360 Days till the Bush Travesty is Over!!!!!!!!

Not that I'm counting!



On the other side of travesty, we are doing a kitchen re-model. So don't say I'm not doing my part for the economy.

Here is a photo of going into the little tiny square opening into the kitchen.

And check out this lovely vintage plastic floor!



Here we look West into the silly unused and unusable nook space. I didn't take a photo of the appliances, they are too sad. My oven can't heat up to any temperature, and the 1974 fridge sucks enough energy off the grid to power a small village in other parts of the world. I got a pamphlet from the electric commpany about how much money you could save if you upgraded the fridge and they had a little chart with the years of your fridge and how much money it takes to run - and it stopped in the 80's. The seventies wasn't even on the chart!

The only good thing about the kitchen is that everything is so old all the VOCs have evaporated. So we shall see what we can do to improve the entire gestalt of the kitchen.

Feijoa

These little guys are falling out of a tree in the backyard - the internet instructions for harvesting say "Shake the tree every couple of days" - well let me tell you they hurt when they fall on your head. Gravity it gets you every time. And so here they are - Feijoas - something I can't pronounce that are edible but odd. It's like that OScar Wilde's quip about fox hunting - the unspeakable in pursuit of the inedible. In this case it's literally unspeakable and it's vaguely edible.
The garden in general is filled with things to eat - figs, avocados, lemons - but a lot of it is poor quality. I don't know if that's because none of it has been tended, fertilized, taken care of, or if it's old and ready to go. We shall see. But the Meyer Lemon, which the Beloved C. has it out for, has the most lovely smelling flowers and yet the lemons seem to never ripen.

Wine-O-Mat

I've got a new thing to take people to when they visit us in L.A. - the wine-o-mat. Like the automat - a vending machine for food that was popular during the depression, the wine-o-mat is a wine vending machine. So you can sample wines at the wine store. You buy a ticket with a pre-approved amount of money on it and you taste your way through a few wines and so you can try before you buy. And of course, you can try things that you would never actually buy because some wine is just way too expensive. It was totally fun to do. So now you know what you'll be doing if you come for a visit.

Bill T. Jones - Blind Date

So the beloved C. and I went to see the Bill T. Jones/Arnie Zane dance company perform Blind Date at Royce Hall. The parts of the dance were thrilling, the athleticism of the dancers was fantastic. Part of the war/anti war message was lost, but it was great to go out and see old Bill - who can still move.

I would expect this from Huckabee's Wife

A Photo in the LA Times today showed the presidential candidates wives at the Conference on Women that Maria Shriver puts on every year in California as part of Maria's first lady of Cali act. The photo showed Mrs. Thompson (a blonde trophy wife), Cindy McCain (blonde trohpy wife - slightly older version), Mrs. Romney (Mormon version of blonde trophy wife), Elizabeth Edwards (who is also blonde and a real trophy if what one values is guts and intelligence) and Michelle Obama. Michelle was wearing a houndstooth frock that I don't think really suited her.

Anyway the LA Times quoted Elizabeth Edwards as saying:

Scanning the tall, thin women arrayed beside her, Edwards said she was reminded of the "Sesame Street" song lyric:

"One of these things
Is not like the others."
"Everyone is so beautiful," Edwards said. "Which one doesn't belong?"

Okay, so I have to say that I am truly offended by this. They are really going to have to reduce Elizabeth's pain medication if they want her on the campaign trail.

http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-na-wives24oct24,1,4418492.story

Global Fires

There was a couple of interesting items I thought in the New York Times this week. One was the cover article of the magazine - drought and global warming in the Western U.S. and the other was the Op-Ed piece about how the "greenest" thing you can do is elect leaders who will actually pass laws that will change behaviours on a large scale. It all dovetails rather nicely with the firestorm that is happening right now in Southern California. It is smoky and hard to breathe and I'm not near any of the fires, being smack dab in west L.A..

Yosemite

Don't you think that people who SPEED through scenic routes have no soul? I mean - why speed on the windy mountain roads that lead you into one of the most glorious places on earth, the Yosemite Valley? What part of wonder about life, the universe and everything are you missing?
That was what I realized when we went to the Valley for a short vacation. It was a glorious vacation - just my speed. We hiked all day up and down mountains in glorious scenery and we then came back to a hot shower and a good meal with a nice bottle of wine. Great way to deal with nature. This deer was feeding in a meadow underneath half dome. As I took a picture of the deer (Look, Honey! Nature!) I realized that it was a stupid photo to take (which was really apparent at dusk with other tourists on the path with tiny cameras far away from the subject and the little tiny flash bulb of knock about snapshot cameras. The little insignificant flash would illuminate about three feet of air and since the deer was far away it was a rather futile exercise. Totally futile. Especially since the next day I realized you could walk up to the deer they were so unafraid of humans and get a really in depth close up photo.)

Alberto Gonzalez is a BIG FAT LIAR

And it's about time somebody did something about it. This whole administration is a pack of perjurers, I can't believe no one's done anything about it. If the Dems don't have the balls to impeach both Bush and Cheney then at the very least we can TRY THEM FOR PERJURY. Start the special counsels NOW!