At the Palace, by the lake

Last weekend I went to San Francisco. I survived two plane trips without getting H1N1 (yay!) and managed the Muni in Monday rush-hour with luggage. Power to the commuter!

On Saturday we (N & I) went to Santa Rosa to a wedding reception. It was a beautiful fall day - I didn't even need a jacket! It was for a mutual friend of ours whose pheromone experiment finally came to fruition, in a rather flaming hurry. She was a beautiful bride and we got "their" story from both sides. Unfortunately, I got sunburnt on the car trip as well. :(

Then after an interesting discussion on the merits of the production and marketing of pop religious music (of which we found few), we alit at the Palace of Fine Art. Don't ask me where it is, because I don't know. But I know it's not downtown or in the Mission. Anyway, we walked about before the hula show we had tickets for. It was just a bit windy, and the light of the sun setting made for some really great picture opportunities. We even saw more animals - some I'd never seen before in real life, like a bittern (which N hadn't seen either) and an egret. Up close! See how close:


The Palace was lit up. The moon seemed very close in person, but somehow it did not seem so close through the lens of the camera. It looks kind of like the Great Pumpkin, all lit up, does it not? Perhaps a bit later I'll show you the bittern and a series of me along the lake and against the Palace walls.

What is this a picture of?

So I have a question. If it's not a star, and it's not a white dot, and it's not a brownish background, what is it?
V-k and I came up with some options on our most recent collaboration (rather, she visited me, and we had a par-tay).
a. tiny spaceships with antennae
b. funky baseball caps
c. random single boots tromping around on stick-legs, in a below-the-knee view
d. personalized pickaxes
What do you think it is? I know what I thought it was. And it wasn't the real answer anyway. But it just made me think of "The Treachery of Images: or, This is Not a Pipe." See right.

It's like those pictures that are really weird and psychologists ask you if you see an old lady or a young lady, or one pyramid or five triangles, or some such nonsense. Images are images, pipes are pipes. But every person's interpretation of the pipe is different. So let me enjoy my non-smoking pipe, and I'll leave you alone about yours.

Lastly, a true image for you: remember, sibs, those days when we played Labyrinth? And there was the lizard, that V-k bit forever ago, so we always knew who had what. And remember how the blue scarab beetle was cursed, courtesy of J? One time it took her like six or seven turns just to get the darned thing. The board kept on changing. I remember that card vividly still: the bright blue beetle with its gold clawed legs.

The long and the short of this is that when V-k and I went to see the sharks....which, by the way, we touched one over six feet long. It was a baby. o.O Anyway, we saw sharks and flat fish with only one eye and saw playful rays and touched sea cucumbers and anemones and urchins and the like. Oh! And we saw a REALLY cool octopus, but that is for another post. This post is not about suckers. This is about scarabs. And images. So I thought I'd post an image of a beetle. Sadly, it is not a scarab, but it is about as big as the card on which the original cursed scarab was found. Since this beetle is not a scarab, I am not cursed. Just wanted to point that out. Now I'll get the point and post what you've all been wanting to see all week: a gigantic flying beetle. Yay!

I will say that at first, when we spied it, I thought it was a hummingbird. V-k assured me it was a hummingbird moth. I thought it looked too shiny, and its iridescence was more like a hummingbird. But then, V-k argued, it was too small. I had to agree. It wasn't until a split second before the bug landed that I realized that it was indeed a beetle of most gargantuan proportions. And then I just HAD to take a picture.

Octoberween

What's on board for this month:
1. I am getting a washer/dryer, probably next week.
2. I am going to experience jury duty for the first time.
3. I am going to take an accounting midterm. And do my darnedest to pass.
4. I am going to go to San Francisco to teach the senior analyst who makes twice as much as I do how to do his job.
5. Having a job interview. (No, I did not get said job.)
6. Watching Season 8 of Smallville, season 5 of Bones, season 2 of Saiunkoku Monogatari, and trying out Friday Night Lights. Ah, Tim Riggins, every good girl loves a bad boy.
7. Not being happy with the fact of human nature that people lie.
8. Lots of people getting married. Weird, because October is not really a month that I picture with marriage, but I suppose the beautiful fall colors could really make for some gorgeous pictures.
9. A random visit to the Happiness Hotel. (Don't get the reference? It's okay, you can still sneak out in the middle of the night anyway. It's a 'very popular choice.')

better

I've been thinking lately (dangerous, I know) about the experience of having something that you took for granted and then losing it. Is it better to have not known it at all, so you wouldn't have to deal with the pain and loss? Would it always hang in the air, a maybe bitter, sometimes desperate, often humbling reminder? Or is the body capable of adapting, but the mind and heart are just not willing?

