Hot on the Trail

We tried to go for a walk this morning but got rained on so turned around. It stopped raining as soon as we got home. We noticed that the caramel buns I'd put in the meadow yesterday were entirely gone. Hmm...

It looked ominous all day but never rained, so around 4:30 we decided to walk up the cut and back to get some exercise. The cut is the way too vertical trail that takes you to the mesa top.

About 2/3 of the way up it started to rain, of course, but we kept going. We figured in the aspen groves it wouldn't be so bad.

We reached the top, Just over the ridge, and Molly rushed at some dark forms. A herd of cattle! We called her back, and good dog Molly returned, but not without turning around to make sure it was the right decision.

Jon grabbed her by the collar and said, "Take off my belt!" Huh? I thought, then remembered belts can work as leashes. But they were REI [pants with sewn in belt.)

You'd think the cattle would rush off the way elk or deer will, but instead they were moving in on us in a semi-circle! And in the second row a bull was humping a cow while looking at us!! BULL? RUN!

We scurried down that cut in record time. Molly stayed with us. The rain came harder and harder and we squished along home, soaked through. Now the rain has stopped.

(image from my Celestial Seasonings tea box.)

Blow Winds Blow

The Santa Ana winds are blowing hard this weekend, just as they did two years ago when this tree blew over. It's dark outside, and howling. But the winds aren't blowing good luck our way.

Linda and I enjoyed our two hot dogs, (each), popcorn and beer over at Santa Anita yesterday, but our bets were mostly the wrong ones, and we left before the last race, when the horse named Sally came in second as a long shot and paid nicely- about $40 on a $6 bet. That kind of day. The reason I went to the track was to bet on the Sally horse!

The horse I'd picked from a blog tip dumped his rider before they got to the starting gate and went running past us on the track in the wrong direction with his jockey walking behind him. At least it kept my mind off family troubles.

My mother had to make a surprise trip to the hospital yesterday morning with a bad hematoma on her leg, (I didn't know what that meant either). She had some surgery in the afternoon and we'll hope she comes through it all okay. Jon's dad continues in perilous condition.

Oasis in the storm

I met blog pal Namowal for lunch today. When we met a year ago, I was late, sin of sins for a punctual person like me, so I made a point of being 20 minutes early this time. I ordered cafe latte at this Pain Quotidien in Brentwood Village, while I waited. It was so beautiful and tasty, and made me almost feel as if I were in a Jean Renoir film. (no handles on the cup.) When Nam arrived, she ordered one too, but by then the barrista must have been feeling stressed and there was no wondrous design on top.

I did notice that everything, including parking, was double the cost of three years ago when I used to meet my dear bud Ann here. (Before she moved to New York.)

We had a great time and talked a lot of flash and family talk. later we agreed to take pictures of our reflections, (for Linda), since neither of us wanted the point and smile shot!




wooh, looks as if I left my purse inside the cafe. And I still had a couple of twenties in it.

We're going through major wacky dreadful family stress around here. Jon's father did the humpty dumpty thing to be silly, it's not silly== he fractured his skull a few days after xmas and was airlifted to the hospital. He's been veering wildly in his condition, after ripping out all the plugs attached to him He had brain damage, he didn't have brain damage. He was moved back to his retirement complex, to assisted living, or was it hospice? 24 hour care. Asleep all the time.

Then his wife went by to see him today and he was sitting in the cafeteria eating lunch and drinking coffee, ( not being fed) while chatting with his 24 hour person. His wife wasn't allowed in because she has some kind of flu. Meanwhile the lawyers rushed to certify him as incompetent because otherwise his wife won't get any money for 3 1/2 years by law in Florida.

At the same time we're all so giddy about the good news because he's much loved!

And Jon gets stuck in Charlotte on US Air for 3 hours on the runway, because they're proud of their record of ontime departures, and as long as they leave the gate on time they can park wherever they please. Ask for water during the wait, it's $2.00. Coffee is more. Coach flight one way is more than $500, with three stops. He ends up at LAX instead of Burbank.

