’16 November

Awww, kitty kitty.

November 30

Walking home from school, Roxi was coming over for a play date and we ran into another couple of first graders walking home. Cute-eees!

November 29

I had a lot of free time these last two days and so I got myself together with paperwork, did a little shopping and I feel pretty calm heading into December.

Except that I didn’t hear from the counter guys today as I should have. It’s only one day. Stay calm. Deep breaths.

November 27

After a series of detours Nancy and I ended up at the Landmark and saw Lion, a new movie staring Dev Patel.

Let me tell you it was a tear jerker of the First Order. It’s based on a true story and one of the tag lines as they ran through the where-are-they-now part of the story says “over 80,000 children go missing in India every year”. I tried to confirm the number – other sources quote an even higher number, a source in 2013 said the number was 60,000.

Less than 60,000 Americans died in the entire Vietnam war and here we have more than 80,000 children missing every year. Many are eventually found, many are not.

November 26

Muriel came over this morning and we walked down to the Promenade and back. Nice, and particularly nice because we got poured on for the last 4-5 blocks. We didn’t care. We were GLAD!

Then Marsha was over-the-hill so she dropped by and that was delightful too.

No pictures though.

So here’s a picture of the Brown Thanksgiving in Hawaii. They were at a beach house on the North Shore and the whole gang was present including several guests whose names escape me at the moment.

Christa, Charis, guest, Beth, Hartley, guest, Janice, guest, Trevor, Caleb. Lona took the picture.

lb.

November 25

Steve and Celina’s new extended family – The Boys, Marley on the left and Bagel on the right.

The opening course for our after-turkey-day turkey dinner and YUM it was!

Marsha invited me to a concert at the Disney Concert Hall. I LOVE to go to the Disney Concert Hall!

We heard the LA Phil play the Mozart violin Concerto #5 in A major, called ‘Turkish’, and the Brahms Symphony #2 in D major. It was all, from note one to note last, Awesome.

Check it out – the conductor, who was pretty dang adorable with his butterfly hands: Krzysztof Urbanski. And the prodigy violinist: Augustin Hadelich.

I wished and wished Rome was there to see the clarinet players (she just started clarinet) and feel the power of top-notch orchestral works played by a world-class orchestra in one of the great venues of the modern music experience. Soon my darling!

(DCH website)

November 24

Good morning on this beautiful Thanksgiving Day!

Lilly was up bright and early too and we enjoyed the colors of the sunrise.

I came yesterday for the regular Wednesday although a bit more than the regular amount of cooking took place. Then I slept over which was super good fun.

Rome and Lilly did the Secret Santa drawing for my Monday Night Potluck Valley Girls Holiday Extravaganza.

Rome made the avocado boats and Lilly made the fruit kebab turkey as part of the Thanksgiving hors d’oeuvres.

Windy and Jeff were going to join us but Jeff unfortunately fell ill. We missed them, and we had fun anyway!

Let’s EAT!

Potato pancakes with mushrooms, olives, and garlic; roasted beets; orange and fennel salad; green salad; mashed potatoes; balsamic glazed pearl onions; roasted Brussel sprouts; stuffed squash.

(ps Gary’s fine, he just lost a bridge.)

November 22

I want a sunflower forest too! I just ran across this picture and I don’t remember where I took it. I wonder how much water it takes to grow sunflowers. Here, let me google that for you…too bad, too much water required.

All set with the kitchen counter fabricators to get to work after the holiday. Coming soon: water to a kitchen near me!

November 20

Alex came today to finish the fence. TICK! Carol came too and we went shopping for pantry containers. TICK! It was a good day.

November 19

“Human Condition is an immersive, site-specific exhibition that features the work of over eighty emerging and established artists in a uniquely challenging space: a former hospital in West Adams, previously known as the Los Angeles Metropolitan Medical Center.

“Curated and produced by the Los Angeles-based art advisor John Wolf, Human Condition invites artists to re-contextualize the hospital’s functional history—over 40,000 square feet of it—as a venue to explore what it means to be human.

“The Los Angeles Metropolitan Medical Center proudly opened in 1971 as the first Black-owned hospital in Los Angeles. It operated successfully for decades. Later, both the hospital and the West Adams neighborhood in which it was located declined; in the hands of the Pacific Health Corp, the hospital closed amid revelations of criminal mismanagement and insurance fraud in 2013.”