An example: You're 23. You're young and pretty (or handsome, as the case may be) and all appears as it should be. You have friends, you laugh, you mostly love life. Sure, you have your days, but life is good to you so you roll with the punches.

Then, you're on the way to eat dinner with some friends and a semi-truck hits you. You nearly die, and because you were crushed inside your car you will be quadriplegic and be forced to be in a wheelchair for the rest of your life.

Your body adapts. You work through the pain. You learn how to use your arms, which were useless sticks of wood before, and you become strong and can fully function. So, one day, the movies come on and Chariots of Fire is playing, and you're having kind of an iffy day emotionally anyway, and you see all these sprightly lads running about. You can almost feel the wind in your hair and the burn of your lungs and hear the thud of your feet hitting pavement.

So, do you glory that you once had those days, of running free in the wind? Are you grateful for the chance you had to spread your wings, and fly? Or are you disgruntled, changing the TV channel so that you don't have to remember the pain, or feel the sadness that you will never be able to run again? Are you happy for the other people who can still run, or do you wish they all had even just a moment when they were bound to the chair, as you are, to make them see perspective? Are you angry at God? Do you despair and want to throw things? Do you ever wish that you had never known the joy of running down the proverbial lane, because you miss it so much you think you can't even take it for just one more minute?

Almost everyone I know has had a great loss. It may not be their loss, personally - but one from a close friend, family member, or significant other. Is the loss easier to bear if it didn't happen to you, so you don't have to feel the pain? Or is being the one who has to watch the other person battle through the pain harder than having the pain in the first place?

So. Is it better to experience the loss, and chalk it up to life's experience tab, or is it better to never have known the joy in the first place?

The Long and Winding Road (reversed), e.e. cummings style

if i can't love for forever
then i don't want to love at all
if there's no faith in tomorrow
the giddy joy's not worth the fall

is there some point to this heartache
will my soul ever start to heal?
"getting over it" is not easy
hard to forget what made you feel

they say life's too short for grudges
but pain has a long memory
the dull grey foggy ache of hurt
makes even small joys hard to see

after your heart cracks for the first time nothing's ever quite the same
it sometimes seems to hard to let go and to somehow stop the blame

i have a long and winding road
to travel, as the old song says
and miles to go before i sleep
so now i'd best be on my way

Dancing With Myself

In reading a sisterling's post, a notion of the chicken and the egg came to my mind regarding dancing and music.

For me, music and dancing are inextricably intertwined. If I had to choose one, either dancing OR music (perish the thought, and may it never come to pass), I think I would have to pick music. Because I'd love music even if I couldn't move, but I don't think I'd love dancing if I couldn't hear. I would love watching the fluidity of others move, and the synchronization of movement, but I would always feel like there was something missing.

This really came to mind the other day as I was at the film festival, and someone put together a music video for Billy Idol's "dancing with myself." See it here. I thought it was rather clever, myself. But the song and the video made me wonder if I dance because I love music or if I dance because I love movement. I'm always dancing...while I mop the floors, while I clean the bathroom, while I drive in the car, while I do the dishes, when I'm waiting for coworkers so we can walk to go get ice cream, when I'm making copies and there's no one around...

I had a roommate once who hated the fact that I turned up music and danced around. I figured she must have a dark spot on her soul to begrudge me this rather innocent pleasure. She'd say to me, "you're so young!" with a sneer in her voice. I was too spineless at the time to tell her that it had nothing to do with age - that when I'm 42, 36, 59, 64, and 71, and 89, and all the ages in between, that I'm still going to be dancing, as long as I can dance. And if I blow my hearing, I'm going to hear the music in my head anyway. And if I'm in a wheelchair, I can still tap my toes. And if I can't feel my toes, I can tap my fingers. And if I can't tap my fingers or move my toes or nod my head and I'm in a near comatose state and my nurse isn't there and I don't have my hearing aids in, I'm STILL going to have a song running through my head and my heart will be dancing.

