westie greetings

This is when one of mom's old students came to visit. She is next to BB but you can't see her.

BB the queen bee lounges lazily on billowing pink bedspreads.

Maxie at attention because I am holding a delicious piece of kabocha above the camera!

Intimidation tactics on Uni & Yuki and also getting nervous because he is near the pool.

See him warily skulking away?

Maxie regards the pool with suspicion no matter what.

BB taking a small respite in the yard after rocketdog-ing/terrorizing Max for several minutes.

Maxie in a BB-esque pose. He looks like a completely different poopie!

Dedicated to my sister, who cannot be with us and the poopies because she is away at school. Kiss kisses from BB and Max! (and me too I guess!)

all things green and good

'I don't want to leave it, Hana, because what if I don't see it again.'

Frolicking under Taxodia mucronatum, the Montezuma Cypress, which Dan also took a great liking to.

There's a small maze at one end of the Huntington Library - made with earth mounds and carved-out paths and covered with a luxurious growth of St. Augustine. I meant to take a picture of the whole thing but I was the only big person in a flock of tiny little kids and I was too shy to point my camera their way.

good (monday) morning

This is how I started off my Monday...
1. Walked downstairs a little after 7 after awakening to the sounds of my mom cooking eggs and sharing them with our Westies (!!!) This is my landing, where a few jadeite bowls, a mug tree full of vintage cups, and two paintings have been hanging out...
2. I toasted a bagel and sliced some avocado onto it. It has been a while since I've had my favorite breakfast!
3. Funny how I am still fascinated by the leaves that 'float' in midair even though it's one special leaf that happens to be hanging by a spiderweb thread! Even funnier when you think about old bits of television/cinema like Flash Gordon where you can see the string that controlled the miniature rockets zooming around with sparks shooting out the ends. The innocence of special effects and your perceptions of them is endearing.
4. Scary, HAIRY spider...diligently and skillfully weaving its web. I shuddered as I took these pictures of the spider but it's so beautiful and fascinating that my curiosity outweighs my fear. At least it's me and spider with a camera and lens in-between.
5. I walked into a dead end with my dogs and saw that someone had adorned this sign with tons of little stamped hearts. amazing.

the moon is full

I definitely feel like I sensed the effect of the full moon on all sorts of living creatures in the past 48 hours, including eccentric customers, extra pissy and rude ones, wild to the point of feral dogs (meaning double walks for my dogs), and my own weird happenings. I know I'm being overly superstitious/silly but I'll be damned to say the past few days have not felt strange at all. Maybe it's a shift in things... for me it feels like everything went from 0 mph like a snail's pace to 100 mph... roadrunners! Crazy talk. I have to wake up early tomorrow and I don't think I'll be productive from now until sleep...

in the cactus conservatory

Dan lives right outside of the Huntington Library, and has for all of his life, but until yesterday had only visited once! So Saturday afternoon we explored several of the gardens, starting with the desert garden. Several thousand of the more delicate succulents are housed in a little conservatory in the middle of the garden of C4s (thanks for the terminology Dan!) so we spent a while in there marveling over the vast amounts of colors, textures, bubbly/spiny/fuzzy/vine-y things growing there. I could have filled up my memory card with just the Lithops if I had the opportunity. So much fun!

mail moves the country!

Things as little and seemingly insignificant as postage books seemed so much more fun back then, no? I'm a sucker for objects like this, obviously! I've amassed a large amount of super old postage stamps and funny envelopes and am waiting for my pen pal to write me so I can write him back! Or heck I think I'll just start mailing people NOW. Anything to keep the feeling going.

note to self

Don't ever treat someone like s/he is lower than you because of their occupation, socioeconomic standing, education level, etc. Especially if you end up becoming filthy rich (I only target the wealthy here because these are the ones I observe putting others down in this way, but I'm widely generalizing) and somehow, God forbid, forget about how to treat people decently. It's not the fucking 17th century, times are always changing, but regardless of history, people should treat others the way they want to be treated. Rich old overprivileged people, I fear the possibility that you have spawned and passed down your ways - quit making the world a terrible place. Money does not equal class, don't ever forget.

*I'd also like to mention that when you encounter a stranger, you probably don't know anything about their experience, circumstances and background, even if you think you do. It's hard to say not to judge, but if you're going to be an awful person about it, toss off! done ranting for real now.

scratch that

Well so much for that! Even with the passing of Labor Day and summer technically being over, after that thunderstorm on Sunday we had a day of dry heat (105ºF) and heavy, humid heat today. The heat, combined with a renewed sense of passion and purpose ensures that I am too busy trying to keep cool (swim, drink lots of icy beverages, strategically position myself in the shade/vents/fans) but also brings out the inner lazy lion in me that would rather lounge on the couch near but not too near the warmth of my dogs with no thought of a camera or anything to occupy me. Too bad there's no such thing as a professional daydreamer!

Today I measured out a sill plate - first with the end studs, the shear wall studs, posts, and then I faced the rest of the 16" on center studs. Drilled holes for the posts with bolts next to them, and laid it out on the site to see how it measured up. It was good, but we didn't place any of the 2x4's today.

