In My Dreams

Gee, those are clean dumpsters and wow, that alley is tidy. I guess you can keep your dumpsters and alleys polished when you have hired help.

I'd love to employ someone to do that for me, but first I'd hire someone to clean the house. Then I'd hire someone to do the laundry. Wait--no, I don't mind laundry, it's the cooking I don't like. So a house-cleaner, then a cook, then a laundry person, and that person would iron. (Am I the only one who still has clothes that need ironing?)

Oh! No, wait. I need someone to plant things--like landscape the yard. I also need someone to clean out the garage, which I wouldn't mind doing except I've got to clean out my office first. Oh, and I'd love to have a secretary, wouldn't that be great? Someone who'd call the phone company and pay bills and file things, take stuff to the dry cleaners and Goodwill and go to the grocery store...I guess that's more of a personal assistant than a secretary. That's a dream, isn't it? I'd love that. I might like that even more than having a cook. Maybe.

If I had all that staff in place I'd shine up my trash cans and polish the driveway myself.

Tranquil Weekend

I was looking for something spooky to post for Friday the 13th and I stopped at this one. Not spooky. Tranquil, in fact.

I'm facing south under the 210 freeway overpass, toward the Rose Bowl. It's tranquil except for the noise of rushing traffic above.

The photo suits my mood. I have a lot to do today but once it's over, a tranquil weekend promises to follow.

Have you got something good coming up? It's the calm before the holiday storm, you know. The bleachers are already going up for the parade.

Learning

So John and I go to the Huntington Library and Gardens for our anniversary. I take my camera. John's patient while I practice a few shots. I'm learning about F stop and shutter speed and aperture, and frankly I'm still not sure which two of those are the same thing. But I can tell the above photo, taken in the Garden of Flowing Fragrance, is a little blown out, so I adjust a knob to make it darker.


This is better. I'm bracketing, meaning I'm trying a few different--speeds, I think. So I'll take some more because the LCD screen's small and I won't know for sure until I see them on the computer monitor. But I think--wait. What's that in the corner?


Damn. Some kid just ruined my shot.

A Taste of France in the Dena

We in "the Dena" are one, I like to think. I'm free to travel from Alta to Pasa to South Pas, and thank goodness for that because South Pas has Nicole's Gourmet Foods. Laurie will forgive me for posting about it. She herself has posted twice about this slice of paradis in southern California. Who could resist a visit to, and a post about, a cafe whose website slips in a cheese guide with the usual menu, about page and directions?

Plus there were the chocolate cups. Which I resisted. I was there for coffee and coffee only.

It was this dumb idea I had, I don't know, don't ask me why. What was I thinking? My friends said, "Let's meet at Nicole's" and I thought, great, I'll have a latte and a visit and be on my way.

Then there were the chocolate cups. And the mango mousse macarons. Mango mousse. I kid you not.

Not the best photo, but I know my audience. It's not the photo that counts in this case. It's the macarons (not to be confused with macaroons).

I didn't taste them, or the chocolate. What a fool I am.

Eliot School: Room 13

At the door to Room 13 at Eliot School, Principal Peter Pannell told our tour group, "I don't know what we're going to find in here."

We found creativity in process, where the students were running their own show (or would be, as soon as school let out and they got back into the space). Room 13 is a unique, international arts program where the kids have to be entrepreneurial as well as creative because the program has to sustain itself. There are only two Room 13 chapters in the US, both in the LA area.

Local professional artists are welcome to mentor (hint hint). Or, if your talents don't swing in an artistic direction, you can help out with the wish list:
If I hadn't already been impressed with Eliot School, Room 13 would have done it. I love that combination of creative freedom and business acumen. I had an excellent arts education but I entered the adult world without any business training and I needed it, even back in the goodle days.

Many classes at Eliot combine disciplines and invite professionals from the community to participate. For example, we witnessed a fun program in the gymnasium led by pro dancers. One of the math teachers is developing a robotics class with the help of Caltech and JPL personnel; he was extremely enthusiastic and it was exciting to hear him talk about it. (His Caltech connection is filming a documentary about the program's development.)