So dance with yourself. Don't let snotty ladies in the grocery store or peeping neighbors or dark-spotted-soul roommates interfere with your communion with yourself. Just dance. Just listen. Just....be.

Dirty Laundry

Until about a year ago, I never had to do coin laundry. Ever. I have decided that when I move from my current existence, I never want to do it again. Ever. There's just something about the stress of taking all your dirty clothes - your unmentionables, your pajamas, and your business clothes - and trundling them all down the stairs in baskets, putting them in washers in questionable sanitary states, and then putting money in and leaving them. Someone who you don't even know put his clothes in the washer, and then the dryer, and the result is that you have to empty the lint trap of his lint. !!! Laundry really is personal. Clothes say who you are...they're the outward expression of the inward person. So to put your dirty clothes out there, carrying them around for all to see...just makes me think that the phrase 'dirty laundry' when referring to skeletons of your past in the closet really does have some meaning. So much meaning that it creeps me out. It creeps me out enough that I never want to do coin laundry again. Ever.

"Living in Reseda, there's a freeway running through the yard..."

Gosh, one would think I'm a Tom Petty fan, what with all the references. But the point is that we (le hermano) and I went to the zoo, which is in the Valley, but we went the wrong way for part of it, and ended up going through Reseda.
That being said, our favorite part was the giraffes and the okapi. Okapi, as the naturalist would tell you, are forest giraffes. They're like donkey-zebra-giraffes. Only that would be donzeffes, and they call them Okapi instead. What pretty stripes. How easily startled. How far a walk! Seriously, we walked like a mile to see it. But it was worth it in the end. I won't make you walk a mile - all you'll have to do is scroll.....


And now for my other favorite part. Look at these wee giraffes! See how their legs wobble ever so cutely. They remind me of my niece. In the best possible sense. Graceful and serene at heart. Though her tongue isn't two feet long and blue for half, nor does she have a weird tail with super long black hairs on it...Don't make the mistake of thinking there are only two giraffes in this photo. I assure you, there are three. And that only makes it so much cuter. Have you ever SEEN such a wee giraffe?

On this day we also went to the Getty and saw the cool maze and these extremely awesome illuminations. Seeing Bibles from the 13-1400's in all their gilt-leaf glory and all their Latin coolness was really something else. Also, we saw some very cool paintings which I cannot remember write now. Le hermano, please comment to remind me what they were again, as my brain apparently has holes the size of swiss cheeselets in it. So much for all the stickynotes to help remind me of stuff...

Show Me What I'm Looking For

In the last month or so, I've heard this song on the radio a lot. It's got some really interesting contradictions in it, which makes me like it more. I like the sentiment of it - I can do better, I've been wrong, help me get out of this, show me where to go so I can move on, getting closer to perfection.
But it also has some things that go a little against the grain: "I'll pay any cost to keep me from being confused." In a sense, because Christ died, He already paid the cost, or the price, to keep every person on earth from being confused. But at the same time, we, as mere mortals, have to be willing to give up our sins to know Him better, to become more like Him. We have to want to know what we're looking for before we will find it, and we have to be willing to follow the path once we're shown the way.
But the song does have a point - that we are saved only in Christ, but that He can help us change, to become more than what we are, until we are beautiful lilies in the field, sunlight on the water, angels on earth. We just have to be willing to let Him help us...to look to Him to 'show us what we're looking for.'

Thing I and Thing II

If you missed the Seuss reference, shame on you!

