Dispatch From LA

She Ain't Heavy, She's My Sister

When Carol and I weren't gallavanting all over kingdom come we worked side by side in our visual journals. She's little, so she gets the little fold out table in front of the window that looks out on the porch. We talk a little, but mostly make grunts, squeals, squeeks, and occasional loud guffaws. There is a lot of pointing and cursing. It goes something like this:

What's THAT?!
It's yours
No it's not, where'd you get it?
From your rub-on box.
Nuh uh......
Uh huh...
I forgot I had THAT!
What about THAT?
It's a mask
Did you cut it?
No you did.
*grunt*
*snort*

Scissors and pens fly through the air. The cat posse sits on the porch table and looks in, worried looks on all their faces.

Carol makes us martinis. Limoncello lemon drops.

And my personal favorite: Dutch Harvest. You'll want the recipe.

1 oz. green apple vodka (Carol puts 2 oz. in hers)
3/4 oz. peach schnapps
3 oz. cranberry juice
ice
shake shake shake
pour into martini glass rimmed with cinnamon and sugar. Put on some music. Carry on. Try not to knock over martini with flying scissors or ink bottles.

All of the pages you see in this post are Carol's.

She took these envelopes Mama Moss had written Very Important notes to herself on. I think she's terribly clever.

Sometimes Carol stops for knitting breaks. She's making me a pair of socks that I will not put in the dryer.

She ain't heavy. She's my sister.

Good Clean Fun For Our Inner Punks

Just got home from depositing my sister at LAX. I always leave her bed up for a few days after she leaves. The cat posse enjoy lounging on it day and night. What? You thought I had a spare room for guests? Nope. My spare room is on wheels in the garage. It gets positioned next to my bed when Carol visits. All the better for nighttime trickery, read aloud stories, loud chortling and pranks.

See this fellow? That's BORF . We stenciled his likeness on a few t-shirts and sweatshirts. A little good clean fun for our inner punks.

This is another of our Come On It'll Be Funny projects. I tried to get Carol to pose in the underpants but she is so uncooperative at times.

If you live in LA you'll want to get your arse to Cafe Tropical soon. The cafe con leche is so strong it'll make your hair stand on end and the guava cheese empanadas are sublimely delicious. Look for the purple building off Sunset in Silverlake. Plenty of ambiance and Cuban treats galore. Carol got hooked when I lived around the corner and must go several times each time she comes to LA to get her cafe con leche fix.

We spotted Chicken Little while we were in the neighborhood.


Then it was off to REFORM SCHOOL to see what the other ne'er-do-wells were up to.

On Sunday we took a drive to Malibu. Lots of charred hillsides and blackened trees, but plenty of untouched areas too. Naturally we had to stop in at MALIBU SEAFOOD to see how they fared. Believe me when I say it's the best roadside seafood on Pacific Coast Highway. Outdoor seating with an unobstructed view of the mighty Pacific.

Sunday night after returning from our annual horror film pilgrammage we arrived home to a police sting operation taking place at Moss Cottage. A car thief was using my back patio/ courtyard/ spraypaint station as his own personal hidey hole. One search helicopter and 6 black & whites later the area was secured (more or less), the perp was cuffed and whisked away and we got back to business at hand. Apparently the unlucky fellow took a tumble down the bluff in back and landed on my very thorny climbing rose. Fortunately only one cane was broken. The cat posse tells me they tripped him on the way down. They like to be helpful like that.

Tomorrow: my trip to the Betty Ford Fat Farm!

High Jinx

Between working in our journals, checking 24 out of 25 of our list items off, cooking, eating cupcakes, and stenciling our underpants I've hardly had time to blog. Here's a small mosaic offering of some of our high jinx. Journal pages coming soon to a post near you.

Smoke And Ash

The sunsets and moonsets have been otherworldly with these infernos all around. Smoke in the air. A light layer of fine ash covering the car in the morning. Golden light throughout the day. It goes without saying that I'm enjoying my sister's visit, we don our newly stenciled t-shirts and gas masks each day and head out into my still beautiful, smoke-clouded city.

All mosaic photos garnered from internet news feeds.