Eliot School principal Peter Pannell answers parent questions in Room 13.

I could go on, but Room 13 is a good place to finish our tour of Eliot School. I enjoyed myself, and it made me wonder if other Pasadena and Altadena schools are just as interesting. They probably are. Many thanks to Principal Pannell for the tour, and to Susan Savitt Schwartz of PEN for inviting me.

Zen Monday: #71

For those who've been following the Eliot School tour I have another shot or two so we'll get back to it tomorrow. But Zen Monday is PDP tradition and we must have it.

Zen Monday is the day you experience the photo and give us your thoughts rather than me telling you what I think the photo's about. I also stay out of the comments box for most of the day, so as not to influence the discussion. I look for a photo worth contemplating or, failing that, at least something odd or silly.

As I post each new Zen Monday photo I add a label to last week's to identify it if necessary--if I know what it is.

Eliot School: Polished

I'm not going to show you every picture I took at Eliot School. I took a lot. We'll take a Zen Monday break tomorrow then I'll show you a couple more favorites. But first I have to show you the cafeteria.

Lake Avenue historian Dale Trader tells me the architect of Eliot School was the one and only Sylvanus Marston. Although the Pacific Coast Architect Database lists every other project of his I can think of, it doesn't list Eliot School. Then again, PCAD is missing out--it doesn't list Eliot at all.

This cafeteria is polished to a shine. And kind of Dickensian, don't you think? I love it.

I love the institutional look, the basement-ness of it, the dim. It reminds me of the cafeteria in my junior high school, which made me feel like I was having my macaroni and cheese at the bottom of an empty swimming pool. I wonder how the current Eliot students feel about this room.

Principal Peter Pannell told us more than one movie has filmed in the cafeteria. (Eliot's often used for movies--a film crew was nosing about the premises that day.)

It was also in the cafeteria that Pannell told us he was an Eliot alum. His family had just moved to Altadena; he knew no one and the school "felt huge" to him. He had come from Detroit where he'd been going to a small, neighborhood school across the street from his home. Suddenly he was thrust into an institution that took up a whole city block and where all 1300 students were strangers. "I can tell you," he said, "the personal touch makes a difference."

Peter Pannell is a polished man, but that speech came unpolished, from the heart.


Loren of Hearken Creative tells us "most PUSD schools have tours similar to Elliot's; for instance, McKinley's is the first Wednesday of every month." Call the main office of the school that interests you to see if they offer a tour, or check with the Pasadena Education Network.

Eliot School: The Quiet Storm

Something's going on in Pasadena's schools. Teachers are teaching and kids are learning. Quietly. Without making a lot of noise about it.

As I mentioned in yesterday's comments, they don't use the lockers at Eliot School in Altadena. Principal Peter Pannell noted a couple of reasons, the obvious one being that kids can't use them for hiding contraband. The less obvious reason is noise. Books are kept in the classrooms, and much of the homework gets done in after school programs. If kids have to take a book home they can check one out. At Eliot, they're not loaded down with pounds and pounds of them.

It was quiet during the first period at Eliot, and our tour group sat in the library while Pannell told us a little bit (well, a lot) about how the school operates. They do 90-minute class periods, alternating subjects but keeping the same group together in the same area of the building. Teachers meet regularly to discuss curriculum, the students in their group, what's working and what isn't. (A teacher group was meeting in the library while we were there.) All the teachers in the group know all the students in their area. This "embedded grouping" helps educators spot problems and work as a team to solve them. It also makes the kids feel safe--it's a big campus but they get to know their area and their group.

All this has been successful at Eliot, where they chalked up a 97-point gain in their API score just in the last year, jumping from 606 to 703. The target for all schools is 800. (I linked to the same article yesterday but in case you didn't read it, it's worth a look.)

Even if you don't have kids I think every citizen should care about the quality of local schools if only for mercenary reasons; if the schools in your town are good then your property value is higher. Touring Eliot School (see yesterday's post) showed me that, contrary to tired rumor that gets passed from tongue to ear to tongue to ear with nary an open-eyed fact check, Pasadena's schools are in decent shape and getting better. There's enough improvement (and hope for more) that it's worth making some noise about.