More things about me, that you may never have learnt:

1. I don't own hairspray

2. I like to paint even though I'm not good at it.

3. I adore growing melons. A few years back, I had this awesome internship, and I got to live at home and grow melons in my spare time. The first thing I did when I got home from work every day was to put my bag down, toss my shoes in the closet, shuffle into my gardening sandals, and run outside to see what new little leaf, curling tendril, or blossom flowerlet had emerged. You'd think that not much could change in a day, right? WRONG. One day I went out there, and everything was fine. I was growing these wee cucumber plants that were ever so cute. Anyway, one day I went out there to check on two little cucumber plants that were about 3" high and seemed to be doing well. They were fine. The next day, I went out, and lo and behold, one of the plants was GONE. Disappeared. Poof! I didn't pick it, the dog didn't eat it, and the other plant was just fine. Did ants eat it? Did some obnoxious quail take it as nesting material? Whatever the reason, I was nearly distraught and had to be comforted by my mom. I care a lot about my wee plantlets. Don't MESS with them! Or you'll...you'll....I'll...put a cage on your head so you can't eat them anymore. I'll make it a lead cage, too, just in case you're Superman.

Things about Me

For those of you who missed my facebook note:

1. I used to be hot pink personified. Now I'm more an earthy brown.

2. I secretly would like to write songs for a living. Or books. Or blogs. Or anything...as long as it involves writing.

3. I have a hug timer. When I need a hug, I say, "ding!" and expect the nearest loved one to hug me. My fuel is hugs.

4. My boss is my favorite thing about my current job.

5. I never thought I would end up living in LA. Ever. But I live here now. Have for awhile...not sure when I'll be leaving, either.

6. Samwise Gamgee is my literary hero. Because he took the ring at the end and gave it back. Because he stayed behind to deal with the pain, when Frodo went into the West. Because he loved Rosie enough to want to stay with her. Because he was the truest friend that one could ever ask for. I aspire to be like him.

7. I will do all the dishes you want, but please do not ask me to take out the trash.

8. I love each member of my family. All ten of them. Plus the dog. :) I spent all my vacation days visiting them last year. That's true love. A lot of it... 25 days.

9. I tried to make an alphabet with names of medical conditions I've been diagnosed with. I was four letters short of making a book, but I had several duplicates.

10. I learned the guitar as an excuse to sing.

11. I didn't eat salad dressing until I was 21. I still only rarely eat it.

12. I only drink fresh-squeezed orange juice. We're talking, I had to see you squeeze it or squeeze it myself in order for it to count. That's fresh.

13. I am good in a kitchen but I can't cook.

14. I have a $300 pair of designer prescription sunglasses.

15. When I was a kid I hated nothing worse than washing celery, wearing sunscreen, and wearing hats. Now I voluntarily do the latter two. But I still hate washing celery.

16. My dowry is not cows, or $, but a 150+ collection of hardback children's books. So I can read to my kids someday. If I'm lucky enough to have any, that is.

17. I do not like to move. I stayed in the same apartment for two years as an undergrad, and another apartment for both years I was in graduate school. I crave stability, something which LA and being single do not offer.

18. I'm double-jointed. That means I can bend my fingers more than halfway back, loop my thumb under the knuckle of my index finger, and touch my elbows behind my back. It also means I'm in a lot of pain due to several neck injuries.

19. I love to go to the zoo. And museums. I'm one of those people who says, "Did you know..." and rattles off more facts about giraffes, snakes, and frogs than you would ever possibly want to know.

20. I have more art than will fit on my walls.

21. I wish I knew how to do back hand springs. Really. A lot. It's one of the things that I will always regret not learning how to do.

22. When I was a kid, I wanted them to remake Anne of Green Gables and cast me as Anne. I still do wish that, sometimes....

23. My favorite food is hamburgers. With pickles. Cannot forget the pickles! NO sweet pickle relish though. Or sweet pickles at all. Sicky!

24. I have made a concerted effort to become a more tolerant person.

25. There are angels in Los Angeles. I know. I haven't seen any, but because of my experiences with losing and finding guitars, people picking up my phone, and my perfect near-brush of death due to a garbage truck that they are real, and that they watch over me.

A Photo's Worth a Thousand Words:

Or several thousand dollars.
Check it out!

To get this beauty of a car, I went through a rather traumatic process, which included traffic on the 5, dealings with the Russian Mafia of car salesmen, and several hours of rather grueling research.

Now all I have to do is get my rotten-in-the-state-of-Denmark insurance agent to call me back to make sure this baby blue is covered to the maxx!

I woke up at 7 this morning to (a) make sure it was still there (b) make sure it had no 'dings' in it and (c) make sure that the sprinklers hadn't ruined my carwash.