So here we are at Admitting. Many, if not most, of the signs were still in place and wandering around in the hospital and feeling the abandoned spaces with their once very specific purposes was definitely part of the art project. It would have been something to do even had there been no art.

“…the two main floors of the exhibition are divided in approach to human condition. The subconscious mind is addressed on the first floor…while the conscious, decision-making mind is explored on the second floor.”

Most of what follows is from the first floor because I liked it. I’ll talk about the work on the second floor later.

I really like that guys toes and the colors on the table making their presence known.

Such a cool view…

…and these goopy green guys. Helloooow.

And here in the cafeteria.

Yes, Me and Pauli, Entirely Pink.

There were piles of these in a storage room that you were welcome to riffle through.

I’m not sure why the second floor should have all been so bleak, sad, miserable, and full of despair.

The text in red says “I watched my father beat my mother for no reason, punching her face and pulling her hair in a fury of blood/tears.”

The text in blue says “I have nothing to say on these matters – existence confuses me – I want to lose myself in poetry – the massive cloud of doubt and regret snagged on the gnarled branches of thought.”

The whole picture contains a number of these conversations with a similarly mournful appearance.

This one says “Another sunny and sinister 87 degrees in LA” and there were many others in various rooms saying “Another sunny and sinister 76 degrees in LA”, etc., all the same picture with different temperatures, different numbers of gun shot wounds, different gang tattoos.

These two were among the least bleak of the second floor work!

The Hollywood sign and the Observatory – always great to spot out the window.

Then I went with Ken for a dinner in Westwood and a play at the Geffen thanks to Ken and Susie who weren’t going to use their tickets.

What a great day!

November 18

Boban, in a hurry to meet me for lunch.

November 16

Kieran demonstrating his project for The Inventor’s Club!

What Mike said: “He built a guitar stand with a built in alarm system. If you remove the guitar without flipping a hidden switch, an alarm sounds.” You go Kieran!

I got it off Cynthia’s facebook. I know, facebook.

c-mh

November 15

A furniture refresher guy did this magic in a couple of hours. That was fun!

I also took the drapes in to get hemmed and pressed. Tick! Tick!

November 14

He can replace all the ratty torn screens in one day. An expensive day, but one day none-the-less.

I still don’t have a bookcase or anywhere to put tchotchkes and So much more still to consider. Hope against Hope I’ll get the kitchen counters ordered in the next few days so maybe I can have a sink before December.

November 13

Jefferson Elementary in Redondo Beach fielded three teams in the First Lego League (there might be other Lego-Robotics leagues?) and here they are at…

…the final competition of the season.

The teams had to program their robot, the robot that they’d built out of Legos, to do various tasks – follow a track, move an object, pass over an obstacle – and you got points based on the difficulty of the challenge you accepted and how well you achieved the goal.

All the kids were so IN to it as you could tell by their expressions and body language.

Rome: Do it do it do it do it do it.

The Team Leaders. Many congratulations ladies, you were awesome!

As well as the robot missions there were three demonstration aspects to the competition.

#1 Here they showed their robot in action, showed their work notebook, and then answered questions. I was nuts for the kid in the blue shirt. He was sweet and supportive and well-focused to keeping the kids on task.

#2 This is the skit they did to show which challenge they decided to focus on. There were many aspects to this event including a ton of questions from the judges.

The kids really knew and understood the topic and it was so fun to watch it all unfold.

#3 The third demonstration event was a team work challenge. I sat out that one so other adults could have a turn as admission to the rooms was strictly limited.

They ran their robots through the course three times. This is a practice session…

…and this is a run for points.

I didn’t stay until the very end because there was going to be a long break before the final ceremonies. The Octonators, Rome and Angela’s team did great and the other two teams from Jefferson did great too. One of the teams placed second overall and the other won first in one of the three demonstration events.

YAY TEAM!

November 12

Wow, the list of what’s left to do in the bathroom can fit on one page!

A spot or two need grout, the floor needs a this-is-as-good-as-it-gets once over, clean up the fittings under the sink, add a mirror, and maybe add another plant like a bamboo over in the corner with the cat, in a container that you can fill up with water and not kill for a while.