Our tour group was in the library when first period let out. I expected pandemonium. But it was a quiet storm.
Parent Tours at Eliot School are given the first Tuesday of every month, first thing in the morning. Contact the school at (626-396-5680).

Eliot School

I think everyone who drives up Lake Avenue to Altadena wants to take a picture of Eliot School. Founded in 1931 and named for Charles W. Eliot (who was a president of Harvard University and responsible for introducing the elective course system), Eliot is a middle school, part of the Pasadena Unified School District and current home to about 700 sixth, seventh and eighth graders.

I toured the school the other day along with a small group of parents and Susan Savitt Schwartz, Director of Operations for Pasadena Education Network. PEN helps parents learn what Pasadena's public schools are really like by connecting them to the facts, to other parents and to the educators themselves.

Our tour was led by the (relatively) new principal of Eliot School, Peter Pannell, himself an Eliot alum. Mr. Pannell (he's the principal--I can't call him Peter) patiently answered questions and gave me the feeling he's an educator who cares. He hasn't forgotten what it's like to be one small kid in a big school.

You know me, I'm interested in the visuals, the architecture. But I found Pannell's earnest talk compelling. Over the coming days, with his help, I'll show you around inside Eliot School and tell you a little more about the fantastic things going on there--like the biggest API score gain of all the PUSD schools in the past year--and that's saying something.

Parent Tours at Eliot School are given the first Tuesday of every month, first thing in the morning. Contact the school at (626-396-5680).

A Corner in Time

Just because I couldn't find much information about the old Owl Drug Store building online yesterday doesn't mean the information isn't out there. It means I don't get to spend as much time at the library as I'd like to.

But thankfully, other people can. Sometimes I'm lucky and the information comes to me from Pasadenamanians both past and present who are happy to share photos and can't stand it when I come up short. (Thank goodness for them.) Three (count 'em, three) people sent photos for today's post. Let's do a chronology.

Dale Trader sent a bunch of historical shots; the top one is looking south on Fair Oaks across Colorado in 1890. At the top right you can see the dome of the original Victorian building that graced the northwest corner.

This photo, of the same building, is labeled "First National Bank Building NW Corner Fair Oaks and Colorado 1900."

This one was taken in 1910. I think we're looking east from West Colorado Street. Correct me if I'm wrong.

Here's the one Ann Erdman sent from the City's USC digital archives. If this photo was indeed taken in 1926 as its label states ("1926 Colorado Street Post-Parade"); if we're looking west on Colorado Street at Fair Oaks; if the information I had yesterday is correct and the Victorian burned down in 1929; then Owl Drug was in the Victorian at this corner pre-fire.

That might be a run-on sentence. Let's move on.

Here's another from Dale. Taken in 1930, a mere four years after the one above it. We're looking north on Fair Oaks and you can see the square, "Zig Zag Modern" building that replaced the Victorian. Owl Drug still occupies the corner property.

Here--just for fun and because I'm being chronological--is a business map of Colorado and Fair Oaks. Dale sent a larger section and I cropped it so we can look at the corner. This is circa 1950; around this time, post World War II, the neighborhood was already run down.

Dale says, "Another Owl Drug Store was located just east of the Security Bank Building on the SE corner of Marengo and Colorado; when the Plaza Pasadena Mall was built they preserved the facade only and now in the Paseo it is still just a parking entrance false facade. "

Last but certainly not least, a piece de resistance from Terry Griest. You remember Terry: she sent some great photos back when we were studying the Doty Block. She has a treasure trove of Old Town photos from the mid-1980s thanks to a project she did while a student at Cal State Long Beach.
This ought to bring back memories for some of you. Pascal Jim mentioned this shop in his comment yesterday.

This is the building we have today, though it's been considerably spiffed up. I'll get to Old Town asap and see if I can match this position and snap a shot for you.

Thank you Ann, Dale and Terry so much for your contributions today. Even if no one saw this post but me I'd be thrilled to have a fuller understanding of time's progression in this little corner of my world.

