.

The Academy Awards show was done about a half a block from here last night.


Barrels of olives at Monsieur Marcel, Farmer's Market at 3rd & Fairfax.


Samples of the teas I bought at the tea shop in the Farmer's Market, on Braveheart's windowsill. I'm leaving them for The Doc to try. A Keemun, a Yunnan and a Lapsong Suchong.


Hanging out in the kitchen while Braveheart takes The Doc to the airport under sad circumstances. After years of staying here after our bi-weekly writer's group meetings, I am very comfortable.

As you can see.

Opiate of the Masses - Saturday 2/21/2009

Hmm. Funny that I've been letting my suspicions show about TV lately and then I used it as the opiate that it is.

My friend Diver started me calling negative thoughts "neglies" way back in high school.

This morning the neglies, they were tap dancing on my head. It was 1 a.m. and one was clicking out, "You haven't accomplished what you'd hoped you would by now," while another ticked out a counterpoint of "you are always busy, but you are just spinning your wheels."

Tappity tappity. No sleeping through that.

I got up and splashed cold water on my face, drank a glass of it, and climbed back into bed. The dancing didn't stop, though.

So Hydra suggested we watch some TV. I probably would have gone for whatever was on Turner Classic Movies, but come to think of it a 30s musical probably wasn't the best idea. We watched a couple of episodes of Inside the Actors Studio. Nice of him to get up with me, huh?

Thanks, James.

Digital Revolution - Friday 2/20/2009

Just hooked up the digital to analog converter box to the TV on my desk at work. Wow, there are 4 PBS stations. Four substations of the local NBC station.

The big switchover was supposed to happen on February 17th, but the federal government pushed the date back to June or July.

Why are they so worried about keeping our televisions on? Scared of what we'd start thinking about if we weren't zoned out every night?

Step Away from the Treat - Thursday 2/19/2009

Really.

This popcorn heart does not remotely concern you.

Ansel Adams, Eat Your Heart Out - Wednesday 2/18/2009

They say Ansel Adams sat for hours in remote places to get his amazing photographs.



I'm really not saying that I'm anywhere near as good as he was, but I am lucky to have great subject matter right outside my house.

Cheesy! - Sunday 2/15/2009

The incredibly dense mac & cheese I made for the potluck after the Songmakers Roundup. I can't have this kind of food in my house. It plays into all my weaknesses.

Hydra sang lead on "Luckenbach, Texas" while I did harmonies. We had an amazing bunch of bona fide talent up there with us.

Restoration Photograph Part Two - Saturday 1/14/2009

Most of the daylight hours today were spent scanning and fixing photos. Well, we did run errands, and I did have my hair cut and styled, and we did go to a hoot and sing some songs with our friends in the evening....really great evening!

Anyway, this is me with my first posse. Pops and the Sibs. Great back-up group. Lots of harmonies.

Trikegirl...Coming through!



Riding solo at eleven. What a great summer. The only downside was that Ginger had to run alongside rather than ride uptop with me.

Starboy was a real stinker, and threw me off again and again. But I rode him around bareback as much as possible. Only had him one summer, but oh what a great time that was.



Sometimes groups wear me out. I put this photo up on Facebook. I've stayed in contact with one of these girls continuously ever since (Diver, in the lower left corner) and have reconnect with two others on Facebook recently.

It's nice to have roots.


Fooling around with the timer on a Polaroid camera in 1981. (Do you love the measuring tape shoe laces?) Texaco was already living in California.

My family makes me laugh.

Everyone says I look like my Mom and I take it as a compliment, you bet. I wish I looked as good at all our ages as she does!

Poetry in Motion - Friday 2/13/2009

As I left Priscilla's with my coffee this morning I noticed a flier for their upcoming poetry reading. A note at the bottom urged open mic readers to honor the wishes of the coffee house that will provide them a stage by abstaining from profanity or graphically sexual language.

My first thought was, "Wow, poetry ain't what it used to be."

But by the time I got upstairs and pulled this book off one of the shelves in the office, I'd realized that poets have been pushing the boundaries for a long long time. (See: Walt Whitman's "I Sing the Body Electric".)

