Sally Cruikshank

If I were free

2012-01-31T12:57:00.004-07:00

My sister- Carol Cruikshank- was a very talented artist, even from a young age. I scanned one of her sketchbooks and put it up on Flickr- it plays as a slideshow
http://www.flickr.com//photos/funonmars/sets/72157629106907167/show/
(As long as you keep your mouse away from it the bottom tray of pictures won't show.)

She drew this when she was 15 or 16 in a little booklet tied together with yarn. This was in 1957! So many of the ideas are still fresh. She died twenty years ago. Today's her birthday.

Obsolete Formats

2011-11-29T18:46:00.011-07:00

We've been printing many of my films in 35mm this last month, for archival reasons, and checking the prints at the Fotokem lab in Burbank, in a screening room.

I'm always uncomfortable looking at my own work, but when I saw these prints at Fotokem I was shaken up a bit. Film looks SO GOOD, so totally different from any dvd or digital format. Geez! Animation! Cels! But only a handful of specialty labs are even printing film now, and in the years ahead all the studio releases will be coming out as digital only. (2014 already declared by studios as no film releases anywhere.) So if you have film negs think about printing them now.

Although my cartoon "Quasi at the Quackadero" was put on the National Film Registry list of films worthy of preservation, the list comes with no perks as to preservation (or even a piece of paper to frame and put on the wall!) In fact even the link to the pdf which came to me as official notification was a broken link!
Government.

Film is the latest obsolete format. wow! The world is becoming so damn virtual.

I've often wondered if the monster magnet from outer space really appeared what would happen to our collective culture? Then the Republican candidate I find most unappealing, (though it's hard to narrow that group down),Newt G, mentioned this in some recent debate as a real threat.

I'm going to write about my own computer history. I poured so much energy and YEARS into Flash, and before that into some other formats that also scream obsolete format.

Stay tuned.

A Colorado Auction

2011-06-22T12:40:00.003-06:00

A house down the road has been bank owned for a few years, and yesterday it was up for auction on the premises. So we walked down to see what a foreclosure auction was like.

The house looks better than the picture, but it does look like a mobile home, was built about 15 years ago by a scrappy couple who are long gone. The house has two front doors into the same room. ("Don't you be coming through my door bitch.") It sits on five acres with nice views on a steep hill.

When we got to the house only a security guy was there with his small dog. He offered us a free pen with the name of his cleaning company on it. After a while a real estate agent pulled up in his Range Rover with a golf theme license plate and a salmon golf theme shirt too. He had been the listing agent till the bank got drastic.

Then the auction group rolled in, in one SUV. They had gotten lost on the way. Three guys in white shirts and ties and a hefty blonde gal with a pile of papers. The auctioneer looked like Kenny Rogers with white hair parted in the center, show biz. Then there was a guy with an earpiece who seemed to be wearing a Bill Gates wig. , and a gnarly looking little guy: maybe he'd been a jockey, or in rodeo, or maybe a ventriloquist dummy? He stayed behind the car.

They asked us if we were there to bid? I said no we were there for free cookies. When the auctioneer plugged in his amp Jon said, "Is this going to be a square dance?" He said, "That could be arranged."

Since there was no one there to bid, it was time to get the auction started. They were allowing on line bidding, with a teaser minimum of $50,000, and warned the folks on line not to push that orange button unless you really mean it. There was no video of the auction, so the auctioneer got started as if he had a big crowd there, "I want to welcome you all, ladies and gentlemen," and rolled into that amazing monologue that auctioneers do.

They had one bid for $50,000, on line. Nothing else came in. The house across the street is for sale for a million and a half, also on five acres. Wow. The bank has the right to reject the offer, but it was pretty stark and surprising. They packed up and headed off to their next auction.

I haven't posted on this blog in more than a year. I like writing but I didn't like experiencing my life as possible blog material, and there's something uncomfortable (for me) about posting my dear diary life on line. But I thought I'd pop in with this one.

Goat Busters!

2010-05-24T18:26:00.004-06:00

We flew up to Sacramento to see Dinah at Davis- loved seeing her stable too with horse Tia getting in shape after her colic surgery earlier this year and the goats as uncontrollable as ever.

Dinah's heading to Peru this summer on an Amazon research trip. We're headed to Colorado in the morning. Happy Birthday to all my friends whose birthdays fall in May (the majority of friends my whole life.)

(I just realized the title won't make sense to anyone who doesn't remember the tag line to Ghost Busters)

Food in Italy

2010-05-17T18:20:00.007-06:00

Can you believe I asked Jon to take this picture but didn't go inside? "No, no", I said, "I just like to look." It's true: I love to look at nicely displayed bakeries and candy stores, especially when they use shiny printed tin or cellophane. Some of the tarts in this display have wild strawberries on them! Paradiso!

But what was I thinking "just looking"? Everyone talks about Italian food so what I say won't matter. I could never get past course two so never had any desserts. Heartbreak.

The last night in Florence I went into a really pricey chocolate store and ordered a very small custom box of filled chocolates, two of each, thinking if I liked the taste I'd share it with Jon. NO SHARE! I didn't eat them till I got home and they were exquisite. One had champagne inside that dribbled right down my chin. Another had an apricot inside with the pit still inside the apricot. I wish I could go back and buy one of everything in the store just for me.

These were ravioli. They made me feel like I was really small because they were such giant tubes, in a walled Medieval city. They were really good, just fennel and leek but they probably snuck some animal thing in there because they even serve salami at breakfast in the hotels we stayed in.

Such pretty lettuce. We went to a great farmer's market in Genoa for more "just looking." Genoa is a nifty place to visit.

Our last night in Rome we were sent to a restaurant by the hotel, (and that's not a good idea. There's some kind of kick back going on.) We were served this artistic starter, which was filled with a wonderful artichoke mousse, but then my main course, sea bass first shown to me on a big platter before anything had been done to it, (John the B?) was sea bass with cheese sauce which didn't seem very Italian and was a bit creepy.

Blogger seems to have a limit on pictures to post. I was an experimental eater in Italy: whatever sounded weird but within my range I'd order. Why not? After a very weird sea food pasta Jon stuck to tomato sauce. I think the dishes he ordered were probably tastier, but now I know what not to order!

The regional thing is sometimes claustrophobic but sometimes terrific. Anywhere in Lucca where you ordered bruschetta it came with gloppy chicken liver topping. EUW! In Genoa a wonderful artichoke quiche like thing was on all menus. (no spiky chokes.)

Loved that all our hotels served blood orange juice for breakfast, even if sometimes it seemed to be cut with Kool-Aid. Campari Orange is a wondrous drink in Rome and comes with a grilled cheese sandwich whether you want one or not.

Truly disgusting that horse is on the menu but they don't provide translation. Figured it out too late or would have definitely boycotted a restaurant in Rome where we had lunch twice.

So how's that for the uninformed traveler passing through one of the most elegant gastronomic areas in the whole entire world?

Worst meal? Pizza! Right outside the Vatican!

Fashion Statement

2010-05-14T13:30:00.004-06:00

The oddest fashion we saw our entire trip to Italy was at the very outset, in New York. We wandered into a very popular "French" bistro in Soho, Balthazar. The food was good and the room was filled with good looking people, many of them waiting for tables. We sat at a tray sized table next to the bar.

"Waiter, there's a fanny in my soup!"

A blonde walked up to the bar with her friends and ordered a drink. Do you know what tulle is? That stiff fabric ballerinas wear that you can see right through?

This gal was wearing a beige tulle skirt cut all different lengths and sticking out in all directions. It had big GASHES cut in the back of the skirt. I think she was wearing a thong under it, but I didn't check.

Her rear end was almost on our table. I mean I could have poked her with my fork. On the top she was wearing a shawl made out of burlap, the fabric potato bags used to be made of. Her friends all looked stylin. She kept clutching at her shawl but honey that wasn't covering the part that needed covering.

It really looked like an outfit from a classic bad dream but she made the choice to wear it, and we had to look at it.

The Dogs of Italy

2010-05-13T10:24:00.005-06:00

When I saw how welcome dogs are in restaurants and hotels, I was sorry we hadn't considered bringing Molly along. But not sure I could deal with a dog's jet lag as well as my own. "Sally, It's 2 am! Time for our walk!"

This ancient Roman dog is making the same gesture Molly makes when we're driving in the car and she sees a dog on the street. Dogs have been helping humans back to the earliest days and many artists honored them. This was in the Etruscan Museum in Rome. Now when Jon and I are driving in the car and we see a dog, we make the gesture too.

Most of the dogs in Italian art look like Italian greyhounds. Surprise!

This old dog lived in the Cinqueterre on the Italian Riviera.

I'm surprised dogs don't smoke cigarettes in Italy. Everyone else does.

In the Cave

2010-05-12T18:45:00.003-06:00

You see so many pictures of Jesus in Italy that it gets on your nerves, even if you did study medieval art for 3 semesters. We needed something else. We were staying at a goofy hotel in Lucca where the three guys at the desk seemed to be Manny, Moe and Jack.

Anyway, I found there was a cave tour somewhere in the mountains and we took a drive, first to the beach at Montereggio, then up a road of many switchbacks to Grotta del Vento, not too far from Castelnuova. When the metal door slammed behind us on the cave tour, I wondered if my claustrophobia was going to kick in, but I remained at ease, and was so surprised by how the cave looked like the inside of someone's stomach. It was wet and oozing.

I've been really wiped out since our return. This morning I woke up suddenly when the bagel in my dream had a baby alligator stuck in the cream cheese. It was not quite 4 am. I meant to blog an orderly trip through Italy but that may never happen.

Mother's Day

2010-05-08T09:12:00.008-06:00

Jon took this lovely picture in the courtyard of the National Etruscan Museum, in the Villa Giulia part of the Villa Borghese Gardens. Gone were the miserable shuffling hordes at the Vatican Museum, (which Jon described as the tenth circle of hell though Dante only knew 9!)

This museum was peaceful, nearly empty, and full of wonderful art by the Etruscans, an early Italian civilization about which much is not known, even now. They even had an alphabet that's never been decoded.

The image below is the style of art they're best known for.

Beautiful sensitivity to horse and riders' poses.

I called my mother the morning I got back and the S.S. Dementia had docked. "I'm in London," she said. "Where are you?" She was upset I hadn't gone to London to meet up with her and sounded very agitated.

This morning she didn't sound agitated, but she answered by saying, "Have you heard the terrible news?" "No, what?" thinking uh oh.

"The beads are missing, and everyone's in an uproar. Without the beads the race can't be run.
People have looked for them everywhere. They've even called in the FBI."

"It's like some cheap mystery novel" she added.

She had to get off the phone because she was off to New York, but she'd call me when she got there, around noon. I'll be at the races then, hmm, maybe I'm a suspect. I do have some goofy beads I sometimes wear to the racetrack . But don't tell anyone! Don't tell the FBI!

Veni Vidi Vici

2010-05-07T05:41:00.008-06:00

In our house in Northridge, above the ice machine, there's a special feature pointed out to us when we bought the house long ago. It's a slide projector shelf set up so you can show slides of your travels when guests come for dinner, while they're still stuck at the table.

The Power Point presentation of its day.

"Hey, why's everyone leaving so soon?"

Faced with 600+ pictures from our trip to Italy I hope I have the good sense not to pull out the slide projector here on the blog.

We saw some great art, really great art, first in New York at the Frick and the Metropolitan, and then of course in Italy.

This parrot painting was in New York.