Owl Drug Store

The old Owl Drug Company doorway now leads into Old Town Pasadena's J. Crew store at 3 W. Colorado Blvd. The corner of Colorado and Fair Oaks is where local commerce began.

Finding information online about this building and about Owl Drug isn't easy. The building, in Zig Zag Modern style, was built in 1930 after the previous Victorian structure burned in 1929. Apparently Owl Drug was there in the 1930s and 1940s (or the 20s-40s, depending on which article you read). Confusing, I know. Also, it looks like Owl was one of the forerunners of Rexall, but not until the 1940s. Yeah. Hard to follow.

This is a treasured old building, but not one of the oldest in town. Pasadena goes back to the turn of the 20th century.

Hey! It's my brother's birthday. One of these days I'd love to tour him around Old Town. He'd love it. Happy birthday, Stu!

This photo was a contender for the November first theme day of Doorways but I set it aside when I discovered how little information I was able to find on the web. In my search, though, I did find this 2006 article about hidden history by Janette Williams for the Pasadena Star-News. It reminded me that if I'll just dig, there are always treasures to uncover here.

Happy Anniversary, John

11/2/09 Shakespeare Garden Gazebo, Huntington Gardens

About my husband, my long-sought and happily-found partner in life:

I'm sure of his love and he's sure of mine. We trust and respect each other. We support each other's individuality, work and ideals. We have separate goals and mutual goals, and in the short time we've been together we've come a long way toward achieving them--together.

Sometimes I wish I'd met him sooner, but it wouldn't have worked. By my forties I was frustrated by the mate search and ready to give up. When I found John I realized why it had taken so long: I had to be prepared to handle all that certainty and trust. I had to be ready to support and be supported before I could marry the unusual, brilliant, generous, handsome man I'd pictured.

Plus, now my inner dork has someone to hang out with.

We'd been dating for about six months when we went to the Huntington for John's birthday. Neither of us had been there before. I'd say we fell in love then but that would be too tidy. No, we were already in love. The purchase that day of our dual membership was simply our first mutual financial transaction of import, an investment in arts and letters, and in ourselves. It was a declaration, in a way, of who we already were and wanted to become, together.
7/27/00 Shakespeare Garden Gazebo, Huntington Gardens

Zen Monday: #70

Zen Monday is the day you experience the photo and give us your thoughts rather than me telling you what the photo's about. I look for something worth thinking about or, failing that, at least something odd or silly. Sometimes you have to look closely.

As I post each new Zen Monday photo I'll add a label to last week's to identify it if necessary--if I know what it is.

Theme Day: Doorways

Pasadena is a foothill town, pressed up against the San Gabriel Mountains. We face nature every day, whether nature likes it or not. In places like this, sometimes you can see entryways to the underworld of faerie. There's at least one on the Sam Merrill Trail, not far from the first mile marker. It doesn't photograph well, probably because the faeries have put spells on it. A couple of tree trunks at Hahamongna Watershed Park that I've tried over and over again to photograph refuse to be captured, which tells me they are indeed what I guess them to be.

This, then, must be an ordinary doorway. To the sky, perhaps, or to Brigadoon. I've shown it to you in black & white because the color seemed too extraordinary.
To see what other City Daily Photo Bloggers have done with today's theme, Click here to view thumbnails for all the participants.

Halloween

Hey. It's the day. I wanted something truly weird.

Here's a good article about Halloween. Paragraph two tells you how to correctly pronounce "Samhain" and impress your friends.

You might enjoy this delightfully sinister animated short film called The Sandman, directed by Paul Berry. (You might not.)

Have fun out there tonight! Be safe! Be spooky! Eat candy!

Last Day, October 2009

October 23, 5:18pm

The idea of the project I started last month is to take a picture from the same spot and post it periodically, then watch as the spot changes throughout the year. I plan to post on the last day of each month, but since tomorrow's Halloween, this time I'm a day early.