He returns with a horrendous cold.

I've applied to adopt another German Shepherd who looks like Molly's brother. I haven't heard back in ten days. Tonight I get a phone call, wow. As I reach for it, I spill wine on my Wacom tablet, killing it. The dog we want has hip dysplasia at age 1. I don't have a big enough heart or bank account for that.

It was really nice to see Namowal again!

Tomorrow I'm meeting Linda P (the other Linda) at the track to get our minds off things. And maybe win some money. There's a horse named Sally in the 8th race but we probably won't stay that late.

oh owl!

I love shiny ornaments. Been cooking and cooking today and will be doing the same tomorrow. So far things are turning out as intended, maybe because this wise owl is watching over me.

Have a great day tomorrow, wherever you go, and stay off the ice!

Cloud Conspiracy?

We saw this cloud formation as we headed out on our walk. It was extremely odd. Facing North. When we got back I couldn't wait to see the picture-- Jon took two-- but it didn't seem to be on the camera, which was so disappointing.

Then tonight I came upstairs to download the pictures of Molly's white dog friend whom we've named John McCain-- he comes over to beg food at dinner time-- and there was the cloud picture.

My mother thinks the election will be closer than anyone imagines, but she only talks to folks in the old folks home-- she thinks they're phoney Obama supporters. Sure hope she's wrong.

Wow, tomorrow night we'll know!!

Hey Fay

Travel is stressful enough, and add leaving an old and ill horse, a dog at the kennel, and visiting two separate very old family members (93 each), and oh did I mention where we're landing Monday night. Naples Florida.

Monday update- We cancelled our flight after talking to family in Florida. Evacuation plans were underway at their retirement village, and food service switched to sandwiches only. They said stay home.

so what is this?

that's smog swirling around her.


or maybe it's a wicked thought.
got the Olympics on my mind, and snakes, and travel, and hot humid weather in L.A, and snakes.

This is not an illustration for anything, so make your own story.

haven't opened a book since I've been back from Colorado. Tomorrow the show jumping part of the Olympics begins. The online coverage of the equine events has been excellent. You can watch it streaming with only one commercial at the start.

I learned a lot about snakes today. The vet says the one that got Pepper was a big snake. I have a nephew who has such a problem with the concept of snakes that you have to refer to them as legless creatures. We had a plaster snake in the garden which I had to hide when he was here.

I'm having trouble getting the intensity of color I like in Painter.

but there's always Photoshop:



or let's get downright spooky:

Into the Frying Pan

I was about to roll the dough for a birthday blueberry pie when I discovered I'd never gotten my three pie pans back after Thanksgiving. So I baked it in a frying pan which cooks it a little too fast. Premium dog foods these days have extra ingredients like blueberries in them, which is why Molly looks so intense. The day wasn't so great.

Dinah called from the airport in Costa Rica. She and her boyfriend are there for ten days. The rental car company was insisting on a $1000 rental car deposit which they couldn't come up with and still continue on their way! She was using the desk phone at the rental company. I spent two hours on the phone with Bank of America trying to get her some money, and in the process cleaned out my account and then some.

I was lucky that I had a phone tech person who was smart,nice and patient, because it was a tricky thing to work out and it would have been so easy to lose my temper. I stayed on the line afterwards to participate in one of those stupid surveys because this woman was so nice.

So I was mostly sleepless last night.

Today we took an easy hike at one of our favorite spots: Woods Lake.

But I checked the weather in Costa Rica instead of Placerville. I won't do that again.

We got caught in a tremendous thunderstorm at our picnic destination.
Thunder, lightning, tall trees, open meadows, hailstones, the works!
So instead if eating our nice lunch of fried chicken and watermelon under the pine trees, we stood soaked and huddled as big hailstones wailed down on us, turning the ground white. Molly hated the hail, because it hit so hard. We were completely drenched.

We'd left our rain parkas in the car, and brought a book on flower identification instead.