In Italy there are way too many paintings of John the Baptist's head on a platter. People, please! Or of Judith doing the same thing to Holofernes. Why did artists think this was something they should paint?

The platter paintings were especially awful because the whole concept of Italian eating in restaurants is based on course after course, platter after platter, and they never let you start with dessert so we never reached that course.

This was the only dessert we ordered during the trip, and it was at an obnoxious restaurant in NYC on the lower east side. The waiter was a bully and we only ordered this so called "Baked Alaska" because they seemed to have an "eat it or beat it" policy in effect and we wanted to yell at our friends a little longer. It wasn't really Baked Alaska which is meringue baked around ice cream but they can get away with calling it that because they're so hip and the restaurant is so noisy no one would hear you if you complained anyway.

The first picture is an Etruscan sculpture. More on Etruscan art later. No, you can't get up from the table. Sorry.

feelin like a zombie

2010-05-05T16:29:00.004-06:00

Back from 3 weeks in Italy-- in L.A. and it's nice to be home. Molly's here too. I'm in a "don't operate heavy machinery" state of mind but couldn't resist posting that first sign.

We had a great trip and it really helped that I suffered through several years of Latin in junior high as language wasn't really a problem.

Just one story. We were really, really lost as we pulled into Nervi, and the highway exit was up so high it felt like the Wild Mouse ride at Wildwood, New Jersey. Jon said, "Go in that grocery store and buy a map." So I walk into the store, stand in line, and then in pidgin Italian I say, "I sell map of city."

CIAO!

2010-04-12T11:10:00.006-06:00

So the day is finally almost here. We leave for New York in the morning and then for Italy on Friday.

We have to take Molly to the kennel this afternoon. She senses something's up. It's a nice place where she's staying, but it's the hardest thing about traveling for us.

I posted a silly storyboard for my section of Toons x 9 here. The illustration above is from the storyboard. Just something to keep you laughing. It was a peculiar project- 9 animators retelling Faust.

I opted for a soap opera approach to hell- at the time airlines weren't as nasty as they are now and computers weren't part of most people's lives. I didn't ever color it in and got rushed to even scan this and put it on line. I never saw what any of the other animators did. In fact I don't even know who they were. Marv Newland (Bambi Meets Godzilla) paid us to do it. Faust is no treat to read, let me tell you! The link is slow to load even though I broke it into segments, and you'll see a white screen before the loading symbol kicks in.

One more thing about the toons project. Aloosha was based on a woman I met the last time I was in New York, 22 years ago! Her name was Lizzie Borden and she was a filmmaker who hoped we'd collaborate on something. She had that "I work out all day" look. I forget if she was a kleptomaniac or not!

I had insane good luck at the track last week and will buy a new tablet computer when I get back, and I guarantee no way in hell will it be a Mac.

Don't even get me started on Steve Job's arrogance re Flash, when you can read it in the paper anyway!

Have fun while I'm away, and hope to check up on you all from an internet cafe in Italy.

For a Laugh

2010-04-04T15:42:00.004-06:00

After I posted this little cult outfit on Facebook I tried to find the original storyboards for the animated/live action feature which I wrote in 1982. It seemed all that was left were some beat up xeroxes, but after I'd scanned a bunch of them I found the original four volumes of pictures.

I've popped them into a little presentation which is on line here. A few of the storyboard pages were in full page comic strip format so when I separated the individual panels I had to blow up the images quite a bit.

Let me know if it's hard to navigate- I was feeling a bit lazy when I put it together. It's just the first act or so but there's some funny stuff going on.

boodatude: yes

2010-04-01T19:17:00.001-06:00

terrific post tonight by boodatude here.

Cool artists wherever you look: Cindy Hunt!

2010-03-30T18:53:00.004-06:00

copyright Cindy Hunt
I got a friendly email out of the blue from Cindy Hunt, and took a look at her blog and her artwork and thought they were both intriguing and delightful, so here's an introduction. She lives in L.A. This picture is cut paper- ow- never felt that safe around exactos! There are so many talented women blogging and creating interesting artwork- the world has no idea!

Peach and Blessing

2010-03-28T18:04:00.003-06:00

I've decided, reluctantly, to find new homes for my birds, and it hasn't been an easy decision. First I posted on a pigeon forum, and got some weird responses there, none of which really worked out.

So I took the craigslist step. The first week, just offering the least desirable set of birds, I got a flurry of emails from a guy who could barely spell and didn't seem to know where Hollywood was, much less Northridge. When I suggested a specific place and time to meet up he panicked, "not so fast!". Like we were going on a date or something.

So I waited a week and posted today. Here's one of the responses:

HELLO ! IS BIRDS STILL AVALIABLE ? I CAN PICK UP TOMMOROW MORNING & OFFER YOUR CHOICE SODAS THESE FOR MY RETIRE DAD HE HAD BIG AVAIRY IN BACK YARD IF STILL AVALIBLE PLEASE CALL 714-***-**** CELL. THANK MUCH.

PEACH & BLESSING

BENNY

the soda part really stopped me. But sounds like a nice guy and I wish him much peach.
another one:

hi
call me at
818
***-****
t-u
Yair

that one was formatted at extreme right of email in tiny letters. Anyway, later today a woman contacted me and I could hear birds in the background. She said birds are her hobby and she would possibly take them all. She's going to contact me tonight or tomorrow. She sounded really nice.

Her Inner Rin Tin Tin

2010-03-26T12:37:00.003-06:00

When I was walking Molly this morning I came upon a trainer and his student. He was a boxing trainer and they were exchanging fake blows and doing the boxing dance in the grass. Molly did NOT like this at all. Her parents are both working police dogs.

I could barely pull her past these two guys. She wasn't growling but she was really concerned, as if she felt somebody needed to step in and handle this disorderly situation. "Woof, I mean What seems to be the problem here?"

I got a new camera, Sony's latest Cyber-shot, and am trying to make sense of it. It seems easier to understand than other Sony's I've had and dropped. It actually has a pet setting! That's what I used for this photo. No idea what it's doing for pets. It also has a smile detector.

The very bad not good Granny (not my mom)

2010-03-22T16:03:00.003-06:00

I went to visit my mother this weekend, aka "fun in the nuthouse".
As I came through the glass door on Friday morning, Toney, pictured above, was poised very still by the door waiting for her big moment.

The door was open and she ran out. Shouts of "TONEY!" and I turned to run after her but the same nurses aides called out, "Don't chase her, she's dangerous!" as they rushed past me.

Toney is 100 years old. She stands very straight and has a full goofy white haircut which you can see I could never get right in my sketches. She was RUNNING- she's 100 years old but she was running, and she jumped on the bus parked at the entrance. When the nurse's aide jumped on to catch her, Tony ripped off the aide's top "exposing her to the world", and scratched the aide too. She told her, "You have an evil heart and God will never forgive you."

Woah! No wonder my mother's one of their favorites. They say Toney is wearing a bracelet which locks the doors when she gets near them but she's figured out how to stand just out of lockdown range and then break out when someone opens the door unsuspectingly. She's 100 years old! She moves like an athlete.

As for my mother, her trip continues, but now it's sometimes by rail. We were in Florida on Friday and in England on Saturday. In England I was trying out for a stage role, but she didn't think I'd get the part. Something about not being forceful enough, and she wondered why I was dressed like I was Chinese. ? She carries on a monologue that's filled with curious details and funny comments, but I had the feeling I could have been there or not, for all the real impression it made on her: "so grand that you could come, taa taa".

When the 300 plus pounder nurse's aide waddled in to the small room where we were hanging, she said, "It's my husband!" My father was tall and slender and looked like Abraham Lincoln.

It was stuff that was funny but when it's your mom it isn't so funny. And there were all the other patients which I could have fun describing but I'll leave it alone. I only knew how to spell Toney's name because they've posted a sign for her on another door telling her to turn back (before it's too late?)

Gone Fishing

2010-03-08T14:41:00.002-07:00

I'm taking a break from the blog. I'm traveling to see my mother in a week, and getting ready for a trip to Italy in April and return to Colorado in May. I don't have a laptop at present and am a little worn out from blogging for so long. "And then I wrote". So turning it off but not shutting it down.

No More Mr. Hot Stuff?

2010-02-27T19:13:00.005-07:00

I went out to Santa Anita solo yesterday and was on fire as a handicapper. I got the pick 4 which means you pick 4 winners in a row, on an $8 bet. It CAN pay hundreds, sometimes thousands, but in my case it paid $84. That will buy a lot of oranges at the Farmers' Market in the morning. Got a lot of other bets right too.

But a horse who's drop dead gorgeous, Mr. Hot Stuff, was running yesterday, and that was actually the reason I went out there. I love this horse's looks, I admit it. He's a sleek well built truly black horse. He hasn't won a race since before the Kentucky Derby and I've bet him to win every time, including in the Derby. He didn't win yesterday either and he still looked like hot stuff. Plus he had my fave jockey, Smokin Joe Talamo on board.

But while walking Molly this morning I thought I could turn him into an internet cartoon strip character, with Whinsey, maybe for the phone. We'll see. I "worked" on it all day. Hard to get good expression on a jet black horse. And then when you're working in Flash you start thinking, gee, if this moved it would be more fun than a still comic- and take a lot longer to do. Rainy weather, sometimes I love you.

prophecy of darkness

2010-02-25T18:43:00.005-07:00

I've been trying to find a good home for our aviary of doves, some of whom are almost fifteen years old. I'm especially fond of that light tan dove in the picture, and it's not an easy task for me. But we'll be in Colorado from May to December and not planning on having someone live in the house this time.

I thought I'd found a perfect person on a pigeon forum I stumbled upon. Imagine, a pigeon forum. I was a little worried that her email address was prophecy_of_darkness@ but kept up the correspondence. (hope she's not going to eat their little heads off.) I learned you have to watch out for hunting dog trollers if you post on Craigslist because they will indeed do bad things to your birds.

So I sent her pictures of the birds. We'd already discussed shipping the birds. She wrote back:

Sally,

OMG.They're beautiful !!!! I want you to know we will be building an 8ftx8ftx4ft indoor aviary for them,in my bird room(pa winters are far too harsh for them,so they will be indoors,in an aviary-with a very natural appearance).We already have the guy,paid to do it and the plans made,plus some of the stuff bought for it.I will send you pictures of the aviary when it is completed.I hope alls well there,with you.

Have a great day.

Then today I get this grim email:

Sally,

We are having some family issues right now.My father is not doing well(his cancer is advancing-he told me last night),my partner just got diagnosed with RA,(had pain/swelling in her wrists-we assumed was tendonitis,and went to the drs yesterday-he diagnosed her with rhumatoid arthritis)and my partners daughter is having some turmoil with her BF and is moving out and into a rental,and we are trying to help her out.She has a 3yr old son,that is involved,and we are taking her 3 cats in,on top of it all because the only place she could find wont allow her cats-and she did not want to lose them completely.She is not safe to stay with her BF as he is hurting her.I am very very sorry to have to decline to take the birds,right now.I really wanted to give them a good home.It just would not be the best timing to give them all what they need to feel safe and secure here.My life has just been turned upside down.I hate to go back on my promise to you,I am not like that,and have been struggling with the concept of weather to still take them in or not.When it comes down to it,its whats best for the birds.I would not be being fair to them,if I took them at this point and time.

I hope you understand,and are not too upset about it.I feel bad for doing this to you.I'm very sorry about this,and I hope you find suitable homes for them.

