the halloween house

I stumbled across this house last night while driving through a part of the neighborhood I was unfamiliar with. In the dark I couldn't fathom exactly what I was looking at (heads? Jack-o-lanterns!), so I made sure to stop by the house with my sister today on our way to the flea market...

At first all the eye sees is the sheer number of colorful bucket-heads - three rows-full, completely surrounding the fence on homemade PVC pipe frames and intertwined with old-fashioned Christmas lights. Upon closer inspection we could see that many of the lantern buckets had been customized with different colors, with a light inside of each bucket-head!

Here's a view of the house beyond the pumpkin-head barrier...! More light-up pumpkins amongst towering stands of cacti! What you don't see is the graveyard right below and the deflated blow-up Halloween figures. See the tangle of extension cords in the lower left?

We were having so much fun inspecting every inch of this delightful house!! However I think we disturbed the occupants, one of whom came out and regarded me coolly after I said "Hey, cool house!" but sister scoffed and said to me "Look, with a house this crazy, they've got to be used to dealing with gawkers." I didn't feel too bad seconds after that reassurance, heh.

This is one of my favorite things - finding unusual/beautiful/passionately executed sites to explore with my sister. We'll spot the same things and then notice other details which we excitedly share with each other during and after the siting. Hooray for super awesome detours...!

instagram

I was really opposed to joining Instagram when I finally got a smartphone over a year ago for all the reasons that, if I repeat now, just make me as insufferable and obnoxious as any soapboxer on Facebook shouting their opinion (though we're all entitled to our opinions!), but to get down to the crux of it I didn't really see the appeal of (A) yet another microblogging platform, and (B) another extreme way to attention whore/humblebrag/blatantly brag about your goings-on. But now, having been an Instagram user for about five months, my opinions have shifted a bit. Given who you follow, I see it more now as seeing the world through other peoples' eyes, which I guess anybody would say "DUH" to. Unfortunately I chose to regard this app negatively before giving it a chance, which is just a character flaw on my part. Better late than never they say.

Something that saddens me though is when I see a lapse of updates on a blog, only to investigate and realize that said blogger has been so busy with real life that updating has understandably slowed, but the effortlessness and ease of Instagram smoothly bridges that gap one faces with the clunkiness of blogging and the time it usually requires. I get it though, and (drumroll) perhaps I've been guilty of turning to Instagram instead of my blog lately too. But in my case I don't have hundreds or thousands of readers wondering what I must be doing!


And obviously, Instagram is fun. It brings people together (cheesy I know) - one of my best friends who has been off of Facebook for years had been on Instagram instead, so upon joining I feel that extra step of closeness that e-mailing kind of lacks! And another friend I made on the Internet asked me, a day or two after I joined, if I use Instagram, so we became friends there, too! :X


There have been tons of contemporary studies (none of which I can link you to) on the psychological effects of Facebook in that frequenting the site often invokes feelings of inadequacy/jealousy/all those terrible angsty feelings of being un-included, or not doing something fun/amazing like that person on your friends list, and overall makes you really dissatisfied with your own life/accomplishments. That's the worst of what happens I guess. For me I just feel a little wistful that the people I would really like to hear more updates from have wised up and rarely say/post anything on Facebook, or have abandoned it entirely! Inevitably I've been pulling farther away from Facebook, and realized that Instagram is a good stand-in, because when it's just pared down to pictures/hashtags, there's slightly less annoyingness present in users' posts (still on the fence about that statement).

This is really kind of an annoying entry in that I've been discussing a subject that has been diced and angled to pieces...and I apologize for it, but at least, true to the form and function of the application I'm talking about - you, the viewer, can let the words fade to the background and simply look at the pictures instead. 

And because I hate things without context/sources:

1. The Wiltern Theater (beautiful Art Deco building) & glowing hen&chick succulents (I filched one!)

2. An evening spent bike riding with my sister - RIDE OR DIE, and risky self-portraiture habits.

3. Last month was all about mint - plucking armfuls of it, drying it out, and storing it in glass jars for forthcoming weeks of mint tea, just like my grandma loves to do!

4. Documenting things at work, and a shot of Alcatraz from a friend who visited SF and sent me shots of the city coupled with quotes from the Rock, so good.

5. I've been going to lots of music shows too...this was Maps & Atlases at the Echo (!!!) and I never tire of seeing them. Then another shadow selfie that I snapped when I saw the proportion of shadow to light, that I liked.