Wonder what racy stuff Homer wrote when he wasn't working on "The Iliad" and "The Odyssey."





Oh, and it snowed in SoCal again!

I drove home around noon so I was able to see it fall in big fluffy flakes. It coated the hillsides in a little over an hour .

Hydra's van pool was stopped on Sierra Highway on the way home, but make it through okay. He'd left the Tahoe parked by the pick-up point, so when he got home, he brushed snow off of it before putting it in the garage.

Restoration Photograph - Thursday 2/12/2009

Started playing around with my scanner and software this evening. This shows just the preliminary difference between the original faded photo and the partially restored one.



I can clean up that border, for instance. This is my brother The Brain, his new car, and our dog Ginger.

Ginger. She was seriously one of my best friends growing up. When we swam out into the lake, she'd eventually get upset about us being so far away and swim out to us.

I used to ride around on my Huffy dirt bike with her on my lap. She listened to everything I had to say. She slept with me at night (sorry, Mom.)

I still get choked up seeing her picture. She was a great friend.



Just had to throw in this idyllic shot of chubby baby me. Cue "Blue Skies!"

Weens's Flowers - Wednesday 2/11/2008

Someone sent Weens a bouquet of tulips.

Who, Weens?

Who?

After the Rain - Monday 2/9/2009

I am pretty sure that I had a clear idea of why I wanted to take a photo of my coffee when I was doing it, but I can't for the life of me imagine why now.

As I was taking this shot outside the Studio City branch of the LAPL, a guy waiting for the light on Laurel Canyon hollered out, "Don't for get to take it off!"

Not so many years ago I would have assumed this was a double--or maybe even a single--entendre.

Today I recognized it for the simple kindness it was, a nice man not wanting me to forget the cup until I heard it crack on the pavement behind me. I waved and nodded, and stopped myself from saying, "I'm actually pretty focused on it."

Ha ha.



The Facebook Photography Contest this week was "Skyline." It was a gorgeous day for it, the rain and hail having scrubbed the air. I pulled off of Laurel Canyon and drove up Selma Avenue into the Hollywood Hills to get this obstructed view. Too late to enter the contest, but here you are.


It's writing group night! Yay!

Clearly the animals at Braveheart's house are deeply unnerved by my presence.

In my experience, domesticated animals have an uncanny memories when it comes to people with the right length of fingernails who are willing to use them on haunches and bellies.

Prep Day - Sunday 2/8/2008

Hydra boils eggs for the week ahead.

We rehearsed Luckenbach Texas with some friends today for a little single-song performance next Sunday. Fun!

Friday Night Lights - Friday 2/6/2009

After having our taxes done by a great guy in Glendale, we waded up the freeway to The Granville in Burbank for dinner. It was quite lovely to sit in the bar area looking out at the pouring rain.


I tried the famous berry mojito, which was delicious. Muddled mint, white rum and blackberries. I would say that with the creation of this cocktail we, as a species, have arrived.


Hydra had a burger that was mounded with bacon and mushrooms, which was apparently fab. I had the seared ahi over smoked Gruyere with basil and pine nuts and an order of the rosemary and sea salt french fries which we started with as an appetizer. The Granville is famous for its yummy sweet potato fries, but I was in the mood for my favorite tuber.

We launched the Tahoe back into the river that was the 5 freeway and navigated over to Northridge for a hoot. Yeah, as in hootenanny.

It was a very relaxing evening. Sometimes more than 40 people show up to take a turn singing and playing a song and singing along with others. There were maybe half as many last night, so we had plenty of time to practice singing "Sue City Sue" a couple of times before calling a member of our group who has been battling depression and singing it for him over the phone. It's his kind of song.

Hydra sang "(Looking for) The Heart of Saturday Night," with which I harmonized. He backed me up on "Just the Other Side of Nowhere." The hoot host and I were sitting in the back finding harmonies to other people's songs and she invited to join her on "Across the Great Divide."

The musical equivalent of a three dog night? Three great songs, anyway.

Beauty Shot - Saturday 2/7/2009

Just the handsomest, smartest parrot on the planet. And he's feeling it today.

