salt lake city, ut

Flew from L.A. to S.L.C. with my friend L on Sunday, stayed the night and departed in the morning to drive to Jackson, WY for a week of adventure...!

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.

a quick fix...

His car was dirty (it wasn't that bad!), which he remedied with the hose in all of 30 seconds.

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.

tree forts

I rode my bike to Andy's to deliver him some tea, then asked him to show me how to get up into his tree fort. He deftly wove through the branches of the huge magnolia tree, up, up, up to the platform in three swift movements. I mentally focused on his path, grabbed a low branch and, feeling my sneakers biting into the crackly bark, grunted as I attempted to squeeze between some 2x4's only to get snagged on a particularly thick hunk of bark. Andy unstuck me, and once I got in I felt like I had stumbled onto an old secret, to awaken and live a childhood dream.

between moments

wildflowers | the warm smoothness of his neck | illuminated steps

tree-ripe apricots

I've never picked and eaten an apricot off of a tree. Andy has an apricot tree - so the next logical step was to...

  Throw everything down...

  Assess the crop; strategize on harvesting the ripest of the bunch.

  Climb the tree, extra points for shimmying up with style.

Hand fruit to willing gatherer/consumer/moral supporter below.

  Cull tree of any damaged/infested fruit.

  Like ones bitten by birds/squirrels...

  And chuck them to your friends/at your enemies!

  After this adventure, I was surprised to find I had inadvertently grown a pair...

eclipse

Something like a mere half hour before the start of the eclipse I wrangled together duct tape and cardboard into a 5 foot-long pinhole projection viewer, complete with a black foil pinhole and a sheet of bristol at the inner end for the smoothest lunar projection. The Westies watched me curiously as I fiddled with the big long box, swinging it over my shoulders and balancing it off my chest, trying to get the perfect angle, lining up the pinhole to the sun and keeping it steady. Halfway through it I got hungry and left to pick up some food, and as the angle of the sun got lower I went inside and ate my double double, happy that I got to see a few stages of the eclipse, happy that I got some food in my belly.

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.

stealing your soul

1. I take too many photographs of you, I'm sorry (but not really).
2. A gift of a ripe mango (it was fragrant, juicy and delicious).
3. A sheepish, mango-stained smile; moments after a couple driving by at the intersection hollered "ANDYYYYYY!!!" out their window.
4. The wash comes alive at dusk.

These images are all in a chronological disarray, which I am thoroughly pleased with.

you & me