Why is the shower handle where it is? So you can turn on the water to get warm before you get in. Where is the shampoo and toothbrush and etc? There are built in shelves in the corner of the shower by the handle that are so cool because you can’t see them. How do you get into that tub? It’s not quite as tricky as it looks but I should probably get a stool for the future.

I was finally able to find the kind of rugs I like. They don’t have a non-skid back so be careful!

You can’t see the bigger one that runs from the bedroom to the toilet but it’s the same design and material as the smaller one.

The mirror will go there on the bit of wall by the door.

All the usual bathroom and personal grooming supplies are in the porch just on the other side of the door. I’ve been tempted to put up a shelf or two in the bathroom but then no, I don’t want to!

And YES my dear friends and family (looking in and looking out). There IS a ‘door’ of sorts that will offer complete privacy AND I like it. It’s a nice heavy drape that cuddles the edge of the door frame when not in use and easily and happily extends when it is. That I like the material is a near-miracle.

YAY!! Cheers and clapping my friends and family!

I will have to take it down for I don’t know how long to get it hemmed and pressed but it’s going to be GREAT!

November 11

I mostly shuffled things today – house-garage-back studio-trash-house-garage and I watched the entire second season of Red Oaks. It’s sweet and lovely and no one dies.

November 10

Sharon and Nancy and I met at the Grove where the Holiday Season is in Full Swing.

The fantastic view from the parking garage. In the foreground we see nothing but solar collectors. In the far far distance we see the Hollywood sign and the Observatory.

I need to go to the Observatory again soon.

November 9

Windy came by this morning and I fixed us a breakfast on the camp stove. That was fun, delicious and fun.

Here she is with Jeff enjoying his long-deferred birthday gift of a flight where you too can drive that plane. He loved it!

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And speaking of Windy, here is her youngest son Travis and family, just hangin’ out of an evening…

Jack, Lainee, Cali, Travis

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November 8

Kathleen came over and we had a nice visit and travelogue of her recent adventure-packed back-to-my-roots trip to Ireland and Poland.

ko.

Then instead of The Election I turned my attention to catching up on Dancing with the Stars. It’s quite good this year and after all these seasons it’s surprisingly well done, especially the production of each individual dance which is unique and appropriate.

I’m so glad and glad to be distracted for a while too.

Alex hard at work putting a mail slot in the door so I don’t have to fuss with US Post Office Vacation Hold that never really works.

November 7

This used to be ‘the refrigerator door’ in the little place and it might be my last collection. Every six months or so I’d take a picture and put everything in a bag which are now piling up in the garage, and start over.

There’s a Christmas picture and a New Years card from 2013 that I ran across, a mamsa hand magnet from my old Ford Focus, a gift card (to use soon!) from DAK&L, a massage gift from the Holdens, a fox magnet from Rome, a felt pear I made as a craft with the girls, a call-the-nurse card, the Seattle reunion button, and the cranes that I need to put somewhere; a map of the train lines I got when Expo opened out here, a picture of the people from the Galapagos who sent my card back and the card itself, a card from Sandy that I’ve had around for years, a thank you note from Charis, Christa’s graduation announcement.

Snagged from the internet.

November 7

The Holdens at the Guthrie Theater in Minneapolis waiting to see The Parchman Hour, snagged off Mike’s facebook. I think they’ve seen every show this season.

Mike, Kieran, Cynthia

mh.

November 5

Gideon turned EIGHTEEN recently and this was our first chance to celebrate together. WOW!

Celina, Gideon, Ronald, Steve, me

We had dinner at the Italian cheese emporium called Forma on Montana in Santa Monica and it was a big hit. We all loved every bite.

Then, because it was a party and all, we walked over to Sweet Lady Jane and ate several pounds of dessert. I walked home or rather I hauled myself home.

November 4

Liz and Gary came by today for lunch and a walk. We ate the lunch and started on the walk but then we had to turn back because…

…FINALLY Frontier arrived to Fix My Internet. I was about to write the litany of the last two days and my internet dramas but you know, it could have been you, so much blahblahblah.

Thank you Liz and Gary for being so cheerful and understanding about my distraction and for sharing my internet joy!

November 2

Rome and Angela are doing a Lego-Robotics club on Wednesdays and it’s been a lot of fun to hear what they are doing. Learning AND fun. Sounds perfect.