Even though I've seemingly made my peace with Instagram, here's to hoping there's less of these kinds of posts and more...regular blog type of things on their way.

through hazy eyes

Some phone snaps taken over the past two months:

1. The Eastern Columbia Building downtown on Broadway - this looks so gorgeous lit up at night and is easily the best example of Art Deco architecture in downtown Los Angeles.
2. I passed by this booth of vintage industrial furniture without regarding it too closely, then did a double take upon noticing this marker-scrawled folding chair. Andy and H (and maybe an abstract fish?), wow :3.
3. A handful of translucent, waxy mystery seeds that I WOULD know the name of had I harvested them myself. But they were in the hands of an art professor that I had met a mere 15 minutes before. (edit: they're amaryllis seeds!)
4. Semi-crepuscular rays in Highland Park, mid-October. When the sky looks this way, it elevates even the most tedious drive...
5. A deliciously soft, sweet and chewy hachiya persimmon, courtesy of our family mechanic! I so wish I had more of these to munch on throughout the winter months, they are like candy.
6. Mushrooms fit for a hobbit! (except for the fact these are of the toxic lawn kind).

cool & unusual

What I thought was a GIANT fuzzy red ant is really a species of wasp (the female being wingless, red & furry) called the velvet ant, or more sinisterly - the 'cow killer.'

Giant old machines in one of the historical buildings undergoing renovation at work! Huge elevator operating lift and a defunct steam machine (???) from the 1920s.

Squid pens! My fondest memory of these is dissecting squid during an accelerated after school class in elementary school, popping the ink sac and writing my name with the extracted 'pen' (gladius!).

A delicious ripe fig, sneakily snatched off a giant tree at the end of a hike :X. Celebrating the end of summer!

I'd be fine wasting our time, not doing anything here

Blackberry pie from Pie Hole | the best peach of my life

Y on her new vintage ride, amongst skulking Westies.

I found an A in Utah | hiking in the Grand Tetons

...and make some, too.

Battered Vans + last moments of sunset | tired bikes on lush cushy grass

nothing else exists

An extensive list of frozen products to pull | a box who was very surprised to see me

 
I was bored with the cheese and fruit at demo one day so I decided to get creative (instead of staying bored)!

 
ghost-motorcycle | friends' shoes's

 
Delicious edible herbs from the San Gabriel nursery!

 
I called this the rainbow beet salad, but I didn't help make it. I just ate it.

under microscope

On Thursday morning I left the house at 4:30 to get to Long Beach with Mr. I to help him collect plankton samples for his marine biology summer school class. We each had our own kayak to paddle in, and though I started off moving in slow circles around myself, I eventually got the hang of it, soaking my shorts and legs and arms with saltwater in the process. It was a chillier morning that day, and after getting back to our side of town we got donuts to treat ourselves. Later in the day I went to take a look at the plankton samples and saw some copepods and a mysterious spinning orb. The last sample I viewed was a few grains of sand from the Navajo formation A had collected from his last geology field trip.

beginners

white rides - newly acquired vintage Schwinn | the CRX

I believe I'll be making cilantro limeade all summer...spiked(?!) and as is.

My lunch on 4/20 coincidentally came out to exactly $4.20, hur hurr.

A heart-shaped spot of water | the tiny predator

A coworker's tattoo that she revealed to me on a day my spirits were low.

Scilla peruviana and these green-eyed white mums that I have a strange attraction to.

protect yourself

These images happened to align into a column on my phone, and I felt compelled to share.
Coincidentally similar themes: general dishevelment, marks on arms, bad lighting, freedom.

when something good happens

Reunited with Isaac | Ed Ruscha at SAM

Seattle Central Library by OMA (!!!)

J at Bathtub Gin | The new standard & new favorite (though currently unobtainable) whisky.

This display of citrus fruits alone made me want to tend bars.

Little Maxie pawprint (upper left) | Someone's dog I used to know

Concurrent expressions: glee at new flask | happy asparagus sign

'to know what to say/mind is a razor blade'

Signage. A recent bad habit I've developed is compulsively snapping photos, with iphone/camera while I'm driving...

Sister's awesome hand-me-over jacket from a badass friend/mentor.

Valentine pop-tart that I talked about a while ago - chocolate with a blood orange marmalade filling...!

How amazing would it be to chew a hole in an orange, crawl into it, then several hours later crawl out and, while lazing about on the skin, proudly tell yourself yeah, I ate that entire thing.

I drew a happy roma tomato for one of the signs at the store.

Leaves un-meant yet wholly meant for each other; the crackle of a eucalyptus fire.