Sounds so awful but maybe one awful thing too many? Or maybe her email address really was prophetic.

Tia goes home

2010-02-23T17:42:00.004-07:00

Tia got to go home on Friday after her scary colic surgery about ten days before. Note her shaved belly and iv patch on her neck. The sounds you hear when she reaches her stable are helicopters spraying crop dust on the nut trees nearby. They fly just barely above the trees.

There's a goldfish in my soup

2010-02-23T14:58:00.009-07:00

In San Francisco we stayed at the Hotel Monaco, a nifty hotel near Union Square. We were bewildered by this goldfish on someone's room service tray, really bewildered. (above- I take terrible cell phone pictures)

When I asked a bell man about it he said this pet friendly hotel offers bowls of goldfish for people to borrow during their stay in case they miss the pets at home. We did miss Molly, but didn't think the goldfish could take her place. We snagged one of the free dog biscuits at the front door for Molly but gave it to a homeless man's dog instead.

San Francisco was looking SNAZZY! I wanted to live there again. I had a wonderful time at breakfast on Sunday with Linda Davick who's so pretty and talented and so darn NICE! She doesn't say bad things about people, a practice I should adopt but probably never will.

Midday Jon and I went to an interesting exhibit in the old mint building on the history of long gone Chinese nightclubs in San Francisco, the most famous of which was "Forbidden City."

I also met up with my old pal from high school and Snazelle Films, Jane Cheshire, and it was wonderful to spend time together again even if only an hour.

On Monday we took the cable car over to the Musee Mechanique down at Fisherman's Wharf . All the wonderful penny arcade equipment which was once at Playland and then at the Cliff House is now in this wonderful museum which seems to be supervised by no one.

This was a really creepy mechanical opium den.

This is Laughing Sal, a very large automoton whose laughter syncs up very well with her movements.

We also paid to go inside a world war 2 SUBMARINE that's anchored next door. I'd never been in a real submarine. It was fascinating and emotionally powerful, imagining what those sailors endured, and they were all volunteers.

These are envelopes a woman painted and mailed to her submarine sailor fiancee. The one top right was returned for 3 cents postage. Some postal peeps are NO FUN!

Our visit with Dinah was also terrific- a splendid weekend. I'm working on a video of Dinah's horse coming home from the hospital and that will be a separate post.

off to Bay Area

2010-02-18T18:21:00.003-07:00

Flying out in the morning to see Dinah in Davis, then going to San Francisco late Saturday where I'll meet Linda Davick and see old pal Jane (prb here). Weather looks as if it's awful, but should be good times ahead.

Funny but when I think about San Francisco, for all the years I worked there, my mind still goes back to that first job I had working as a cocktail waitress at Earthquake McGoon's for about 3 months. You can read about the place here . It was very memorable.

In fact a few scenes of the movie "The Organization" starring Sidney Poitier were shot in the Magic Cellar, underneath MaGoon's, and I'm even in a scene or two.

As I understand it, the building on Clay St. is long gone.

Swim Party at Molly's House

2010-02-17T17:36:00.004-07:00

Only in Southern California can dogs have a swim party in mid February. You can't tell from this picture but Molly's friend is about the best looking German Shepherd I've ever seen, a red and black long hair named Tilden.

His owner my pal Calone (ipetsitla) and I were pressed against the fence because the dogs were maniacs running around with no consideration of party hosts. "Hey don't you know you're not supposed to run around a pool?"

Look at all the water spilled. They looked more like otters than like dogs swimming around.

Unfortunately Molly still stands to learn some social skills. (above)

Got the camera out only at the end of a very funny dog swim party, alas, and the battery was nearly dead.

Molly at Corriganville

2010-02-16T16:12:00.004-07:00

We took a hike in the hills of Corriganville yesterday, where many B Westerns were shot over the years. What I saw on my dog walk today was like a cheap movie.

I was walking Molly across CSUN to the post office on this hot hot afternoon. I tried to stay on the shady side of the street. As we were getting near Reseda Blvd. I saw two guys punching each other in the middle of the street and yelling at each other, as cars zipped around them. I've never seen people punch each other before. It's not the sound you hear in the movies.

I moved into a shadier area thinking I wanted to be out of any line of fire. But I kept watching. There were two other guys also watching the action, one on a skateboard, one with a backpack.

A car drove up really fast and a second guy jumped out and joined in the fight, then two of them got in the car and drove off really fast on the wrong side of the street, straight through two stop signs, heading into the campus, with cars slamming on brakes all around them.

The guy who was still on foot was catching his breath curbside. He looked like his name could be Duane: good looking skinny guy with sideburns and a Western shirt, sleeves rolled up. He said, "God damn they stole from my store." He worked, or managed Rite Aid on the corner. No sooner had he said this than cops converged from all directions. Only a beat after that and there was a helicopter over head!

The victim held his hand out for the cops as they pulled up to show them the license number he'd written on his palm! The guy on the skateboard said, "It was a 1992 4 door Toyota Corolla heading east and they drove through two stop signs. " The guy with the backpack was the one who'd dialed 911. I was just the ninny with the police dog who watched from the bushes.

The first wave of cop cars was off after them.

Another cop car pulled up and the nervous looking officers jumped out convinced that the victim was the criminal. Everyone had to put hands up. (Well, I didn't.) They couldn't decide if the story was true or not. I said to one cop, "It's true what they're saying." I was amazed how detailed the description was that the skateboard guy gave. He had long dark hair and sunglasses, with a funny hat on.

The backpack guy said to Duane, "Hey man, you should have told me you were p.a." What does that mean? The backpack guy had picked up the stuff that was dropped by the thieves and gave it back to the guy.

As I was walking back a CSUN professor on a bicycle stopped to admire Molly and I told her what had just happened. "Citizenry in action" she declared, and said she was going to tell the whole story to her students.

We stopped so Molly could take a swim in the koi pond, then headed home.

shadow of your smile

2010-02-14T19:23:00.004-07:00

It's hard taking pictures with the cell phone because there's a delay, just like in the earliest days of digital cameras. But I kind of liked this picture, taken at Santa Anita as I waited for the horses to load. A weekend of lots of betting and no winning at all.

Books recently read:

Gone with the Wind (just leave it alone.)
2 books by John Sandford (decent crime novels)
Slouching towards Bethlehem, Joan Didion ok but California has really changed
Evidence, Jonathan Kellerman enyuh
Jam Today by Tod Davies nifty anecdotal cookbook by a smart pal who writes about making tasty meals from whatever you already have in the closet.

A friend brought a crate of crime novels over so I've been picking through them.

in today's La Times!

2010-02-12T08:08:00.004-07:00

Let's (Not) Have Lunch

2010-02-11T17:42:00.002-07:00

I was a tag along yesterday for a miserable lunch. Ever meet somebody who just spews creepy stories? This older British gal next to me claimed the aisle seat in a booth because :

she might have spasms and will frighten everyone (because her hip surgery wasn't quite right.)
told how she'd been on a run away horse with her daughter beside her and their stirrups got twisted together right before they came to a fence.
told how another runaway horse threw her and she broke two vertebrae. (All these horses she owned.)
told all about her husband's experimental stem cell cancer treatment as they drained and refilled his body. (he was in the booth too.)
told how she and two other realtors got locked into a house by accident the day before and the other two realtors had accidents.
warned us that in Italy people come up behind you and slit your throat to get your wallet. (we're going there in two months.)
told how her disabled son liked to take his pants off in Harrod's and scream.
told me how and what to put in the decoy purse I had to carry in Italy for the pickpockets.
covered her ears at possibility of a dirty word as part of her story.

When the waitress came to ask how everything was, (after three out of our four had already sent back their fish and chips for being ice cold), I said "It's awful, it's terrible, it tastes like it was cooked last week and reheated many times." "Would you like a box for that?" the waitress asked.

I never complain about food at restaurants, only when I get home.

Today Dinah's horse had to have emergency colic surgery, and we couldn't locate Dinah. Major awful, but her horse came through it okay. Major awful.

My mother is still living on the S.S. Dementia. Today she said, "They can't decide whether this boat should go across the river or to Paris and back."

She said, "I like disciplined straight lines for everyday living, not for creative things, but for everyday living."

I told her I was going to visit her in about a month. She said, "Are you going to leave the baby in the nursery?"

Google Surprises

2010-02-09T20:19:00.003-07:00

okay I confess, I set something on google to send me notices when I appear on the internet. Thus I came upon this hysterical post.

and this lovely piece eekers.

Both were in the same google announcement and it didn't seem right not to include the second one as well. Or maybe I should just sit down and shut up.

10 days or so!

2010-02-08T19:58:00.004-07:00

We're going to visit our daughter in Davis- Dinah's a junior- we've never been there before and are very excited. And we're going to finally meet Linda Davick and maybe see Jane Cheshire too though she doesn't know yet! (prb) Not this weekend but the weekend after.

Talking to Dinah today on the phone, she said "you must have so many amazing stories about living in San Francisco in the 70's." Hmm, thinking...

I was such a bystander during those times. I remember getting off the bus and seeing all the peeps standing in line in Berkeley for the Grateful Dead concert in town center. Things like that. Sleeping over at Snazelle because the zebra killer hadn't been apprehended. A regular Jane Austen of the 70s. (meaning such a stupid prim thing, NEVER liked Jane Austen.)

Rainy Day

2010-02-06T16:13:00.001-07:00

so I had to draw a little sunshine. (still using Sketchbook pro trial.)

Goodbye to Elle

2010-02-04T18:13:00.004-07:00

Our dear eight year old rooster passed on and we've been feeling sad. I notice the hens don't know which table scraps are good to eat without him standing there and clucking about the food. He was a fine chicken, and old man to a backyard dynasty.

Every night I carried him to the garage so his crows wouldn't bother the neighbors in the morning.

Unlike some roosters he didn't sneak up behind you and kick you.

Here's the video I made of him:

R.I.P. sweet rooster.

Marti McGinnis delights me!

2010-02-02T18:11:00.007-07:00

UPDATE: Another blog feature on Marti with pictures HERE!

Marti McGinnis, aka wegwag on twitter, fabulous fantasy horse artist, has been doing some wondrous little unicorn pictures which she sells at ridiculously low prices through her etsy shop to help cover the costs of her equine rescue network.

These are GREAT VALENTINE GIFTS!

I find them irresistible and have bought several. When I opened the package that came from Marti today she'd done an extra, above, a portrait of my Pet Society character, toxic dump. I LOVE IT! Thank you Marti! Toxic never looked so good.

Out of nowhere I heard from a few people I really cared about from long ago in the last two days, thanks to facebook. One is my absolute favorite horse buddy of all time...

We're going to meet tomorrow and I'm going to give her one of Marti's pictures. Serendipity!

Support the Dream Act

2010-02-01T18:35:00.002-07:00

??? Seen at Cal State Northridge this morning.

Hey Look at what I won!

2010-01-27T19:25:00.002-07:00

Not going to scoop this ultra cool contest, visit Mary Forney's blog. She was my best The Pamplemousse bud last season and is a favorite of mine!

Released!

2010-01-26T19:25:00.004-07:00

I saw this leaf yesterday morning and wondered what it was telling me.

Day 5 of jury selection and I knew: I was released from this dreadful trial and wouldn't have to spend any more days looking at the back side of skull tattoos or the sleeping attorney. Four accused of extortion and homicide. Four defense attorneys, one d.a. About 80 prospective jurors for all five days of jury selection and started with more than 100. Very unusual to have such a big jury pool but they knew people were going to resist this case.

