Doo Doo Doo Hiking Out My Back Door - 2/27/2009

Heading up the steps we put in our first year here and up toward Hydra's Mountain.


Just have to point out that this was the view on December 17th, 2008 when we had our rare Snow Day! All the leaves fell off the tree on the left fell off in between pix.


The vinca I transplanted from the too-sunny slope between our house and the neighbors' are thriving in a little light shade.


Looking north up the 14.


Cutting across the neighborhood on the way home. Great way to start a weekend!

#7 Lapsang Sushong from T Tea in the L.A. Farmer's Market

This is a distinctively smokey tea. It reminds me of a campfire.

Apparently this and Russian Caravan were originally created by accident as black tea was carried over the mountains from China to Russia on the backs of camels. When the drivers stopped for the night and made fires, the smoke worked its way into the burlap bags the tea was transported in!

This is a nice one, to my taste. I may try to make tea eggs with it…you infuse boiled eggs with this tea. I’ve had sandwiches made with smokey tea eggs and they were marvelous.

Ooh, and I’m showing off my new tea infuser from Starbucks. I bought it so I could watch flowering teas unfurl, but I haven’t tried it yet.

The little lid that sits on top of the infuser basket while the tea is steeping can be used to sit the basket on when you pull it out of the water. Very nice for carrying tea with you to your workspace or porch!

See more progress on: drink 43 types of tea

Putting My Feet Where My Mouth Is - Thursday 2/26/2009

Your mission, should you decide to accept it, is to scale these rocks!

Sometime in the middle of the afternoon over on Facebook I said I'd rather be hiking. It sparked a lot of agreeable conversation.

It was sunny and cool, so I bypassed the gym and went to Vasquez Rocks County Park for a hike.



My foot next to some nice moss. Amazing green!


The long view.

As I climbed the first ridge, a ranger called out through a bullhorn that the park would be closing in about 45 minutes.

Ah well. It was time to pick up the pace.



Water on the trail. Very exciting.



The famous rock as seen through the skeleton of a reproduction native dwelling.

Banana Bread - Wednesday 2/25/2009

Jens told me they call it a "Depression Menu." It's when you plan your meals according to what's on sale, and what you have around the house using up.

Actually, it's anything but emotionally depressing. You can end up feeling kind of proud of yourself.

Yeah, the world handed me overripe bananas and I made banana bread. Mmmm.

It was my first banana bread from scratch. I tried the recipe from my trusty Joy of Cooking. Used all three of my over ripe bananas and some walnuts I had in the fridge.

Mmmm!

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