California Is Burning

The light in our early afternoon sky is amber from all the smoke particles in the air. It has been this way since morning. Ordinarily this end of the day light is the most lovely. Except that it's not the end of the day and people's homes are burning. Over a thousand burned to the ground so far between all the firestorms in Southern California. Then there are the animals, wild and domestic, who must be in a panic trying to flee. Especially all the horses. I know horses do not like fire. I found this sad photo online. It was taken near San Diego. Fire is part of life here in California at this time of year. Some years are so much worse than others. Still one never expects THEIR home to burn. Thankfully I am tucked away up here in my corner of LA away from the hurricane force winds and scorching flames.

In more cheerful news my sister arrives in about an hour! The house is cleaned, the cats' faces are scrubbed, paws are clean, and they are all lined up looking their spiffy best to greet Aunty Carol. She is the quintissential cat lover. Each member of the cat posse will be lavished with positive affirmations and massages for the next week. Fights will erupt over who gets to sleep on her bed tonight. I'll try to keep everyone calm.

I have been instructed that our first stop will be to a market to buy martini mixings. In this balmy weather we will be doing lots of porch sitting and sipping in the evenings. (Judy are you sure you don't want to drop everything and join us?) Here's Carol immediatly after her last airport pickup. Note the eager look on her face. She is a Master Martini Mixer. That's no joke.

To ensure maximum atmospheric pleasure I picked up these ridiculously small juice glasses at Anthropologie when I got my new drawer knobs. Frankly I can't imagine a life size human drinking from them, but they do make gorgeous votives for the porch table.

I also slipped these into my basket. I mean if you're going to do dishes you may as well have dish towels this fabulous to dry don't you think?

I've been getting dishes dirty on purpose just to have something to wash.

And that, my friends, is a true story.

Guess Who's Coming To Dinner?

Guess who's coming to dinner? My sister! Get a load of the list of things she wants to do while she's here. You should have seen last year's list. Someone's sedintery lifestyle is getting ready to get shaken up and it's not the cat posse's.

1. Rent an RV.
2. Go see the towering coastal dunes in Guadalupe and go to oso flaco lake natural area and take the 2 ½ mile round trip hike to the beach, bring shovel to dig up old pieces of movie set from The ten commandments.
3. Shoot out light behind sister's house.
4. Get to the rose bowl flea market whenever it is.
5. Go to. Il Capriccio on Vermont - get the chocolate torte
6. Vintage café and Bistro for breakfast – get the bread pudding French toast.
7. Go to Julienne in San Marino for Breakfast – same place you saw Daryl Gates the year you learned to ride a bike.
8. Go to the Armenian Starbucks at the NE corner of Hollywood and Western for a cup of Joe and to write in our journals.
9. Go to Malibu Seafood
10. Go to Sprinkles in Beverly hills for a cupcake
11. See some red headed parrots – wherever they are.
12. Go to the cottage garden next to trader Joe’s in South Pasadena and drool over the red/pink/beautiful poppies.
13. Go to Fatty’s and for sure get a “little pinky” for dessert.
14. Find Harry Bosch's house. Then go to Musso & Franks.
15. This Metro angel directed me into the hills of Mt. Washington. Go see the metro angel.
16. Go to at least one farmers market.
17. Go see the pink Jesus, Mary, Joseph house in vicinity of strapping australian cowboy – combination stairway walk
18. This really doesn’t need to go on the list but I will put it here anyway – Tropical Café at least twice
19. Go to NORMS and get chicken fried steak with gravy and eggs and hash browns.
20. Rent Big Fish with Albert Finney.
21. go to yarn store 5028 Eagle Rock Blvd. Los Angeles, California 90041
22. make chicken picata with limoncella and buttermilk mashed potatoes and chipotle chicken sausage with goat cheese pizza and apple pear crisp for dessert

Yo Sister you forgot something... hows about we climb to Mt. Wilson and hang our bras from the tippy top of the tallest radio transmitter?

Oh, here's a visual journal page. (fresh out of clever segues)

Oh, here's another one.

Hive mind is active in the blogosphere. Everywhere I go I read about someone else cleaning and organizing their studios. Mine's really not a studio though. More like a workshop for 3 small gnomes, or 2 medium sized elves, or maybe one regular sized hobbit, which if you know anything about hobbits you know they aren't regular-sized. They're little.

This is my small taboret which sits under my small workbench in my small workshop. Those are the new Anthropologie drawer knobs I picked up today. They must have 40 or so different styles to choose from. I like the look of the gleaming little knobs against my grubby little cabinet.