Early on I'd expressed my general revulsion for skull tattoos, but Jon was sure they'd keep me on the jury for who knows what reason. The trial is expected to run three weeks at least.

Then yesterday the goofball sleepy attorney mentioned that the crime happened in Canoga Park and zingo I remembered reading about the crime and OOH got to go in the back corridor and talk to the judge and all the attorneys about what I remembered. And I was in Colorado at the time but I remembered right, yes sir. (checked the facts today after I was released.)

The judge who sits up so high on his throne in the court room and was quite personable turned out to be a teenser fellow in person.

Today I dressed in the weirdest combo I could put together and horrified Jon as I walked out the door, but it wasn't the clothes that got me excused, I was already on the big list. YAY HOORAY! Everyone who got excused looked incredibly happy while waiting for their get out of jail passes.

Actually I think a criminal trial like this could be really interesting, but the obvious local gang angle scared me.

Nice Day!

2010-01-24T17:55:00.005-07:00

Molly and I had a surprise walk with our best German Shepherd friend and her dog Tilden at dawn, then we went to the Farmers Market and my bud tasted her first cherimoya, which is a wondrous fruit if you've never tried it.

Without doing my usual frantic handicapping, Jon and I headed to Santa Anita because I wanted to try to find the statue in Mary Forney's contest. A season pass to the Clubhouse is an exceptional prize, and I was sure I knew where the little horse statue would be hiding. The hint was that it was amidst some potato chip displays. Do you know how many kiosks and cafes at a giant racetrack sell potato chips?

Between races I scurried here and there looking for the statue. The food stand person would say to me, "May I help you?" "No, thanks, I'm just looking." How pathetic, just looking at the potato chips.

I thought we'd found every possible display of chips but then we went into the paddock room, where I'd never been before, a basement area filled with people, and there in the corner was one more potato chip display. And what was that? The little statue. I was so excited that most of the pictures I took with my phone were impossibly blurry. I emailed one to Mary. I won the contest, I'm going to get my season pass! For someone like me, this is worth hundreds!

Every bet I placed was wrong until the 5th race when I bet on the horse Chantal Sutherland was riding to win, and in an exacta. She won. I won. The exacta too.

If you haven't seen Chantal Sutherland she is incredibly pretty and has a goofy website. I believe she used to be a flight attendant. She's Canadian and has a bit of Princess Diana about her. (be sure you see the first image on the site). She's a really great rider and has just returned to Santa Anita.

The woman next to me said, "Oh yeah Chantal beats the snot out of the guys every time." euw.
Not exactly Chantal's intended image. The same lady told me my jacket was worth at least $800. Jon's been trying to get me to throw it away. It does have a few stains. euw.

Down at the actual paddock we stood next to a friendly young woman who was about to start photographing the horses coming into the circle. We made some jokes and she said she was practicing taking pictures because she wanted to go to Kentucky to take pictures of horses breeding. Um, do you mean like, -breeding? Oh yes, she said, and you have to be very fast with your camera.

Jon said, "Maybe you can sell those pictures as a calendar, with Chantal photoshopped in the background."

We left after I had my wins. Great day. It is such fun to search for something in a contest and find it.

Feeling Lucky?

2010-01-21T09:40:00.004-07:00

This afternoon I go for jury selection, which should be interesting. I just added a feature to my blog on the left side. It's something I've wanted for a while, a random replay from posts in the past.

It can be daunting when you visit a blog for the first time, to decide whether it's worth your time to read more, and this little feature can give you a nice (or not) random sampling. I got it here and it was just a click through to install.

Jury Duty?

2010-01-18T06:52:00.005-07:00

This legs table was in a bail bonds window near the courthouse.

Wacky weekend around here but now we're grounded because the biggest rain of the season is supposed to slam Los Angeles all week. We'll see if that's true. It's raining now and still dark out. Glad I'm in the middle of "Gone with the Wind" which I'm enjoying.

All last week I dutifully called in to see if I had to report next day for jury duty. Thursday night I thought I'd gotten off the hook for at least a year, but no, had to show up at 8:30 the next morning. Spent the whole day reading "Gone with the Wind" in a big room with several hundred unhappy people. Around 3:15, when the room was nearly cleared out, they called the last group of potential jurors and we shuffled across the courtyard and upstairs to room F in the criminal court building.

The judge asked for a juror pool of more than 100 people for one case. That's unusual. If I get chosen I can't say more about it, but they aren't doing the selection until next Thursday.

We (last jury pool group) sat in the courtroom behind the FOUR defendants accused of extortion and murder. Two had big shaved heads and skull tattoos, and two were Russian looking in leather coats. Central casting!

Do you suppose their appearance might affect the outcome of the case? It's like with Phil Spector- why didn't his lawyer tell him not to wear the Bozo Clown fright wig to trial? That wasn't his hair. When he checked into jail he just had a little flat hairstyle and looked like an old retired raisin.

Then to add to weekend fun we took a quick trip out to Santa Anita and watched some horses run, came home and went to the Golden Globe party given by Paramount. I was on the guest list- insane, we don't know why.

I thought I'd post my twitter tweets. Many people are bewildered by twitter but I enjoy it and it doesn't track you the same way Facebook does. The 140 maximum letters per post make it challenging but more fun. A weird thing on twitter if a person is trying to tell a story is the sequence is backwards since you read the last post first.

These are my tweets (corrected in order) when we got home:

we only stayed for four races cause we're going to Paramount's Golden Globe party tonite woowoo. Told hub to bet Rummysecretwar - good..

At party tonight: Marty Scorsese, Ray Liotta, Len .DiCaprio & Don Rickles plus about 750 peeps for the food & drinks at Chateau Marmont

also me & hub & Robert deNiro who looked very confused. We stood at side door & watched the stars get wrangled in. Actors smoke a lot.

Party Food: macn cheese, paella, eggplant dish, filet mignon wrapped in bacon, sliders, mystery puffs and a tower of mini cupcakes. I ate 3.

(next day)
Just realized the weird guy with the icky face tattoo we stood next to last night at the Golden Globes Paramount party was Mike Tyson.

Somehow I only managed to identify the guy celebs, but there were many gorgeous women there too. The oddest dress was an absolute lampshade style. Strapless white bouffant with a ruffle on the bottom, which barely covered the bottom. The slightest move and you saw her black underpants. No lightbulb underneath.
There was a pretty strict no photos policy at the party, even outside with the line of valet parkers. With cel phones they can easily pop a shot just like a papparazi.

Here's a link to a gossip report on the party.

Marvelous Marti McGinnis!

2010-01-12T10:30:00.004-07:00

Marti McGinnis painted this exquisite lyrical magical picture for my niece Allyx, who's enduring the toxic treatment required to defeat Hodgkins Lymphoma.

Marti writes about it here. There's so much depth to this joyful picture- I adore it. Thanks, Marti! You are a wondrous talent!

On the S.S. Dementia

2010-01-12T10:27:00.002-07:00

Spoke to my mother this morning: she was up on deck and had been fishing all morning but no interesting fish had been caught. She said, "How are the horses running for you?" Wow, she remembers that my latest obsession is horse racing. I said, "I've been making lots of money."

"Oh, honey that's wonderful. I don't know how you do it. But don't forget, the worm turns."

I said, "I hear Cricket and Cousin John are both on the ship." She said, "I don't think so. I haven't seen hide nor hair of them."

It was time for her to go below deck, so we hung up for today. It does seem like she's having a pretty good time on this cruise of hers, and she maintains the reality of it every day which is quite an accomplishment.

taking a break

2010-01-07T18:52:00.001-07:00

I'm taking a break from the blog, not sure how long. Nothing to worry about. Just feeling a little overwhelmed.

Quasi's Big Day

2009-12-30T13:24:00.003-07:00

This morning when I got up my friend Michael had emailed me that my film "Quasi at the Quackadero" had been included in 2009 National Film Registry.

"The National Film Preservation Board members enthusiastically supported this addition to the more than 500 U.S. films now recognized as "culturally, historically and aesthetically significant" and worthy of preservation."

I want to toast E.E. Gregg Snazelle. Right after college I rented an editing room at Snazelle Films in San Francisco so I could finish my third film, "Chow Fun." Gregg saw the film and offered me a job at his film company. The job was to experiment with animation, and do commercials for him when the jobs came in. He also hoped I'd figure out how to solve 3-d without glasses.

Needless to say I didn't solve 3-d. I didn't even do very many commercials over ten years, but I showed up at 8:30, took an hour off for lunch and worked till 5:30. I was paid $350 a month, and I could live on that then.

He encouraged me generously without ever paying much attention to me. These days if an opportunity like that even existed, you'd be forced to sign all kinds of rights statements for characters and content created, but this was before "Star Wars" and he just seemed to be happy to have me around. We were never particularly close. It spoiled me for any job after that.

I made all my "Quasi" films while I was working at Snazelle. Unfortunately he's no longer alive, but here's to you, Gregg, with a big heart and much thanks.

hostess dilemna

2009-12-29T16:52:00.004-07:00

I saw this cute lady at Santa Anita the day after Christmas. Her hat was covered with sequins but I don't know how to get a sequin effect. Hope she was luckier than I was in her horse picks. We got to see Zenyatta one more time, and Brian and Dinah came too.

For Christmas we had invited nine guests. We had cooked about 20 dishes to accomodate various diets. Three of the guests were traveling together and they were picking up a fourth guest in Hollywood who can't drive. This had been arranged over a week's worth of emails.

When the carload of four arrived, guess what? There were only three. They had forgotten to pick up the fourth guest, and they were late. The food was all cooked. They'd totally forgotten.

Dinah got an A+ for volunteering to drive over to Hollywood and retrieve our guest who was patiently waiting. (But couldn't she have called to ask what's up?) Our cooked food also patiently waited for more than an hour. By the time we ate the food had patiently waited for more than two hours. We managed not to get mad and had a jolly time but it was a dilemna (that's the old fashioned spelling).

Here we are with Dinah's chickens. Remind me to wear makeup next time I get my picture taken with spring chickens.

yeah

2009-12-29T09:17:00.003-07:00

Well I just spoke to my mother and she's sitting on a bench in Princeton. She said she hopes it'll be a lot more fun when I graduate- it's really supposed to be fun, but they're bringing all the mothers in in wheelbarrows and the sons aren't happy about it. Anyway, I'm supposed to meet her at the yacht house gate tonight between 5 and 7.

Merry Christmas!

2009-12-24T16:05:00.002-07:00

Dinah got home this morning, with her friend Brian,

her three chickens, and two guinea pigs.

A good friend who grew up in Puerto Rico brought us these incredible Cuban pastries. He said the line went around the block.

Hope you all have a great day whatever you celebrate, whatever you're doing.

A letter from Jan. 18, 1981

2009-12-23T16:31:00.006-07:00

My mother, my sister and I wrote each other many letters, and some of them I've saved. I was going through a box the other day and I thought this letter my mother had written me in 1981 really gives you a sense of her vivid imagination, and where mine comes from.

The first part of the letter, which I left out, was about whether my sister should come with me on a lecture tour. (My mother was against it.) The rest of the letter is below:

I just read your "Dome of Peace ". It' s a beautiful story Sally and once again I can't get over the gift you have for writing. I knew you had done some interesting things at Smith but didn't realize the extent of your creative abilities.