The 5 trip wasn't so bad. I only felt bad because my friend Kimmy was taking me to the dealership, and she had something to go to later, so I am afraid she was rather late.

The Russian Mafia, on the other hand....grrr. I went to check out a 2010 Ford Fusion (if you don't know what they look like you can check them out by going here. I liked my car salesman - very genial sort of fellow. Tried to be understanding, and all that. I went in, and I wanted a blue car. Those of you who know me know that I really like blue.

I wish I had a picture of him. His name was purportedly Alex. All his teeth were caps, unnaturally white. You could tell he was a smoker (I don't have anything against smokers, just their smoke/smell), and all the back teeth had gold caps on them. He had bear-greased hair cut in a very severe style and the accent to go with it. He looked very...Russian.

My salesman was fine. Then Alex, the numbers guy, came out, and gave me a sheet of paper. I immediately stiffened. I react very strongly to people and this guy did not bring warm fuzzies to my gut - in fact, he generated the exact opposite response. I did not want to be within ten feet of this guy, much less shake his hand to meet him. Keep in mind that the sticker price on the car was $21,599 or something. He says, okay, you qualify for the 0 down 0.0% financing. I say, sure, let's see what the payments would be. He shows me the paper and one eyebrow just went up. I figured I could figure it out - I got out my cell phone: $869.00 x 36 = $31,284.

I'd been up since 6 that morning (on a Saturday? Me? UNHEARD OF!), so granted, I was a little tired. But not tired enough to pay $10,000 above sticker price!!! I just looked at him and said, "Do you really think I'm that stupid?" to which he had no reply. He said, well, that's the numbers, and I just showed the phone to my salesman and started to laugh almost uncontrollably. Seriously, that Alex character will ruin it for poor Todd every time. By the way, they're just asking for a lawsuit, in my book...

So I tried to leave. That didn't work so well. They sent guy after guy to come talk to me, saying, what can we do to earn your business TODAY? I said, absolutely nothing, when I woke up this morning I knew I was not going to buy a car. They pushed and pushed, but to no avail. The final straw was that I'd parked my car in the service lot unwittingly and I couldn't leave...I had to come back and get one of the guys to open the gate for me.

On the other hand, I was in and out of the dealer yesterday in a little under two hours...test drive included, with the computer down. That's pretty good. And they didn't even try to sell me any extras. Yay for Commerce Hyundai!

[Up] the Hill and Far Away

About a month and a half ago (yes, I'm in a time warp), I took a trip with a couple girlfriends to the J. Paul Getty museum. It looks like this:
but that's not the view I know and love. I couldn't find a photo and I've never taken any. :(


Regardless, I actually have seen very few things INSIDE the museum, as I always end up just taking a walk around the grounds and looking at the flowers.
Here are a few photos I took:
Above, please note the soft red against the pale green. What a stunning combination. I should wear green more often, I think...


Above: I've never seen an orange cactus before.
I think the main reason I took it was for the fuzzy things in the centre of the picture, but I can't exactly remember how they looked close up right now.

To the right:
the solitary beauty stands aloof
her soft pink inner shell unrivaled
tall and slender, there, she models
setting her body lines just so
exploiting the background, light,
turning so her perfect blush
draws the eye, invites a smile
she'll raise one eyebrow in a moment
querying, to test the admirers of her display...
this one will always want attention

Here's little ol' me. Back when my hair was a smidge longer. Ah, there is my beloved Yankees cap. Remember, I am a pre-A-Rod Yank fan. Now, anybody but the Red Sox winning it all is just fine.

Below: "Girl Watching Water"

It's an inside joke, so please don't ask. But I will tell anyway: We'd just seen all these pictures, and when we came out and saw the fountain, I thought, wow, I could be in one of those pictures, you know, from behind, a girl laying on the pavement, watching the spray of water as it endlessly shoots . If you bend down far enough it looks like one stream of water is shooting over, making a wee tunnel of sorts. Anyway, so I could imagine an impressionist painting of me, wearing a skirt, with my legs bent at the knee, calves crossed, watching the water. Of course this is not what it would look like, it just looks like me being silly at the Getty. But there really was a purpose behind it!


Oh, the indulgences we grant ourselves....
And on that happy note,
'til next time!