Since joining 24 Hour Fitness, I don't work out with DVDs at home very much. But the other night I wanted to get home before the rain, so I fell back on The Firm : Time Crunch. (45 minutes of aerobics and weights.)

As soon as I put the disc in the player, this little guy--who was sitting on top of his cage in the bedroom--starts up with the sound effects, "oof," "umph," "erghhh."

Hey, I don't sound like that!

When he got bored and started exploring the bed and nightstand behind me, I put him in his "house."

As I'm working through my crunches I hear, in a most plaintive voice, "I love you soooo good."

Unlike how I love him. Which is clearly deficient if I am willing to let him sit in his cage at all when I'm home.

I remember having pets that couldn't talk. I always assumed they admired me.

How to Improve Your Esteem for Your Own Writing In One Lesson - Thursday 2/5/2009

Accidentally leave your notebook on the seat of a chair in a coffee house.

All those pages you thought were drivel will instantly be transformed into some of the best writing you've ever done in. your. life.

For Extra Credit : If it's still there when you get back, take the time to transcribe those pages into your computer.

Field Trip! Clifton's Cafeteria - Wednesday 2/4/2009

OneL and I have been vowing for more than a year to go to Clifton's Brookdale Cafeteria in downtown L.A. for lunch. Today there was a story about it in the Los Angeles Times, and we both had a gap in our schedules, so we went!

It was meant to be. After passing several parking lots that charged $4.00 an hour with a maximum of $14-18, we found an open parking meter. After scrambling for coins, I put in a nickel and it read FAIL. Aaah! Called the parking authority to report the broken meter, and she confirmed that as long as it said FAIL we would get a ticket. Score! Free parking!

It was so impromptu that I was sans camera. Well, actually, I had my Cannon A560 backpack camera with me, but it's apparently dead dead dead now, so these were taken with my cell phone.

Boy 1.3 mp photos sure upload faster than 10 mp ones!


The cool terrazzo sidewalk on the way into the cafeteria.



When this place was built in 1931, City Hall was the tallest building in Los Angeles.



There's always room for Jello!


It's a lot smaller inside than I'd realized. OneL and I sat in the balcony at table whose top was a crossection of a redwood. Another crossection downstairs is labeled 1400 years old.

Next time I want to sit at one of these terrace tables.

Clifton's was built to give downtowners a sense of being in the woods. I'm thinking that Walt Disney must have eaten here more than a few times and carried away with him some of the inspiration for Disneyland...especially Bear Country Jamboree.


The moose has a calming effect on the diners.

What did we have? OneL had mac & cheese (amazing) which she shared with me. I had fried pollack which instantly took me back to the amazing fish sandwiches we used to get at Azar's Big Boy in Fort Wayne when I was a kid. Also fresh strawberry pie. And a side of spinach, which I accidentally doused in soy sauce. Why in the world Clifton's has soy sauce is beyond me. I thought it was red wine vinegar. Sigh.

If you go, go after 5pm or on the weekend, when you can find plenty of flat-rate parking for $4.00-5.00.

If you have time, click on the Los Angeles Times reference in the first paragraph and read the article about the history of Clifton's Cafeterias. They've done a lot of good over the decades.

My Foodie Kitchen - Sunday 2/1/2009

For the past few months I've been really trying to get into the habit of cooking ahead for the week so I don't have to scramble for my lunches. I like a hot lunch, so soups of various kinds have been popping up a lot.

Today I put together a beef soup using a small tin of beef from Trader Joe's, potatoes, baby portobella mushrooms, beef Better Than Bouillon, water, onions, garlic, olive oil and rosemary. Barley would be nice rather than potatoes, but I didn't have any barley.



I think I saw Gordon Ramsay do this on one of his shows. You don't have to take the time to cut the herbs off the stem. They'll infuse into the broth this way. In the case of rosemary, which can be a little prickly, this is especially nice.



Don't the carrots look great in there? The rest of the two pounds I bought went into the oven to be roasted. (See the next post for a link to that simple recipe.)



Potatoes in waiting. Everything just looked so good this morning, I had to stop and take lots of pix!


Hydra digs into the finished product. Steamy-licious!