I like this story particularly because it is positive. The world needs to hear and read of victorious characters. The character in your story is confronted with destructive forces and manages to be victorious over them. So many writers like to leave their characters in hopeless defeat or hopeless anxiety.

Of course that is the true meaning of Christianity--victory. I never told Daddy but I had the deepest respect for Martin Luther King--"I have a dream" and "We can overcome", just think
what he accomplished in his short life . Writers can have tremendous influence on people without ever knowing it. I am so moved by what I read that I have to make vigilant choices.

I actually gave up novels because I couldn't read them like regular people. I was "them" in the novel and couldn't do anything else till I was finished with "them". That's why I like biographies and autobiographies. I know the people turned out O.K. so I can read at my leisure, like regular
people. Even here I find myself wanting to copy down all the wise conclusions they come to so my children can have the benefit of them! With Schweitzer I was in steaming Africa, with Zelda Fitzgerald in the nut house, with Baruch on Wall Street, and so it goes... There are many people, not in the public eye who live victoriously and it is these people who deserve plaudits, like Enether and Jean Wallace.

Must close this, I am taking Bee Burnett to church and because she wants to/will sit thru a lecture on Islamic religion set up by the education dept at St. Pauls. Talk about negative! Who ever said I was prejudiced! If he isn't too darling about it I may find it interesting. He is a
professor, not a missionary.

My afternoon is going to be wonderful. First the football game and then the tennis!

Lots of love

Mom

(The letter was typewritten and I was able to scan it and then use a program that recognized the text to paste it here. )

All Over the Globe

2009-12-22T13:20:00.004-07:00

When I spoke to my mother today the ship she thinks she's on had passed through the Panama Canal. Now they were in Japan, and people talked too fast and she had never liked the place or the people. She said she missed America.

I tried to pull her back to reality by talking about my brother. "Cricket's in Africa," I said. (It's true- he's visiting his daughter in Mozambique.) She knew this. She remembered that his daughter had been ill in Africa earlier this year.

At the end she said "Lovely of you to call." Ta ta!

What I've been thinking is that with baby boomers approaching the falling down age, researchers had better get on the stick with studies of anesthesia and its effect on the elderly, or "The Magical Mystery Tour" will have a total new meaning.

These images from a wonderful site, Cruising the Past.

On the S.S. Xmas

2009-12-21T21:35:00.001-07:00

Today when I called my mother she said "I'm back on the ocean."

We talked about that a while, and I tried to steer the boat elsewhere by saying we were decorating our tree. She said, "Oh we had a big Xmas party on the ship yesterday but the staff was running around snatching people's presents. Then they gave us castor oil."

Not sure this is the ship we want to be on.

Aloha

2009-12-18T14:07:00.003-07:00

My mother was moved to long term nursing care yesterday. I called today and the very jolly nurse said they were about to make peanut butter cookies together and it was a good time for me to call.

I said "Hi Mom" and she told me:

She'd been in China but now she was in Hawaii.
She was in a work camp run by the Episcopal Church.
She was in a recreation hall and the people running things weren't very bright. I said, "Well you've always gotten along with people like that," and she said "That's true."
She was amazed I was able to reach her on the telephone.
She was worried about my father because he walks so much slower than most of the people where she was. (He died in 1969 and I remember he was a slow walker.)

She's always had a good imagination and it's certainly rolling along now. Her voice had a hint of the old time educated/elegant Baltimore accent I can remember from when I was little. She sounded quite breezy.

Sketchbook Pro

2009-12-17T15:50:00.005-07:00

I have a trial version of Sketchbook Pro starting today. This is the first picture I've drawn with it. Definitely captures my not quite with the season mood.

The program seems quite nice actually. I figured it out enough in five minutes to get started, and the colors are more fun to play with than what I'm used to. I believe it's rather expensive but I haven't checked the price yet. It wasn't much more complicated than graffiti, at least to start out with.

Add to that Dinah just called and probably won't get home for Christmas because her horse developed an abcess in her hoof, which requires daily attention. It used to be you had to put your horse's hoof in a bucket twice a day, now you wrap a diaper soaked in cayenne mixture. The cayenne is so the goats won't eat the diaper.

Another tough dog from long ago

2009-12-14T15:45:00.003-07:00

As I was looking through the giant pile of cd-roms to find replacement software for my old computer, I came upon a cd of this photograph.

I sold this on ebay about six years ago. A bidding war ensued and it sold for more than $700. It wasn't much bigger than a postcard. Two women who both loved pitbulls were battling. You may not be able to tell, but the girl's holding a pistol and the pitbull has his, uh, lipstick showing.

While trying to revive my laptop I've come upon all sorts of weird solutions that people say work, like "Turn it on, put it in a plastic bag, then cover it with several towels. Wait 45 minutes, turn it off, then turn it on again and hold down the j-k-l keys." Not the h-e-l-p keys?

It didn't work. People are trying to put together a class action suit for this particular hp tablet laptop.

Been a while

2009-12-11T15:42:00.003-07:00

Yeah, holiday spirit. I've been trying to put my computer back together again and I came upon this picture Dinah created about 8 years ago. That's our old dog Lulu on the front porch in Colorado.

Cold Case Carnival

2009-12-03T18:19:00.005-07:00

Hey, what's in that tent?

I'm back on the track of taking my German Shepherd Molly to Lake Balboa every morning at dawn. I thought the big news this morning was that the pelicans were back-- I saw 10 landing-- but then turning down a side road I came upon this amazing carnival set for Cold Case. They're filming tomorrow and Monday so they have to keep the sets up and I guarantee they'll have a rough time this weekend convincing people that it's not a circus and it's not a carnival.

The pleasant(ly plump) security guy told me I couldn't have a walk around even though it wasn't filming till next day. I understood. Just wish he didn't have that tattoo of his name crawling up the side of his neck. Freaks to the left of me, freaks to the right of me.

Reading Manly Men Bios!

2009-12-02T18:05:00.004-07:00

Ha, got you there! While I was in New Jersey I read Robert Mitchum's biography, "Baby, I Don't Care." What a character, this big sexy coolster, part Norwegian, part Indian, smarter than anyone would expect and hard to define. The book is a bit long (500+ pp) but you think about him long after it's done. One of the things people remembered about him the most, aside from his "I don't care" bohemianism, and his incredible face, was that he was a great story teller.

Last summer I was really intrigued by Raoul Walsh's autobiography,"Each Man in his Time" . As a child his parents entertained famous Broadway actor of the day Edwin Thomas Booth, brother of John Wilkes Booth whom Walsh was later to play in The Birth of a Nation (1915). They lived on a farm somewhere near Harlem and entertained all the most famous people of their day it seemed.

Being an autobiography, this book had a lot more insight into the life of a man who traveled with and filmed Pancho Villa in Mexico, and had stories that were just breathtaking. He didn't seem happy except when he was making a movie. He was a director for 50+ years!

Robert Mitchum and Raoul Walsh intersect briefly in the 40's.

What got me thinking was this: both men were known for being great story tellers, both men were major figures in Hollywood history. Who's a great story teller anymore? Movies today have so little story line. People today rarely tell stories in social situations. Hmm, is there something here?

And that's actually the point of this post. I got to thinking.

Finger Paintin

2009-11-30T14:29:00.002-07:00

well it won't make the cover of the New Yorker, but I drew this with my finger on my phone while I was visiting my mother last week and it expresses what the visit was like.

What came to mind about it most was this- imagine the span of a lifetime as a dirty windshield. Think of the worn wipers going back and forth, getting stuck in a certain spot each time. That's what it's like for my mother right now. All different parts of her life are recurring, but the place where she gets stuck the most is in Princeton, where my brother is rowing in a race (40 years ago) and she can't get to the race in time. Or she can't get the paper where the race is written up.

When I'd see her first thing in the morning she'd be pretty lucid, but then the little cups of pills which I guess she needs for all kinds of reasons, would start jamming her mind. Her eyesight is poor now too so that makes it easier for her to imagine these other places and times. Another recurrent theme was that we were on a not very nice ocean liner, and when were we going to reach land?

I was glad for the lucid moments but it also makes it even harder dealing with the dementia, because Ithink I can just straighten her out by explaining a few things.

Thanksgiving Day was great, but the buildup was really rough going, especially since we never reached land.

10 Little Indians

2009-11-28T17:18:00.007-07:00

My brother had planned a big family Thanksgiving especially for my mother. That was the reason I booked my flight. There were going to be 15 of us. All my mother's great grandchildren and some of her grandkids too. I was going to drive my mother to the feast. Then my mother broke her hip and couldn't leave her premises. 14.

Then just two days before the big day his daughter had to have repair surgery after lots of other surgeries and couldn't move or bend over. 9. Then his daughter in law who's pregnant was rushed to the hospital with a kidney stone and other complications in Boston. His son the great cook was going to help my brother cook. Now we were 6 and the expert had dropped out. My brother had never cooked a full dinner before but was determined to do it.

Dinner was set for 2:00. At ten of 2 my nephew called and said he was just leaving his house. He was an hour plus away. We were fuming and, uh, 3. The turkey was already cooked. I made the spinach salad with goat cheese pine nuts and apple per instrux. I also made the gravy.

It was a magnificent feast. Mussels mirepoix, turkey and gravy, spinach salad, cornbread stuffing, butternut squash with morel cherries, green beans with sauteed almonds, lively cranberry orange vodka relish, sweet potatoes with pecan crunch top, mashed potatoes with gorgonzola cheese... He made all this from SCRATCH without a RECIPE!!!

He wasn't even sure his single oven would work! His girlfriend was about to faint it was so good and so unexpected. Everyone had seconds, some had thirds. How had my brother gone all those years and never cooked a meal?

These are cel phone pictures. I think my the niece in this picture may have put her sticky finger on the phone lens and thus we're all spared wrinkles.

I'll tell about my mother in another post.

quote of the day

2009-11-25T08:04:00.002-07:00

MOM: You don't get a real feeling for the trip just from talking to a waffle.

Heading Out

2009-11-22T18:10:00.004-07:00

I'm going to visit my mother Monday-Friday. She's been failing ever since her hip surgery. Although physically she's recovering, her mind got jammed I guess from the anesthesia. She's living in an alternate world- I can't imagine what this visit will be like. Or rather, I think I can...

Rooster Elle has been improving after a week on his meds. With birds you never know what the health outcome will be because they hide symptoms, but I had him back with the girls today in the sunshine and all were getting along and hanging together. Chickens can really turn on a sick bird, so I guess they were putting a vote in for the guy. I certainly am.

I was told Ira Glass did a radio show on chickens this weekend. Anyone hear it? And the New Yorker ran an article on raising them a month or so ago. Odd.

My new phone has all kinds of features so who knows, maybe I'll post next week.

Hope you have a happy and safe holiday, and whoever is cooking doesn't decide to experiment too much on Thanksgiving.

Ode to the new phone

2009-11-18T19:09:00.002-07:00

Let's see if this works.

on to the garage

2009-11-16T18:35:00.004-07:00

Poor Elle, my 8 year old rooster. The house sitter gets an F. Just got back from the vet, a $250 bill and he may or may not make it. I declined the x rays. Diagnosis was lack of food, general neglect. EEK!

He was looking poorly yesterday so we moved his overnight hutch back in the garage and put a heat lamp on it. But first we gave the unexpected resident, seen above, a ride in a box to wilder country. I was looking closely and nervously at the head shape- diamond or not diamond? till I saw the little legs emerge in the straw. A very large lizard. I thought it was unlikely there would be a rattlesn. in the garage but in L.A. anything's possible.

