Signs: David Candy

So I've always sort of wondered about painted signs, they are on walls, exposed to the elements, they are destined to become an architectural palimpsest. This sign is frayed, it looks old. Is it telling us that David makes Candy at the Co? Or that David Candy works here? Is it the David Candy Candy Company? Who's David? Is his wife Candy? Are they fashion designers, lawyers, happily married, plump from eating candy? Where does the candy fit in here? Is it chocolate or fireballs? This sign raises more questions than it answers.

This sign, however, boldy asks a question and answers it. What is Kabbalah? - well come on in and find out by spending a tuesday evening with them. What could be more homey?

I have been spending a lot of time talking to people who I want to convince to hire me. It is very hard to be pleasing and competent and say the appropriate TLAs (Three Letter Acronyms) while talking to strangers who have hidden agendas while you have a painfully obvious one - please employ me!!!!! All this nattering is leaving me too tired to listen, write and speak to the actual people who I like to listen, talk and write to. For example, after a comletely disasterous interview at a company that left me down and blue for a day, I picked up the totally fluffed out dogs from the groomer. We found a groomer in Beverly Hills and apparently the good people of the hills of beverly like their dogs to be highly poofy. Beso came out looking like a little round old english sheepdog - highly fluffy, and even Leche with her more griffon-like coat was a little round poofy ball of hound dog. They were so clean we took them for a hike along the beach where they made many people smile at the poofy dogs. Anyway, like I said I was tremendously blue, and when I got home from our walk I had two messages to return. Two people called while I was returning those phone calls and just after I had finsihed three hours of talking to 4 recruiters on the friggin' phone about why I am such a DGITPM (damn good IT Project Manager) and had poured myself a glass of wine, the phone rang again and I had to talk to another recruiter about WBSs (Work Break Down Structures - another TLA!) while a glass of Chardonnay was sweating untouched in front of my face. All that said, it makes it hard to talk to my friends because I'm tired of my own voice!

What's in a Name

Ah, the beloved pancake circus, a place that evil people invented to make children even MORE scared of clowns than they already are. Imagine a diner filled with bad clown artifacts and terrible pancakes. It's enough to make anyone eschew carbs and stick with Atkins for the rest of your life.
But enough of Felini-esque remnants from Sacramento! Last week we went to Santa Anita, (the Turf Club, mind you, we were not with the hoi polloi, we were lunching in an area that has a dress code and a wine list along with the mediocre food) to watch the ponies run and lose some money. It's lovely there, the hills behind the race track, the gorgeous thoroughbreds, the little men in brightly colored silks, the beautiful Hollywood building. The names of the horses are pretty funny, I had to bet Mango Frappe in the fourth race, while Nasty Mood ran better. Here are some names of thoroughbreds: Hit it Skip, Wee Jinky, Where's My Halo, Swedish Radar, Run to Me, Ecstatic, Kingdom Come (Is this one of the horsemen of the apocalypse?), Guillame Tell, Speedy Cajun, Rhythm King, Noble Masterpiece, Adorable Emily, Intelligent Male, Roanwiththepunches, Buck Tuddy Buck, Fly Forrest Fly, Bye Sweetie.
Someone's been thinking overtime on these names.

And yet, they sound vaguely like the names of the people who email me about chinese herbs and viagra. For example, Altiplano V. Milksops is interested in selling me black market viagra, as is Valerius Millan, Clambered Q. Papacy, Masochism D. Squirmier, Hypercritically J. Terminal, Servicemen L. Befouls, Odessa J. Heron, Donnie Decker, Emitted F. Grunting, Citbore Terrones, Exiled S. Personalizes, Absorbency R. Enameled and Tabby jejuneness. Someone with a dirty mind and an English dictionary is coming up with these viagra spam names. I think they're pretty funny, so I've been saving my spam.

Signs: Watch

This is a damn good sign I found while walking around. Damn good.

The Hood

Every neighborhood needs a castle, and my new one does not disappoint. Here is our local castle, my only quibble with this is that they did not go the whole nine yards and just get the moat as well. You know, moats really increase property values, especially when the Rodney King riots "came here!" As most of the people I meet tell me in this neighborhood. Oh my! I mean, just in case rioters come up from down south Pico you would need a moat and a drawbridge to truly protect your castle. Moats increase BOTH your property values and your personal security, so you can sleep at night. If, of course, your husband lets you out of the dungeon at night. Don't you wonder, how far these people go? They bought a CASTLE down the street from Olympic Blvd! It has to affect their sex life.


My neighborhood has all these cute little buildings that are built in the style of how Californians from the thirties thought that French People in the 1800's would build apartment houses. This is my building, and I just love the turrets. Well, this could be my apartment building, it is in the style of my apartment building, but it is not actually my apartment building. I value my privacy, so I would never actually put a picture of my home on the internet, that would be silly. So I put pictures of other people's homes on the internet, because I don't know them and so they have no privacy. But I admit to the subterfuge which makes me more ethical than Page 6 gossip columnists who are allegedly journalists and have an actual ethical standard by which to be judged.