I decided I couldn't live without this shadowy floral spray. I cut a stencil of it the other day. Now I need to locate some flat grey spraypaint so everything can have floral shadows. This was just a little experimentation after the initial cut.

This is my clever sister's new visual journal. I'm sure you'll agree it's absolutely fabulous. We'll be working into the wee hours in our books.

A page from her visual journal.

p.s. sister that fish reminds me of the one you caught and released on our deep sea fishing expedition last year. sorry to dredge up bad memories but remember how you tripped over the bait bucket and you almost fell out of the boat? remember how right before we got on the boat you said to me as I was lagging behind, 'come on it'll be funny'

Home Again

Santa Cruz was her usual beautiful self. When I imagine heading north along California's highways and byways I always think of the little roads. Like Hwy 126 that takes a pastoral jog through Santa Paula before linking up with the 101 in Ventura. Orange groves and grapevines. Enormous billowy pomegranate trees heavy with their hard red fruit.

Eventually I'll wind over to Hwy 1 and begin to snake along the coast. It's the slowest way up north, but the most dramatic. I'll take drama over speed any day. This time I stopped to have lunch with Dorothy in Cambria before continuing my trek north.

Eventually I made it to Santa Cruz and the little cottage of an old friend. Plenty of roads high up in the redwood forests of the Santa Cruz Mountains to meander through.

Yesterday I headed back home. South along a couple of small roads then onto the main corridor leading into LA. I'm the biggest fan of Hwy 198. An hours drive connecting the 101 to Interstate 5. You might see 10 cars the entire time.

This is a beautiful forlorn landscape.

The mind likes to rest on roads like this. Mine does anyway.

Having a passenger along would be a distraction. Chatty types can always be stowed in the trunk for this stretch.

More to see in the Central Valley with its mile after mile of bright fields.

No matter how sweet the trip it's always good to come home to my girl LA, with all of her gritty beauty. Makes a heart glad to see downtown on the horizon.

Heading North

Find The Parrots!

The rain started last night at 10:16 pm or so and it seemed to me that it rained softly down on my steeply pitched little roof all night long. I don't think I imagined seeing all the silver drops sliding down the glass of the windows. Were they raindrops or musical notes hitting the pea gravel in the back? Either way I was smiling.

Then this morning a flock of wild parrots flying in formation in the morning grey! The cat posse and I heard them before we saw them and raced outside, threw our heads back, and scanned the skies. Jerking our heads this way and that. First the right, then the left. FIND THE PARROTS! If you live in LA you'll know this parrot story is 100% true. Personally, I live to hear the sound of those loud social creatures. Squawking back and forth to each other as they sweep back and forth across the sky.

Above. More evidence from the visual journaling workshop of mary ann moss. That workshop got 1/4 of its contents hauled out today and evenly distributed amongst the blue, black, and green bins in the driveway. All manner of flotsam and jetsom dredged up from the very bottom of the bottom of the bottom of my shipwreck of a workshop. Some things were bundled up and set aside for their move to their new homes. Tomorrow when the dust settles things will get tidied up a bit more.

During one of my breaks for air, I stopped in briefly at a little shop I know and in about 5 minutes I had assembled these ribbons. 2 yards of this, 3 yards of that. And when I got home and unfurled all of those shimmering folded yards, I thought how much they resemble colors of forest and sky. And today the sky was that exact color. A satiny grey quilt thrown over Los Angeles. Blissed out on clouds. That's me.

In the back of a closet I fished out a gold plastic lace placemat that looked like it came straight off Mama Moss' 1978 formica kitchen table. Must remember to ask her if she is responsible for hiding it the workshop closet last time she was here. If so, she must be thanked. Look at what a handy stencil it makes!

My brothah stopped in the other day and brought these with him. Giant plastic squares things. I know what I can do with those!

In between the archaeological dig happening in the workshop, stencil experiments out back, and Kimono ribbon shopping, the visual journal saw some action. There is always time to chronicle the flight of a distracted brain.

Dear Karen sent me this tiny collage on canvas. Perfect to adorn the front door of a tiny cottage don't you think? I love it!

And more. All will get absorbed by the new and improved workshop. A few of these items are headed directly to the visual journal. Do not pass go, do not collect $200.