Right, and the things in the pictures are:
1. A Ball Mason jar mug that my sister got me for part of my birthday (!!!) filled with boricha (mugicha in Japanese) which is a roasted barley tea that is served hot during the winter and chilled during the summer. I realized it's one of my favorite things to drink because it's refreshing, earthy and totally un-fussy in terms of preparation.
2. A new insulator nicknamed "frog eyes" that my mom picked up for me at the PCC flea (I was at work), which was really thoughtful of her. I think she realizes I'm being more careful about spending, as I'm clearing out things from my room every week, plus since it was 'a kind I didn't already have' and only cost $3 she brought it home.
3. Praying mantis that was startled to see me when I let the dogs out today. I usually see these fellows/ladies all over the yard every summer, but they didn't put up an egg sac on our porch this year, sad. A neighbor boy across the street used to come over once a year to capture one on my mother's invitation... maybe he stole them all away. I doubt it though...!

I'm stumbling over words tonight... I cite food coma and the heat as the culprits!

the end of summer

Warm, dusty brown and cool dusky blue are two colors I've been gravitating towards lately. I've been helping one of my neighbors on my block with re-building his house so I've been sore and tired but immensely happy to experience the building process firsthand. I learned to wire a switch yesterday and successfully did it on my own in half of a crawl space that we nearly finished sealing today! Knowledge is power, and when it is practical it is extremely rewarding. I haven't felt this positive about learning in years, but that can very much be attributed to an attitude adjustment on my part. We had a flash thunderstorm this evening which worried me along the lines of messing up the construction, but otherwise it was fantastic. An enormous, guttural rumble of thunder that sounded like the end of the world, followed by a downpour that gushed down for all of three minutes interspersed with brilliant flashes of lightning. It felt like a sign. Now I am enjoying the chilly breeze that is flowing through my window and listening to the crickets that have been chirping for the past few hours. Time for sleep, they say.

catching up

(sorry for the icky yellow tones. too lazy to custom white balance)

Our house underwent fumigation about a week ago, so for a couple of days I was scrambling to and from my aunt and uncle's house in Glendale, to USC (where I spent 5 hours at the Architecture & Fine Arts library working, yay!), to work, and to Dan's house where I stayed for a couple of nights. Most of my time with Dan was spent geeking over whether to go full-frame or stay within the current though flashy boundaries of DSLRs as we perused helpful websites and youtube reviews. A verdict still has not been reached. I wish I had gotten shots of our bright yellow house covered in a big blue striped tent, but time did not allow for it!

from the archives: butterfly on thistle

This was shot on May 18 in Japan two years ago. How time flies! It's crazy to realize how, upon sifting through all the photos I took while studying abroad, I've overlooked some of the quieter moments. It seems like for me, big changes tend to happen for me after I travel (I hope I don't regret speaking too soon about this...). I'm visiting New York in October for a little over a week (or maybe two...) so it's time to make some things happen!

unintentional collections

I heard once that it's not a collection until you have three of a certain item, so the fact that these photos display four feathers total I believe then entails a collection. Two owl feathers and two parrot feathers. I haven't really done the research but they might be from a barn owl and the red-crowned parrot (not two from the same bird because they were all found on different days). The funny thing about finding feathers for me is that I never find them when actively searching for them, but encounter many when I'm barely paying attention. That's like a lot of things in life I think. There's a heat wave in L.A., kind of the last farewell to summer and it's really hot and dry and stifling in the valley. But at least there is no hurricane to face... I was worried for my friends on the east coast but they're tough cookies/badasses and they don't seem too worried. The last few days for me have been very hedonistic - full of shopping and lazing about and swimming in the pool. The coyotes are out in the neighborhood, need to keep a watchful eye on the poopies and kitties.


Edit: I forgot all about this scrub jay feather I picked up after perilously scrambling along the side of a steep mountain slope covered in crumbly, unstable soil a week ago. I remember I kind of threw myself down, grabbed hold of a tree root and started talking out loud to myself while trying to get some solid footing. Getting totally dramatic here I felt like Atreyu in the Neverending Story, out on a quest and getting my ass kicked by the natural elements. I didn't make it out to the crest like my cohort did due to his discovery of a homeless camp up there, but I was happy to turn back and find the feather, like a little badge for my hilariously city mouse in the mountains moment.

chomp

I've been uninspired, blog-wise lately, but luckily online life rarely equals real life so there's nothing to worry about. First photo is a bite taken out of a plumcot (plum + apricot) and I think they are my favorite summer fruit ever. EVER. These ones ring up as "Dapple Dandy Plumcots" which makes me way more excited than it should, I think. But they glow and are covered with swirls of muted earth colors and dim sunset tones which burst into a zany jeweled interior once you take a bite. JOY! Second photo was a haphazard breakfast I made for myself one quiet morning and, too bad I didn't have any veggies with the eggs and bacon, but I did have a bit of dry toast after all that. Life is in a funny transitional stage again, I sense a turn in the tide!