Melon Shopping

When you first move to a new city you have to figure out where to go shopping. The sort of daily necessities and the other things you need, where's the bookstore that's going to be mine? Where can I get cute shoes? And, ultimately the most pressing question, where can I get good turkey bacon???

As everyone knows I'm a terrible food snob and so I am spending time trying to find farmer's markets. The first weekend I was here we went for a walk on the beach and then hit the extremely large and crowded and festival like Santa Monica farmer's market. Where I looked for fava beans. The next weekend, I was delighted to find a closer market on, get this, Melrose Place. This one was smaller and more intimate and also lacked fava beans. A tour of the Whole Foods, Wild Oats, Gelsons in the near and far area also pointed out the dearth of fava beans. Which means I've discovered one thing about the Los Angeles area; something as a new yorker is unfathonamable, to wit -- there are no Italians here.

Think about it. Italy plus Spring equals Fava Beans. So I guess all these pasta restaurants around here are all being run by Scandinavians or Guest Workers.

In addition to the shocking lack of fava beans and Italians, I find that the closest place to get turkey bacon is the Whole Paycheck in Beverly Hills. Whole Foods is known not only for it's stunningly expensive food but also it's seductive and bountiful array of fruits and vegetables that everyone is too busy to prepare. It's springtime and there are globular artichokes and fragrant melons. There are also a shocking array of breasts on display. Indeed it's hard for me to know what I should be feeling up in the veggie section. Maybe it's the fact that I've spent a year and a half in Sacramento where breasts are not displayed or maybe it's the fact that I didn't spend any time on the upper east side when I lived in NYC, but in BH man those girls know how to show off their titties. There are the corset on the outside, stiletto heels gals with their breasts pushed up and out defying gravity as they totter around getting organic salmon tartar, and the yoga vibey gals with sheer white t-shirts draped artfully around their torsos and strategically missing top section where black net bras display their breasts. My word, they must be limber!

I was carrying my bag of artichokes, garlic aioli and whole wheat sourdough baguette out to the car while following one of these women, watched her get into her mercedes convertible when I realized I had forgotten something about wealth and new wealth in particular. If you buy it, you have to show it off.

If you buy your titties you gotta display the results!

The Vulva of the Getty

I never realized that the Getty Foundation was a feminist institution, instead of a home for ormolu and excessive ornamentation, but here, starkly and plainly is evidence that J. Paul Getty, despite being the only geriatric multi-billionaire NOT married to Anna Nicole Smith, was a feminist.

The Vulva of The Getty

The Getty center was having a Courbet landscape show so we toddled on off to the top of the mountain after my interview with a recruiter and had a lovely lunch at the restaurant (my asparagus and fennel risotto was lovely and spring like, Cam.'s grilled asparagus salad was dressed beautifully) and polished off a bottle of Duckhorn Sauv. Blanc before we strolled around the grounds and into the actual exhibits of rococo furniture and Louis the XIV's castoffs. It's actually beneficial to understanding the work if you have a little buzz on, because really, there is only so much baroque furniture and ormolu clocks one can look at. I'm surprised that the Frick left any ormolu around for anyone else to collect but I am sad to say that JPG got every darn stick of what was left, and surpassed the Frick. But enough about my tolerance for gilded furniture with tempting shepherdesses lolling about them. The Courbets were lovely, that guy could push paint. Unfortunately he had a fondness for putting does and deers and bambis all over his forest scenes which was hard to take. But some of the paintings were spectacular, his ability to capture that moment in a storm when the wind has chased away half of the clouds and the sun is shining on the craggy mountains. Or the sea at low tide with a scattering of kelp on the beach.

Here is a picture of me, not wearing the nun shoes in a suit at the Getty.

At the Getty one walks around the galleries looking at rich people's furniture from ancient times (Oh those porcelain shepherdesses! Oh those Ladies on Swings!) on the inside and then you wander around outside looking at rich people's landscaping. My my, what a couple billion, a sea side mountain top and a gang of landscape architects who are apparently Fredrick Law Olmstead's kin can do. There is a huge, spiraling garden walk that takes you down to a pond, filled with gorgeous native plants. In a post modern joke, that garden is filled with curry plants and onion flowers so it smells like an Indian kitchen. Here's an onion flower - pretty isn't it? They make good cut flowers, except they smell like onions.

The back side of the descending garden walk is this, no one ever takes a photo of it, probably because it's the back side. But I have a thing for back sides.

Next week I'm going to try and get to LACMA to see the newly restored to their rightful owners after being looted by the Nazis Klimts.