It's four hours later, we're home and dry and I'm still really cold. We had to run past a whole FIELD of wild strawberries without stopping. On the drive back we saw that the storm had left actual snow, not hail, by the side of the road.

meanwhile, back at baklavaland

It's Greek Festival weekend around the corner. I chose to eat calamari for lunch rather than go to the David Mamet movie in Pasadena. I wasn't feeling so great yesterday and this seemed like less effort and possibly more pleasure.

The festival seemed underattended, maybe because thunderstorms are predicted (freak city) and last weekend there were some shootings at another church festival a mile away.

I headed straight for the calamari. $5.00 for a gigantic tray of small doughnut size rings. But, yuk, I didn't like them. They were overflavored, obviously bought that way in the bag. And you know how people complain that calamari is rubbery? One of these pieces snagged on my tooth and then slapped back at my lip just like a rubber, uh, band. Dumped that.

On to the pastries. Since I knew I'd eat them all myself, I chose three I knew I liked, and let the charming lady who was putting them on my tray choose the fourth. MISTAKE! She chose that big rectangular thing in the hot dog tray, which tasted like a tortilla that had met fry bread and taken a dive in the big honey river. ick. dump that. Still have three to go.

Attitude is everything.

An improved way of showing the cartoon

Here's a link to the new cartoon, rendered out in Flash video. It looked better as an mov file but it's only 17mbs instead of 670! and should play as soon as you click on it.

I've really enjoyed reading your comments on this cartoon, and thought I'd write a little more about it.

I found the music on a google meander, liked the sound, didn't even NOTICE the title of the piece was "Sally You not Ashamed" until after I'd chosen it and I went back to see who actually did it. I was listening to a series of pieces in a category. Is that serendipity or what? It's not a loop, it's a whole recording. Since I may go back and extend sections, eventually it may play all the way through. The music gets hottest right over the end credits!

As an artist I suffer from "horror vacuii", I think that's the term. Fear of emptiness.

It works for me and against me. It means I put lots of details in and work pretty quickly to complete things, make a whole, but in Flash it's so easy to slug in pieces of animation that maybe aren't as good as they could be, but they're filling it up.

Then I get used to the look and don't go back and change things. Whereas when animation was still in its medieval pencil> cel stage everything had to be as good as it could to go through that laborious process. You didn't want to have to do any editing if possible. Now in Flash I have to force myself to go back and improve things. Whereas Namowal, who's just learning Flash, makes all her experiments look perfect. So does Linda. I try to think of them both so I don't just put the lid on the can and leave the room.

Another thing different about Flash that I have to remind myself: extra screen time doesn't mean extra expense. In the cel animation days every extra cel cost extra dollars, for inking, painting, and film process. So I tried to keep everything moving along as quickly as possible.

But looking at this cartoon after not working on it a few days, I started thinking that a few pauses as the two women regard one another might help to make the humor set up better.

On the other hand it's intended for cel phone distribution, where attention spans are notoriously short.

Tornadoes in L.A.?

The peaceful sound of the rain last night woke me up before 4 am, and after a while I gave up and settled down in front of the computer. I checked the live web cam at the Santa Anita track, and it looked pretty bleak. Not a horse in sight. They've been having terrible problems with their synthetic track which doesn't drain right, and signifigant big races set for tomorrow. Then I thought I'd check the local radio news site.

They were reporting TORNADOES in L.A.! Wooey, as a child in New Jersey I tormented myself with fears of tidal waves and tornados, both of which were unlikely. This painting, titled "Tornados Over Kansas" by J. Steuart Curry, was in the World Book Encyclopedia. I was a bit obsessed with this painting, daring myself to look at it, loving and hating it both. "I'll just look really quick and then I'll close it."

J. Steuart Curry is the forgotten man of Midwestern Regional painters of the thirties, regarded behind Grant Wood and Thomas Hart Benton. But it's an awfully good painting, don't you think? Just hope they get that chicken in the basement too.