Our neighborhood is going downhill, and it's not because we live here. Honest! During the "you've got the green light"free finance era houses were bought by unknown neighbors who then rented individual rooms to families.

The house catty corner to us seemed especially suspect for several years. We thought it might be a drug drop off house. The people didn't live there, they just came there for short periods every couple of days. They would never speak to anyone in the neighborhood. They built up the fences so they were as high as you can go. Now that house is in foreclosure, and we went to the open house yesterday.

Creepy extraordinaire, especially the closet right by the sliding doors to the pool. It was only big enough for a person to stand in, and it was sound proofed, all four walls, ceiling and floor, with foam shaped like an egg carton. Okay, so what was that for?

Governors Awards 2009

2009-11-15T14:17:00.005-07:00

Roger Corman being toasted by Ron Howard. There were many toasts all night- something new they were trying. whew *****

Last night was the big Hollywood party at the Kodak Theatre. Since I don't have a point and shoot mini camera, I thought the cel phone would serve the trick for taking pictures. But it doesn't have flash, and half the time I forgot to click save anyway. My two pictures weren't worth posting. I found the one above on line. I was sitting right behind the woman on the right with the helmet hair.

It was an outstanding evening, written up in the L.A. Times. The food, catered by Wolfgang himself, was choice, particularly the appetizers "passed by butlers". These included tiny crabcakes, slices of Kobe beef with horseradish sauce served on a potato slice, teenser duck rolls tied with some kind of vegetable string, tuna in a cookie like cone (all these minitature) and champagne provided by Moet and Chandon.

We got there exceptionally early- fine with me-I got to sample all the appetizers. Others were letting the fancy trays pass by but I considered it a special opportunity to eat as much as I could. Besides, I got food poisoning at a Wolfgang Puck restaurant once. I had to prove him wrong. Once the crowd got roaring there wasn't much to be had. I saw Morgan Freeman sitting on the couch I'd just gotten up from. I saw Lauren Bacall pass right by looking beautiful. A woman I know asked me to hold her shawl which looked like a bathroom rug. I made a point of finding her again so I didn't have to take it into dinner with me.

We sat at the table just behind Roger Corman. Here's my take on the evening:

The lively speakers were Quentin Tarantino, Jonathan Demme, Roger Corman, Lauren Bacall, and Gordon Willis. Willis (who shot the Godfather movies), said, "Every time I worked with a beautiful actress I think she was worried I'd make her look like Marlon Brando. I just want them all to know they don't have to worry anymore."

Looking great at the awards were Roger Corman & family, Lauren Bacall, Peter Fonda, Jack Nicholson (no girl friend, no sunglasses, big smiles)

Lookin like a zombie: Peter Bogdanovich.
Most pompous speaker (no surprise) : Tom Hanks.
Angleica Huston presented the award to Lauren Bacall. They had family ties that went way back. Holding her Oscar, Ms. Bacall said that she was just happy to have a "two legged man" to bring home with her.

Tied for most boring speakers: Mr. and Mrs. Warren Beatty.

At the end of this SIX HOUR affair, they gave the Irving Thalberg award to John Calley who was too ill to attend. In the process they brought up all the previous award winners including Walter Mirisch, Steven Spielberg, George Lucas, Saul Zaentz, Norman Jewison, Warren Beatty and Dino de Larentiis. All of them have white hair and gray beards and are about the same size, except for Beatty. Looked like Snow White and the seven dwarves!

Dessert, for those who like to know these things, was "Chocolate Tear Drop filled with White Chocolate Mousse and Fresh Cherries." (though they were actually raspberries.) Very tasty!

Oh, and as for my outfit etc. I got my makeup done for the first time ever. Geez it took a long time. Do women spend 45 minutes every day to do themselves?

Here's the before picture:

I was sitting in a high chair with my eyes closed. When the makeup artist said, "Now open" I got confused and opened my mouth- halfway thinking I was at the dentist. I could tell she thought I was a nut. She asked me what I was wearing, and I said, "It's vintage." She said, "It's SPINACH?" okay so who's the nut here!

always looking my best out by the trash cans!

looks like I just sucked on one of those lemons on the ground. My stockings were navy and silver sparkly herringbone.

Mean Malls

2009-11-12T16:53:00.004-07:00

We're going to a black tie event on Saturday night. It's an Academy Award event honoring, among others, Roger Corman and Lauren Bacall. Government issued id required at the door. And don't wear orange.

I really didn't have anything to wear, so I set off looking for a formal gown. I've experienced a lot more of mall life in the last three days than I'd ever want to otherwise.

Things I learned along the way:

In spite of Michelle Obama, department stores are still pushing the Betty Ford look in formal wear: big bows and bigger collars.
If the dresses don't look like Betty Ford wore them, they look like 1940's swimsuits with big skirts and glitter. The lampshade look is everywhere.

Another option is a dress with one strap only, ala Tarzan.

Every single dress I saw was made in China, every one.
Don't imagine the dresses you see online will be in the stores. Too much of a risk that they won't sell.
There are no velvet dresses to be had. Maybe they forgot how to make velvet in China.
Nearly everyone working or shopping at malls in the middle of the day has a middle eastern accent.
Formal wear is freaking UGLY!

The stores I went to: Macy's, Bloomingdale's, Nordstrom's, Neiman Marcus, and a small dress shop with barracuda style sales women. This was NO FUN!

Getting desperate, I ordered a dress from the Neiman Marcus catalog, sent overnight, and when I tried it on all that was missing was the pink bunny slippers. A combo design of nightgown and mummy outfit, with wrapping bands all around the top that added to its ugliness.

Ah but I was inspired. I remembered I had a velvet dress from the 1920's. I haven't worn it in 20 years myself. Pulled it out of the costume trunk, tried it on, miracle it still fit. Now I am mall free! You don't tell people you pulled it out of the costume trunk, you just say it's vintage, right?

Who's in the Kitchen?

2009-11-11T07:29:00.003-07:00

Weird to come upon a picture like this in Facebook. Hey, that's our kitchen! But we weren't there in October. Oh. It's the woman who house sat for us. Cute costume and makeup!

I admit, I was Facebook snooping, because we haven't been entirely happy with the way she took care of things. That's how I came upon it. Nuff said.

But Facebookers beware. We all leave quite a trail. That's one of the reasons I like Twitter better because it seems less like a mining exercise and less about the individual. What Twitter is about is still bewildering, but maybe it's their trending topics.

On to meat loaf. I made a very tasty turkey meatloaf last night riffing off of a couple of recipes. Vegetarians, be glad your hands weren't in the bowl. I'm posting it so I'll remember about it next time.

A pound of ground turkey, some dried bread crumbs, chopped onion, chopped celery, chopped garlic. An egg, some oregano. A chopped chipotle chili from a can with adobo sauce is what gives it flavor. Mix all together, put in loaf pan. Then mix a small can of tomato sauce with just a little of that adobo sauce, pour that on the top. Bake at 350 for an hour. Let set up for 15 minutes out of the oven. It stayed really moist, perhaps because the sauce sealed it.

I still am on a buzz from the Breeders Cup last weekend, and Zenyatta's amazing win.

ZENYATTA!!!

2009-11-08T18:25:00.005-07:00

Here she comes the Queen of England- no wait, it's prancing princess ZENYATTA! Her trainer next to her.

Many wonderful hand made posters. Women were declaring this horse as their horse.

There goes Kentucky Derby winner Mine That Bird above, with Calvin Borel.

Doin the Chanel thing. I need a suit like this.

doin the Diane Arbus thing. This going to the chapel gal was alone the whole day, even at the very end when I was waiting with her to see jockey Mike Smith walk back to the jockeys' room.

Hey, where'd you get your poster?

Below are my twitter posts when I got back from Santa Anita yesterday, where Zenyatta won the Breeders Cup Classic racing against the very best horses in the world. Female beat all the males, unheard of, bigger, better even than Rachel Alexandra's victories this year. I really enjoy my twitter life! My posts:

Most exciting racing day EVER! HISTORY IS MADE!

Squeezed in the basic crowd all day& squished at rail into saddle area. When Z headed to saddle area shout outs SHE'S COMING! Like Q of E!

The dance she did as she passed the screaming squeezed masses is something I'll never forget.

The start of the race was so CRAZY with Zenyatta doing her dressage wiggles on way to the gate...

Then she didn't want to go in the gate, then she came out the open front end, and then QUALITY ROAD oops

Everytime QR kicked out or bucked the crowd roared like it was a prizefight.

When QR scratched (we could hear the phone ring like it was on stage) , the crowd roared. The excitement was so intense.

(since my twitter pals all had seen the race one way or other I didn't describe it- astonishing victory by this great big filly)

and the smile on Mario Espinoza, Zenyatta's groom, as he led her back thru the tunnel, I'll also never forget.

Breeders Cup Day 1

2009-11-06T18:41:00.006-07:00

wow how cute are these girls? That's me on the right.

No wait, I guess this is me. oh well.

Wish I could look more mysterious, like she does. I found if you say to folks, "You look so cute- may I take your picture?" you get the shot. Single people take notice.

This guy brought his lucky bear.

The guy below trained this year's Kentucky Derby winner. Lots of cute girls around him. He's no longer on crutches, and looked much jollier than his (snarly) press presentation last May.

The horse below is Mr. Hot Stuff. He didn't win, but he almost did, and he deserves his name, don't ya think?

I had so much fun I can barely control myself, and it wasn't just because I made some dough.

The Breeders Cup races run for two days at Santa Anita. I purchased two special Tweeters Event tickets for Jon and me. It seemed incredible that for $25 we'd get reserve seats, gifts, entertainment and a full and delicious lunch but it was that good. Plus got to meet online racing bud Kevin Stafford (remember the Rachel Alexandra contest?) and Julie the sweetheart.

Going back tomorrow and hope to see more of the buds, but the crowd is going to be a nightmare. Insane that I didn't get pictures of the buds, but I was so excited I was practically foaming.

On the Road Again

2009-11-01T16:18:00.002-07:00

We're leaving in the morning, heading back to California. It will take two days, and we're planning on staying in Flagstaff tomorrow night, an old railroad town that still has some charm.

Molly spent the day hovering around the car. The Chows used to lie right in front of it when they got a whiff of suitcase action. At least she has the sense to lie behind it! Dogs get freaked out when suitcases get put into action.

One size too small

2009-10-31T18:52:00.003-06:00

credit Elliott Swanson

These shoes could be mine but they're one size too small. Elliott Swanson is a brilliant guy whose specialty is lenticular images. Go ahead, look it up. Sometimes we collaborate.

A spooky house

2009-10-29T16:55:00.004-06:00

We passed this deserted house on a hike the other day. I wonder how long it's been deserted.

Here's the outside of the spooky house:

When are you leaving?

2009-10-27T12:39:00.003-06:00

There's a winter storm warning for the next two days. It was supposed to start tonight but it's already started. Once the dish gets covered with snow we'll have no internet. On top of that I think I may have gotten the flu during my travels so I'm getting back in bed with chills, headache, and nausea. Sound like it? We're planning on leaving Monday for L.A. "When are you leaving?" is one of those conversation openers that's a little insulting. OINK!