It came out pretty good, though a bit salty because the broth was mostly from Better Than Bouillon.


I also roasted cauliflower and onions and garlic. Mmm. You want lots of brown bits on the cauliflower if you try roasting it yourself. (400 degrees, turn a couple of times in about 30 minutes in the oven.)

This will mix with the roasted carrots for a salad or a side dish. Mmmmm.

30B - Roasted Carrots

Hmmm. Roasting veggies is so good! Simple and not too time consuming.

I used this recipe and added some fennel seed.

I made up more roasted cauliflower, too. Also onions and garlic, that I’ll toss in with these roasted yummies for a chunky sort of salad for my writing group tomorrow night.

This is another of the goals I'm pursuing over at 43 Things. Want to see what else I've tried lately? See more progress on: try another 43 new recipes

Tea and Saturdays - Saturday 1/31/2009

I do love a pot of tea on a weekend morning.

The Coffee Bean & Tea Leaf's loose Chai is one of my favorites. There are lots of recognizable bits of spice in it, like whole green cardamom and anise seeds. I usually use two teaspoons of this and one of CB&TL's English Breakfast tea in my three-cup pot because I like a strong tea-ish brew.

Perfect companion to my Chapter 2 lessons in using Elements 7.

Found Stuff & Cinemark- Friday 1/30/2009

Random, I know. But I like this sort of thing... Stuff that is not in the right place.

Found this on the sidewalk near the coffee house off of Santiago Road. About a mile from our house, on the other side of the 14. Weak weak coffee, but a friendly place.


After working at home all day, I walked over the hill to meet up with Hydra so we could catch a matinee of The Reader.

This Lancaster multiplex was probably built in the 1990s, but they had a sense enough to make it into a modern day movie palace. The facade reminds me of steamship funnels. Let's get on board!


Cinemark at night. I leaned against the back of someone's big hulking truck to steady the camera for this shot.

The tail lights started blinking and I thought I might have set off the alarm, but no! The owner had just remotely unlocked the truck and was getting ready to climb in. What are the chances I'd pick one of the few vehicles in the lot that someone was about to drive off!

I probably giggled a bit too much in my explanation of what I was up to, leaning on her truck. But she smiled, so I guess it was okay.

Signs o' the Times - Thursday 1/29/2009

Can you read that sign outside of Mo's?

"Recession Never Tasted So Good - 1987 "Black Monday" Prices Every Monday after 5p.m. - On selected dinner entrees."

On the one hand, it looks like a good idea. On the other hand, I'm skeptical that much will be a deal here. Mo's is over-priced and has an attitude.

I'm amazed they've lasted so long, but every time I've been there with coworkers, we've seen studio types there. Execs, sometimes meeting with actors you recognize.

Personally, I'd take them to The Smoke House, which has a lovely old Hollywood ambiance. In fact, we did go there last week for my and Jens' belated birthday lunch.

I had the catch of the day with shrimp sauce. If you go, you must order the garlic bread. So yummy.

Benny & the Jets - Wednesday 1/28/2009

Things were a little off this morning. I woke up coughing (from the cold that just keeps giving) at about 2:30 and moved out to the recliner in the living room even though Hydra strenuously offered to go.

I never did get back to sleep. But I did read quite a few pages of Inside Inside by James Lipton, with which I am offsetting my current fascination with graphic novels.

Anyway, Dierdre the hip waitress was at the end of her shift when I came in. I like her. She's friendly, and refills my coffee, and doesn't game me like I think one of the older all-nighters does. (Sigh, I know restaurants too well, having waited tables for ten years myself.)

She was very tired. I was very tired, and a little woozy from the sinus medicine I took as soon as I arrived at my table.

Even the head waitress was off kilter. She came with her usual armload of fresh donuts and warbled, "Oh, is it Wednesday? I was supposed to be here an hour ago."

The whipped cream on this just slightly weird morning was the drunk at the counter.

Now, I kind of understand the 2:30 drunk who has just been ejected from the bar.

But drunk at 5:15 a.m.?

Honey, you are working over time.

While I tried to concentrate on my writing, he ordered and waited, humming along with random snippets of the oldies playing on KRTH 101.