Chaos Circus

Meteorologically things are looking up over here in the little cottage on the hill. I awoke with a vague sense of confusion. The sun was not pounding on the windows or streaming through the edges of the blinds. Yes, it was a chilly morning. A gray morning. Not a rainy morning, but nice enough. I carelessly tossed the horse blinders on the bathroom floor, put on a pot of coffee, and took some full-monty photos of the visual journal pages.

I'm sure you've begun to wonder if I haven't succumbed to Domestic Porn what with all the cooking and baking photos lately. Yes, as a matter of fact, I have. When I'm not strutting around the house acting out music videos I don my apron and pretend I'm on a cooking show.

Tomorrow these apples and pears are destined for a new life in some sort of crisp. Okay, the truth is I tivo The Barefoot Contessa for the cat posse and sometimes I watch it with them.

Smoked salmon quiche today. It wasn't just good. It was sublimely delicious. A Cooking Light recipe . Well........until I got my grubby mitts on it. To have or not to have ... a crust. That was the question. The answer is easy enough don't you think?

Today was a good lantern sorting day. These giant paper ones came back with me from San Miguel de Allende.

Then at CARGO , which is in the Pearl District in Portland I picked up 4 orange and pink fluffy lantern balls. The bulletin board above my art table got stripped down. I do quite a bit of staring into space and pondering the greater riddles of the universe when I'm working in my visual journal. The eyes needed a new place to rest. I stapled on some vintage wallpaper, hung my bright pom-poms up, and added some new things to the board. I used this really fabulous stuff I found at the hardware store for affixing hanging things to ceilings. It's called TAPE.

I was going for the minimalist look but landed somewhere close to Chaos Circus. That's where I always end up. It's nice there under the garish big top lights. I think I'll stay awhile. In my heart of hearts I can't be happy unless I'm surrounded by a jungle of color and pattern.

More mail. So happy! Contents to be revealed on tomorrow's cooking show.

*Addendum

10:27 rain is lightly falling outside. drip drip drip on the porch banister and railing.

An Ugly Lie

I'm going to stop complaining about the sun. Any day now I'll stop complaining. Just not today. Images of pumpkin patches and apple orchards and wooden crates of pears are flocking to the shelf in my brain where my autumn images are stored. Could it really be so wrong to want the inner and outer landscapes to match up a bit better? I don't think so.

The paper said "breezy and cool" today. That's an ugly lie. Maybe tomorrow.

In the meantime I'm eating lots of honey crisp apples. Plain Greek yogurt from Trader Joe's, roasted walnuts, warm drizzled honey, all resting on top of a pile of honey crisp cubes. Fall in a bowl. Mighty tasty and refreshing.

Despite this blasted cheerful sun I'm still enjoying my vacation very very much. Today a trip to the library to stock up on reading material. I was a sobbing wreck at the end of The Road. I'm hoping one of these books will be equally gratifying. It's nice to take a book to bed for the afternoon nap with the cat posse.

Letters in the mailbox! One from my sister and one from Suzanne in Greece!

And a phone call from another friend in Greece! That's a good friend who will scour the Athen's office supply stores looking for just the particular re-inking stamps I've requested then call to give a report on how the wild goose chase is coming along. A good friend indeed!

When I'm not scribbling away in the visual journal, peeling apples, reading, or readjusting my horse blinders I do THIS little jig to one of my current favorite Get Happy songs. (the whole CD is g o o d) When I go back to my day-job in November I think I'll train my kiddos to be the back-up dancers.

Balm To The Sun-Burned Soul

Reluctantly I've made my way back to Southern California - land of eternal acidic sunshine. The only think I could think of to make myself feel better was to barricade myself inside, shut all the blinds, and try to ignore the ridiculous sunshine pounding on the windows. I'm going to have to return to Oregon very very soon for another WET fix. Tromping through the forests and streets in my oilcloth hat and rain gear was just like playing dress up.

Sometimes making a Norwegian apple cake can help mitigate the effects of too much sun on the central nervous system too. So I made one.

And lots of cat paws also act as a balm to the sun-burned soul.

Reading also helps.

As bitter as I'm feeling towards the sun right now I know that permanent residence in western Oregon would have my pineal gland working overtime. And I suppose I couldn't keep my spraypaint station permanently set up outside. No lids, rusting nozzles. It's a crime really.

