Goat Busters!

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

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!

In the Cave

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.

feelin like a zombie

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!

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.

Peach and Blessing

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.

The very bad not good Granny (not my mom)

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?)

prophecy of darkness

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

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

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

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.

Molly at Corriganville

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.

Let's (Not) Have Lunch

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?"

10 days or so!

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.)

Goodbye to Elle

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.

Released!

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.

Jury Duty?

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!

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

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

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