Deirdre brought him his food. He tucked into it. But when Benny & the Jets came on, he started singing in a medium-loud voice, "Deirdre! Deirdre! Deidre and these e-e-e-eggs!" He gesticulated over the plate like he was orchestrating the music from the heart of the over-easies resting there.

Okay. Um. That's it. The whole story.

It seemed really funny at the time. Maybe it was the Tylenol Extreme Sinus Headache tabs.



Okay, enough of that.

See what I did this evening with the Photoshop Elements 7 software Hydra gave me for my birthday? Can you tell the difference?

It's not big and artsy. I just took the shine off the table.

Hee!

Please Pick Cherries - Tuesday 1/27/2009

This might be a good time to mention that my Canon A590, which I am willing to carry around in my backpack, is on the fritz. I don't want to carry my Nikon D80 around in a jumble with my notebooks everyday, so the last few shots have been taken on my new Samsung cell phone. T-Mobile has made downloading and accessing them very easy.

It doesn't take fabulous photos. It's only 1.3 megabytes. Then again, my first digital camera only had 1.5.

Actually the staticky look of this shot, taken through the screen of the window in front of my desk is expressive of the condition inside my head. The tree guys showed up around 7 a.m. and were still at it when I fled the office at 3:00 p.m.

It's not the trimming that is causing the fuzz in my brain, it's the incessant loud gnashing whir of the garbage-truck sized wood chipper that's been going non-stop all day.

Also, this morning I came within arm's length of being the 6th car in a 5-car pile-up coming around the big curve from the 14 to the southbound 5.

So I would have really preferred it if this nice gentleman had been using that cherry picker for its stated purpose!

Today's FBI... It's for You - Monday 1/26/2009

I don't know why, but I find this motto a leeeettle creepy.

It reminds me a little of the faux motto Hydra's street theater troupe used to use for the CIA : "Don't call us. We're already listening."

[Hydra warns me that this joke may have been stolen from some place, since he knows for sure that their rendition of the song "War" to the tune of "More" was lifted from Mad Magazine. Twas the Revolution. Parody to the People was the rule of the day.]

OneL called the FBI the other day to check some facts, and the guy practically recruited her. We've been calling them every few weeks or months for years, but this public relations guy is new and he sent her some FBI gear. Pretty cool.

She gave me a pen and a lanyard. It's probably not a good idea to even joke about possible uses of any of this stuff. So I won't.

But I have to admit, I went to the website and looked at the jobs and the pay scale is pretty nice...

Graphic Afternoon - Sunday 1/25/2009

I was back at Barnes & Noble this afternoon while Hydra ran a couple of errands and then browsed the shelves himself. Picked up a couple of graphic novels and took them to a table at the cafe and read them. I spend a decent amount of money there every year, so I feel okay about this.

I'm in a bit of a graphic novel frenzy right now. This tends to happen early each year, as the annual Best American Comics comes out and I either receive it as a gift or buy it with a gift card. I'm about half way through it and I've already put some books by graphic novelists on hold at Los Angeles Public Library.

It's a better collection this year than last year, so far. Credit this to Lynda Barry being the guest editor. She drew her introduction! Perfect! Artists I'm seeking out: Rick Geary, who does graphic versions of historical true crime stories like the Lizzie Borden incident and (hee) a biography of J. Edgar Hoover and Lynda Barry's latest book.

Today I read 30 Days of Night written by Steve Niles and illustrated by Ben Templesmith. The images are, it may be odd to say about such a violent tale of crazed flesh-ripping vampires, kind of magical. A page early on that depicts a police car in a snow storm is what drew me into the story. I've put a couple of this book's sequels on hold, but I'm concerned that Ben Templesmith isn't illustrating them...so I put the book he both wrote and drew on hold too : Wormwood.

Also read the amazing Three Shadows by Cyril Pedrosa, which I would highly recommend to anyone who's interested in reading a graphic novel that does not involve a vampire, a zombie or a superhero. This is a fable about the lengths a parent will go to, to try and save his child.

I love days like this. I wrote, I read, I watched some home improvement shows on TV, I made soup ahead for my lunches this week. Bliss.