I cut this stencil yesterday during a bout of bridge/ship/rain/fog/Astoria/Portland missing.

A couple final odes to Oregon.

Yes, I only brought one pair of shoes to Oregon. No, those aren't the original shoelaces. Yes, the cat posse is responsible for chewing up the old ones. No, they are not one bit sorry.

She's A Keeper

My last night in Portland. It's been a whirwind of lavish parks, acres of roses, streetcars, BOOKS at Powell's, good food, good martinis, more Powell's, jaunts through neighborhoods, lots of friendly people. And as if that weren't enough a new person to call friend.
JUDY the Wise and I met up on a rainy evening. I in raincoat and rainhat and her in nothing. I don't mean to imply she was nude, no, not that. She is waterproof and doesn't bother with such foolishness as rain garb. We had an Indian feast at The Bombay Cricket Club and luscious cocktails. There was much laughing, and yacking, and liberal use of profanity, and more laughing, and philosophizing, and picture taking, and some quiet time too. Our waitress kept subtly encouraging our exit, but we ignored her and plowed ahead with our bad selves.
That Judy. She's a keeper.

So is this green temple I've found here in Oregon. As soon as I pulled into Portland I was struck by all the leafy trees. I have never seen so many trees in a city center.

I was stunned by the show the roses were putting on in Washington Park. Can you imagine 5 acres of color and fragrance to stroll through? Then can you imagine having practically the entire bunch of roses to yourself? You can't can you?

English Roses, floribundas, climbers, grandifloras, miniature roses, rambling roses, wild roses. It was intoxicating.

Tomorrow I fly back home. Back to LA. And the cat posse. And warm sun. I'll miss this lush wet world.

Goodbye Old Girl

A last stop at Shively Park in Astoria on my way out of town. Foggy, quiet forest. I am drunk on WET with no recovery in sight. Quickly some photos of yesterday's romp through the green. Today is Portland's turn.

Thank you dear and faithful readers for the comments and emails along the way. Your interest and enthusiasm really is touching. I'll have lots of replies to send your way when I get back to LA. For now my internet is limited to morning post and emails to family. This post will be finished....or not....when I am back from romancing Portland at day's end. Last night I met Judy Wise for dinner. Oh what a firecracker she is! Do not be fooled by her shy demeanor. The woman is a real tart. We ate! We drank! We laughed!
More on THAT later. For now these final shots of my best girl, Astoria. She is a wonder. I'll miss the shipping channel. sigh.

A Dark Cushion Under Your Feet

Imagine walking through a sunlit forest dripping with water. Every leaf and pine needle glistening with raindrops. The ground, a dark cushion under your feet. Small frogs hop across the path directly in front of you. Spiders already at work spinning their perfect new webs. (Look a shiny black beetle just off the path!) A lush understory of swordfern, salmonberry, Pacific reed grass. Thick stands of bracken ferns as tall as you lining the narrow trail. And above, hemlock, sitka spruce, cedar, fir all in slight motion with the weight of the water they are shedding. You can hear the soft crashing of waves in the background and up here where you are the almost musical plink plink plink of the water.

This was Cape Disappointment yesterday. More slow walking and looking in the dense forest.

There is so much to notice.

Oh look! Over there! A path to a lighthouse.

Eventually a stop at the Lewis & Clark Interpretive Center and a special exhibit of shipwrecks.

Then back to Astoria to meet a friend at Pier 39.

Oh Astoria, your charms are many!

Graveyard Of The Pacific

There is a high ceiling of lilac clouds this early morning. The river outside my window, that river that looks like the wide ocean rimmed off in the distance by the deep forests of Oregon and Washington, is a shining mirror. I am so enjoying the shipping channel just outside my window. And all the wet. Yesterday I was out all day tromping through spongy forest, exploring here and there, looking at everything closely.

And crossing bridge after bridge.

Now I know why I was drawn here. Beyond the Victorian prettiness of the town and the great Astoria bridge that looms behind every house, tree, and building there is the dark shipwrecked past at the mouth of the Columbia. Who knew this was the Graveyard of the Pacific? Not me. Who knew sailing in or out of the mouth of this river into the ocean was the most treacherous river passage in the world? Not me.

Gradually, inside I can feel the dry being replaced by wet.

I leave my room without a plan, not knowing what I will find. And return tired and happy. As I wrap this up blue sky and pale yellow clouds!