Midnight at Medford

2009-10-27T09:58:00.007-06:00

The picture is this morning in Colorado. Since then there's been much more snow, and it's still falling. A miracle that the internet still works. Now back to our story:

It was almost midnight when I got to my mother's assisted living center. I took a Rapid Rover van instead of driving, and got dropped off in the parking lot. There's a glassed in walkway that wraps around the building with chairs all along it. As I walked towards the door I noticed there were hunched over people sitting in all the chairs. But it was so late, and so dark. Had the nurses forgotten them? What was going on here? CREEPY!

Once inside I saw they were Halloween decorations, figures without armatures, that's why they were all slumped over, with legs made of pantyhose stuffed with newspapers. I took some pictures with the cel phone while I was there. They kind of spooked me the whole time.

My mother broke her hip and had hip surgery. The anesthesia has warped her mind, just as it has every time she's had surgery the last six years. But now she's almost 95, so we're just hoping she'll come back to herself.

In the morning she'd start out okay. Then as the day would go on she'd get increasingly paranoid and talk incessantly. She was never a paranoid person, and I don't remember getting the full force of paranoia focussed on me before from anyone. I had to switch my water glass with my mother's and take a sip to prove I wasn't poisoning her.

Saturday morning at the breakfast table she was really on, making observations on everything and everyone around her. The big unknown was what she would say next: it could be funny, insulting, or just peculiar. And people were listening. Not many people are funny at age 94.

After doing a wrap up on all the unappealing food on her tray she looked across the room where a nurse with a white head scarf was hand feeding a patient. She said, "Why does that man have a parachute on his head?" Quick, change subject!

Somebody's granddaughter was leaving and said to me, "I love your shirt." My mother said, "Did she just say 'I love you' to you? People are so familiar these days."

Airports Observed

2009-10-26T06:47:00.003-06:00

Paranoia was the theme during my visit to my mother, and it still echoed on the way home.

The name on my ticket was misspelled so I knew I had a good chance of running into trouble at the Philadelphia Airport on my way back. This port is known for its nasty employees; in fact they sent a Team Disney to the Philly airport to jollify them all- I read about that in the paper last year. Some of the employees did have big smiles this time, and my name was not a problem.

But then...

At the x ray machine I got pulled aside by a Czech looking luggage inspector who seemed really scared. I think he thought he'd found a live one.

When the inspector started looking through my suitcase he was practically shaking. He said, "DON'T TOUCH YOUR SUITCASE WHILE I'M LOOKING THROUGH IT!"

My nephew works at a chocolate factory and is the product manager for those fancy Lindt bars- high end chocolate for low end customers... the skinny bars that are grabbing shelf space in Walmart, Target, and probably your local supermarket. My brother had given me a lovely selection of the bars, plus EEK! a one pound can of cocoa, with the lid taped. The scotch tape give it that improv explosive look.

Slowly the cocoa can was pulled from my suitcase. He turned it on all sides, then put it in the encased rounded deploder, and set it on spin cycle. I don't know. It passes inspection. He puts it back in my luggage and sends it through the x ray machine again. And I'm on my way. It was kind of fun. I felt special.

On the airplane the flight attendant spilled a glass of water on the guy aisle seat in my row, and also on his silk shirt. Way to go girly. She mopped him and it up with paper napkins and he was amazingly gracious. Somewhere back this year I did a little cartoon on spills.

In Phoenix I had a greasy lunch outside a sports bar. The waiter called me "luv". After I left I sat a few gates down from the bar and read my creepy novel about life in Mandalay in the 1880s.
("The Lacquer Lady" by F. Jesse Tennyson.)

In Phoenix some of the airport cops ride bicycles, not Segways. There seemed to be a higher alert going on than the usual orange. Marigold? Blood Orange? I saw a group of obese TSA boys and gals walking in formation back and forth in our wing. Odd. By formation I mean all in a horizontal line holding their soda cups.

Then I noticed the bicycle cops had pulled MY waiter out of the sports bar and were questioning him for about 30 minutes, right until there was some other excitement. When I woke this morning I thought, if I were really paranoid or guilty, I'd think they were asking him what I ate.

Further excitement: an old black man wearing a beret and carrying a cane wandered through an exit door setting off big alarms, and causing a TSA agent to pull a gun on him. wooee! Who needs tv? Just go hang out at an airport!

I also listened to the pilots of the prop plane I flew out on explain to the flight attendant what he was supposed to do on the flight, apparently his first one. This was right before we boarded. At least it wasn't the flight attendant explainng to the pilots wht they were supposed to do!

Sudden Travel

2009-10-21T14:01:00.001-06:00

I'm flying out to Philadelphia tomorrow to see my mother, who's in bad mental shape after her recent surgery. Back Sunday night.

Morning, Birds

2009-10-21T09:33:00.004-06:00

Love his white eyebrows!

The light was stranger than it appears in this picture. I have trouble getting sky shots to capture their full color.

Magpies are magnificent.

Today it's snowing. We're making plans to go back to L.A. at the start of November. My mother's back in assisted living, out of the hospital, but very confused about it all.

Camo the Chicken

2009-10-18T14:48:00.005-06:00

Dinah sent me this picture today of her little chick named Camo, short for Camouflage, though I don't get the reference. This silky chick has an amazing head puff and is show quality. She has two other chicks. Who doesn't keep chickens at college? (and a horse, two goats and two guinea pigs.) I never had a pet when I was in college. deprived.

Yesterday we took a long hike up a mountain to around 12,000 feet. We passed through snow and pine forests, but it was a warm, pretty day. I finally saw a big horned sheep but unfortunately it was dead by the side of the trail.

When we got to the top we wandered around looking for that perfect lunch spot. We weren't at the top of the mountain, but at the end of the trail, and it was pretty level. There was supposed to be a great view which we never quite found. But we did find two nice stumps to sit on, enjoyed our lunch, and then discovered we'd gotten all turned around and really didn't know where we were. Our footprints in the snow were melting and losing direction.

It was scary, briefly. Have you ever been lost in the woods? It's not a good feeling. I had a compass but I'm still figuring out how it can be my friend. Anyway, we found our way back before too long. I checked in my hiking book back in the car to see what I'd done wrong. The author wrote, "when you reach the top, go around the corner." GO AROUND THE CORNER? That's no direction. Anyway, back in the house again. Heard a rifle go off a little while ago, but not too close.

Sunset Strip

2009-10-16T08:56:00.003-06:00

We get some beautiful sunsets up here. I discovered if I set the auto to ISO it catches the light better.

Speaking of sunsets, last night we watched "Richard Pryor Live on Sunset Strip." What a brilliant and funny guy. It was released in 1982, so it was interesting that they cut away to Jesse Jackson in the audience several times, also to Alan Alda.

Dark Days

2009-10-14T09:05:00.004-06:00

My mother fell and broke her hip two nights ago. She was going to have surgery today, but the cardiologist has some concerns and they're doing more tests. She's almost 95. When I spoke to her last night in her hospital room she was quite lucid about the surgery and not particularly bothered, but all agitated about the labor problems in the basement, convinced that she needed to take a stand on things. She doesn't take well to anesthesia.

My 17 year old niece is also in the hospital, in Chicago with a horrible disease. We are pretty stressed around here.

I drew this in my sketchbook a while back. Right now I'm playing with Flash a bit, and can't help noticing how much better the line quality is with an actual pen as compared to any kind of software.

Galloping Goose Again

2009-10-12T18:26:00.003-06:00

We took another hike along the Galloping Goose trail bed, and had lunch by a stream with a waterfall. Molly took a swim in it.

As I walked past the old railroad ties I had this fantasy that I'd kick a rock, look down, and see an old gold watch underneath. I pick up the watch and hold it to my ear, to hear if it still ticks. I hear a distant voice that says, "Helloooo?"

And then?

Last night we went for dinner with some friends at their house. The guy's a really good cook. We were there for Thanksgiving a few years ago. When we got there last night his wife was on the phone, the football game was on the big tv, the kids were flying off a trampouline, and he was cooking.

As he mashed the potatoes we told him how great looking his cats were. He went to the freezer and pulled out a ziploc bag with a frozen dead pocket gopher in it. We admired it. We weren't worried about what was for dinner at all.

BEEN IN THE MOUNTAINS TOO LONG!!!

Lunch at the Uranium Mine

2009-10-11T19:49:00.004-06:00

Yesterday we went on a 4 1/2 hour hike on some up and down cliffside trails that ended at an abandoned uranium mine, where we had lunch. Aren't I just glowing? I need a geiger counter around here, just to know when things are really ticking.

Weird Neighbors

2009-10-08T20:36:00.004-06:00

Too late to illustrate, but have to say...

Down the road our 40 year old single neighbor got busted early in the summer for driving 150 miles mph while chased by the devil. In the first telling the devil was in the back seat but now I know he was in a separate car. Now the neigh is living in a Christian community in Mountain Village. (Richistan). Who knows where the devil's gone. Just checked the closets.

Not just to make fun. People with bad mental conditions get meds that make them feel like their old selves except for the side effects. They think: "Who needs these stupid pills?" and then the devil is chasing them... and so are the cops.

Now mega rich guy who's part of the Haagen Daas family is renting our victim's house while his castle is being remodeled. The devils are fattening up on strange flavors. Unappreciated famous guy was one of the first stars of beach volley ball in the 50's in case you don't appreciate.

We had crock pot cooked pot roast tonight. Or was that crack pot kook rroswt? One of the recipes I read said add an envelope of Lipton's Onion Soup mix and a can of coke.

Talk about blase....

Just couldn't go there. Dinner was a yum. Especially lemon sponge custard (joy of cooking easy masterpiece) at the end.

Gray Jay

2009-10-06T18:27:00.004-06:00

We went on a lovely hike today near Lizard Head. There was snow under all the pines but the trail was clear and we'd never hiked it before. No human prints on the trail, and no one passed us in either direction. It wasn't a huff and puff trail. There were so many hawks flying. They may have been golden eagles. Also we were stalked by a number of gray jays, like this cutey above.

That's Lizard Head behind me.

Molly gets really crazy when she encounters piles of snow but I didn't get any photos of her in the act.

Last night we put some spaghetti and garlic bread in the upstairs bird pan for the magpies and stellar jays. In the middle of the night Molly started barking frantically. It was serious enough for us to get up and find the big flashlight. Right outside the house a herd of maybe a dozen mule deer ran off in all directions. Mule deer don't usually move in herds.

Was the upstairs smell of garlic bread and spaghetti so enticing?

A very good dog

2009-10-04T17:50:00.006-06:00

Tonight I was making lasagna, and the recipe was on the the laptop, on the couch. I'd put one layer down and couldn't remember whether you put sauce next or cheese next. I left the square dish on the counter, on top of a dishtowel, and walked over to the computer.

CRASH! Our counter slants about 15 degrees and the pyrex dish took a slide and a fracture. On the floor were shattered glass fragments, red sauce and noodles. It looked like the scene of a crime. It was meat sauce on the floor. Now our old Chows would have been fighting with me to let them at it even though it was laced with glass, but Molly just watched from her bed. Our downstairs is an open floor plan so there aren't any doors you can close off.

I spent the next 45 minutes on cleanup, and got the remaining lasagna into a bread pan, which is enough for two peeps for dinner.

Here's the lake where she took a sudden swim last week

I bet that water was really cold!

Foliage

2009-09-30T16:45:00.004-06:00

The winds are blowing so hard today that the leaves make a clack sound when they hit the window. Our house is shaking. We decided to take a fall foliage tour over to Rico since the leaves may all be blown off by tomorrow.

There was quite a bit of snow on the mountains last night.

We ended up at our usual restaurant in Rico but it was the chef's day off and you could tell by the way the food tasted without even asking where the chef was. Also, I hate it when you ask "what's the 'spicy sauce' on the burger?" and the waitress answers "It's a secret." Secret spelled Russian Dressing. But don't tell anyone. It's a secret.

Buck

2009-09-29T17:19:00.002-06:00

And Obama is declaring Saturday National Hunting and Fishing Day, poor buck. Don't get me started. We were this close, it's not a zoom in.

Acrophobia?

2009-09-28T18:07:00.004-06:00

Our neighbors told us about a hike they like to take for picnics, so we followed their directions. Maybe we should have remembered that she jogs uphill and he races bicycles.

It was an exciting trail if you like them skinny with cliffs and wide space with nothing to catch you if you roll and big horn sheep scat and slick surfaces, but I ran into some psychological difficulties on the way down. (Notice how I'm leaning even above.)

The butt hike helps when the acrophobia kicks in. My astrological sign is cancer the crab.

This bull mastiff knew better than to hike on such scary trails. "I'm not going!"

This wolfhound pup just joined his athletic family's pack yesterday. His tail was so long he looked like a mountain lion. He was a very mellow pup. He's going back with his new family to Arizona on Thursday. When I see him next he'll be a giant.

Dots!

2009-09-27T15:53:00.004-06:00

Cruised the Target aisles last week to see what their Halloween novelties were like this year. All disappointing except for these two boxes of novelty dots: Bat Dots and Ghost Dots.

The bats don't have black wings but they do have an interesting blood orange flavor, not too sweet. I thought the ghost dots were going to glow in the dark, but they don't. Instead they are all the varied flavors of regular dots without the color to tell you what you're about to eat.

The light here is very hazy from the Colorado fires, and it's 80 degrees at 4 pm. weird.

Hope Lake

2009-09-26T17:44:00.003-06:00

"Hey, where's Sally?"

"I'm coming, I'm coming."

Hope Lake above treeline, around 12,500 feet. Huff, puff. Our neighbors ride a tandem bicycle over the highest mountain passes. They put up with us today. They're fun and are getting a wolfhound puppy tomorrow.

Trying to hitch a ride back. No luck. Smoke from the California fires tints the skies here.

Lizard Head

2009-09-25T09:25:00.005-06:00

There's a famous rock formation around here called Lizard Head. This isn't it. The famous Lizard Head is just a big block on a giant one- for years I thought the head had already fallen off. And then just walking along the Galloping Goose trail I came upon this beauty. Hey there Lizard Head!

We saw "The Hurt Locker" in Telluride last night. Wow, two films in a theatre, two nights in a row, and both directed by women! (Julie and Julia the night before.)

I liked "The Hurt Locker" ever so much better, though I could have done without all the handheld photography. It's a suspense movie set in Iraq. The lead, Jeremy Renner, has a touch of Russell Crowe and a touch of Elvis. wooh!

However, it resulted in nightmares in which I was pleading to exchange Farmville points for a "get out of the army now" pass as we marched over the Colorado mountains to Sawpit.

How's yer Mall?

2009-09-23T21:29:00.005-06:00

Talking to an L.A. friend today who owns a theatre in a mall in Riverside. His theatre is bedevilled by gangs, who scratch their gang names in the bathroom mirrors and shove seats loose from the concrete floor.

He said he thinks commercial real estate could be the next financial bomb in the country, said that if a mall is only 15 % vacant it's doing really well, said boutiques, karate parlors and restaurants are going belly up in a hurry.

Have YOU been to a local mall lately? Is your mall looking a little lonesome?

I was puzzling over what would become of empty malls. And all those gang members. Then it came to me, of course. The new prisons! Just what Arnold's been asking for. It's already hard to get into underground parking lots- just fence them off. (Reminder to self: contact Lou Dobbs in morning.) jk

We saw "Julie and Julia" tonight. I was squirming. I am such an intolerant contemporary film viewer. The cuteness was gagging me. Besides, I have tried to cook from that cookbook and it is not easy and sometimes impossible, with ingredients like goose fat and procedures sure to make you ill. Amy whatever is not someone I enjoy listening to, the blogging delights made me mighty uncomfortable, and though Meryl Streep seemed great and reminded me of old relatives, she was also starting to remind me of Bozo the Clown.

Chicken Lady

2009-09-22T14:45:00.002-06:00

I didn't think this was a self portrait when I drew it but it has been a while since I've gotten a haircut.

Silverton Again

2009-09-21T16:50:00.005-06:00

We took our friends Anne and Danny over the million dollar highway to Silverton on Thursday. We got there just as the steam train was pulling in and the streets were flooded with tourists.

You could hear a lot of different languages on the street, as well as a saloon piano, which is a lovel sound. I guess it's the season when foreign visitors come to see the fall foliage. Quite a few were calling out to their friends in Italian. Danny looks like he stepped out of a foreign film in the picture above.

I cooked fried chicken, trout almondine and lasagna. Jon cooked bison steaks the last night. We had a jolly time.

Pretty Bird

2009-09-16T15:41:00.003-06:00

I think this is a female Western Tanager feasting on one of our elderberry bushes. Wish she would bring her boyfriend around, as the male is one of the prettiest US birds.

Table for 4

2009-09-14T08:03:00.005-06:00

Some good friends from L.A. are coming to visit this evening, staying till Friday. We're looking forward to it. You never know how the altitude is going to affect folks, so we're not making too many plans.

Not sure if I'll be posting pix or not because some people don't like to have their pictures out on the internet.

I had to enable word "captcha" on the comments because I've been hit by a strange spam movement from Japan, all on the old post about the Rachel Alexandra contest. I'm going to see if this stops them.

Galloping Goose

2009-09-11T19:15:00.003-06:00

No, Galloping Goose isn't my new screen name though it might fit. It's the name of a lovely trail laid down on land formerly part of a narrow gauge railroad over the mountains. A strange beast called the Galloping Goose traveled the rails, half car, half train, actually made from old Pierce Arrows. We didn't pass another person on our 2 1/2 hour hike. There were old railroad ties and spikes along the way, and the climb was quite easy because the goose had to do it long ago.

Can you believe those cliffs above me (in the picture below) are actually really popular with rock climbers?

They are entirely vertical. In the picture above the large bag of potato chips sticking out of my orange pack seems to be rock camouflaged? Although the rock in the front looks too much like it's part of my pants and IT'S NOT!

Above seen on an aspen near the trail head. Was Marti McGinnis here?

On the way back we stopped to get milk at the Sawpit store. I was hoping they'd replenished the Haribo gummy roll candy they sometimes sell, so I was hovering by the counter behind the big blonde who turned out to be Daryl Hannah. Like Ralph Lauren last week, she also had tanned and bulging calves, but she was much prettier than Ralph, and quite a bit younger, and more makeup. She was with a tall guy who stood deferentially behind her. My candy was not there.

Snippet of conversation between the babe and the nice counter guy:

He: So how did the meeting go yesterday in Montrose?
She: It was really awful. It's really bad.

(She's been trying to stop resumption of uranium mining in sadsack Nucla, CO. Likely to come with it is a nuclear dump site. Just the thing in a mountain resort community... Unfortunately the county commissioners are one step this side of organized crime and there seems no way to stop them. Good for D.H. to try)

She: The reporter was such a New York type. She was supposed to film it and she didn't even bring a camera. She was totally non mellow.

Got a job for you Sally!

2009-09-10T08:50:00.004-06:00

So I haven't had work in a couple of years.

By work I mean where someone calls you up and says, "I'd like you to do this for x amount of $".

I'm not talking about those vulture animation "contests" where they say "hey kids, animate something really funny with original characters to this song about our corporation and you may get a chance to have your own series!"

In other words, trolling for talent by requesting spec work, and if they like it they own all rights because you didn't read the small print. And you get "prize money" in return for animating a series for them.

So I'm excited when I get an email this morning about a music video. I love animating to music, my favorite thing about animation. "Oh goody", I think, and read on.

"Now the kicker about this song is that it is very taboo!! It is about me going to the store to pick up a mentally handicapped hooker.. We fall in love then i train her for the special Olympics.. Now this song has received major press on the net for its crazy humour and I think it would be a perfect job for you.."

I go downstairs to make coffee. Is there anyway this doesn't totally offend me? I mean, I thought "Pretty Woman" was offensive and every other preteen girl in the country adored that movie. I come back upstairs and press the play button.

Offensive? I had no idea how specifically dirty a "song" could be. I played it about 2/3 through and couldn't take any more. It'll probably be a big hit in whatever area of the internet loves "songs" about mentally handicapped hookers.

Ridgway Rodeo

2009-09-07T17:34:00.003-06:00

We went to the Ridgway rodeo today and had a full out blast. The bleachers were packed and the rodeo was full of exciting action.

It started with an amazing opening act- a trick roper who snapped a bull whip from his horse that enclosed teenage volunteers from the audience in one tight loop, snapped his whip at his wife who held firecracker like items in her arms so he cut them in two, then jumped his horse onto a big trailer, rode up to a working teeter totter on top, stood on his horse and snapped his whip some more.

I spotted him after the rodeo. He had a Civil War look to him I thought. Weird that they didn't even give him a credit in the 32 page "program" which was all ads, so I'm not sure what his name was. His act was amazing and got the crowd all wound up and yelling, perfect for a rodeo.

But he was happy to pose with Carla and me after the rodeo. I don't know where his wife was. That's the whip over his shoulder. Carla ran a bear off her property the other night by chasing after it and yelling at it. wow. I just wear bears on my clothes.

Hansel? Gretel?

2009-09-05T17:48:00.003-06:00

Earlier this week out on our usual route loop hike we stopped suddenly: "What is that?" A tiny gabled cottage in the woods where we always walk-- it seemed like a dream and I wish it had been.

It's a Walmart camouflage tent for archery hunters, so now we have to be careful where we walk and wear as much bright orange as possible. We were so pleased that the elk seem to have vanished, but then this morning we heard a loud elk bugle from a nearby canyon.

Last night I had a dream I was sitting in a field of cornmeal trying to tie my shoe when a low rider drove by. "Mike", I called out, can you help me tie my shoe?" He got out of the car with a whole group of gang members and I actually called out "help" from my sleep and woke up myself, Jon and the dog. And who's Mike?

On our way to the market on Friday we stopped at a Ridgway coffee shop to pick up the free paper, and there was Ralph Lauren sitting at an outside table with a hot drink. He was wearing a navy and white jogging jacket and navy knit shorts, rather nautical. A deep tan, gigantic calves, looked well. He owns a zillion acres outside of Ridgway but word was he was too frail to come here any more. Not true!

some cows

2009-09-04T20:01:00.002-06:00

WegWag: Marti McGinnis

2009-09-01T12:54:00.005-06:00

One of the most appealing horse people I've encountered on the web is artist Marti McGinnis who painted this wonderful cotton candy pony. .. yes a cotton candy pony!

Her joyful paintings really capture the lyrical goofiness of horses.

All these wonderful paintings are for sale at her Etsy shop. Be sure you read her comments on each picture.

One of her web sites is happy art.. This is her blog. Take a look at her amazing art car and she's painted others.

In addition to all that, she is very involved with horse rescue work and lives in Kentucky. She has a darling miniature horse. She's on twitter as Wegwag and on Facebook too. She's a Pet Society queen. I'm sorry we don't live closer. I'd love to have her as a friend. Cheers Marti! You're amazing!