The view looks across Johnson Field at Hahamongna Watershed Park. The logs in the foreground were put there by a team of bicycle riders who use them for practice. The nearest foothills were spared in the Station Fire, but the mountains in the background are as yet bare of vegetation and will probably be that way for a while.

We had a couple of days of steady rain last month. Makes a difference, doesn't it?

You stay at this blogging thing long enough, and you can just link to yourself.

Autumn Lore

Maybe I like the weather here because the only thing I have to compare it to is that of northern Illinois. Chicago nights get below fifty degrees this time of year and it's only going to get colder. Some people love that. I am not some people. Santa Ana winds (as opposed to sleet coming off Lake Michigan) are all the bluster I need. My idea of the perfect white Christmas is here.

But I'm getting ahead of myself. The winds are just picking up. It's still autumn. Halloween birthdays are a-happening. (My sister Gina B's, is today - hbd!) Goblins peer out from the deepening dark. An old year ends. As it has since people first rose up on two feet, a new year dawns out of night.

Die Hard

At 3pm, wisps were blowing up from the mountaintops. By 4pm, if you were in the car you were driving with your headlights on. If you were walking you might have had a mouth full of grit.

It's what's left on the ground in the mountains from the Station Fire, now known to be "the largest fire in the recorded history of the Angeles National Forest." There's no vegetation to hold down the thick layer of ash when the Santa Ana winds pick up. The winds were expected to get up to 70mph in the mountains last night.

For some people this is a plus. If you don't mind a bit of eye sting you can have a golf course to yourself. For our part, we enjoyed a lawn furniture ballet as dinner entertainment, and our back yard has been nicely landscaped where it wasn't before.

Arc-en-ciel

Today might be a good day to head over to One Colorado and see what we have in common with Paris.

It's A Rainbow in the Sky, an installation by the legendary artist Daniel Buren. When I say legendary, I'm talking about the Colonnes de Buren, those black and white columns you may know about if you've seen photos of the Palais-Royal. You might love them. You might hate them. Either way, if you know Paris you know them. But what's not to love about rainbows?

Built in 1629, the Palais-Royal was originally the palace of Cardinal Richilieu, who bequeathed it to French royalty upon his death. Some amazing people have lived there over the centuries. Louis XIV, for one, lived there as a child. Several members of the house of Orleans inhabited the place at one time or another. In more recent times, Jean Cocteau and Colette each had apartments there in the 20th Century. And the Palais houses two historic theatres.

One Colorado isn't quite 400 years old, but much of it is Pasadena's version of ancient architecture. The square above is surrounded by some of our oldest existing buildings. Old Town is full of lovely turn-of-the-20th-Century architecture and a decent dose of public art. It's well worth a tour. Do it soon, though. Unlike Buren's Palais-Royal columns, the installation at One Colorado is as temporary as a rainbow. It's here, thanks to the Armory Center for the Arts, until November 15th.

Zen Monday: #69

Zen Monday is the day you experience the photo and give us your thoughts rather than me telling you what the photo's about. I look for something worth thinking about or, failing that, at least something odd or silly.

As I post each new Zen Monday photo I'll add a label to last week's to identify it if necessary--if I know what it is.

Pie Night

I don't know who this cherub is, but last night she had a table full of rivals for the title of Sweetest Thing at Pie Night.

An annual Schwartz family tradition, my previous Pie Night post got so many fun comments that last night John and I were greeted as "the publicity department."

Pie night is sugar overload. The hosts make pies from the pumpkins they grow and everyone else brings a pie, too. (If we're lucky, a couple of savory pies appear on the table at some point.) There are always delicious people to meet, as well. Last year I met Dave Knight, and not only did he become the Pie Night photo for 2008, he took me on a real estate "caravan" in the spring.

It's just not Pie Night without Dave Knight in Bad Light.
Wait a minute. Who's that sneaking up behind Dave with a camera?

Mycology, Anyone?

I get all my big words from my husband.

Mycology is the study of fungi. To get a close-up of this yellow burst of fungal joy I had to poke my camera under a cyclone fence. I left some of it in the photo for scale, and you can see its shadow manifested in lines on the puffy, yellow, mushroomy, whatever-it-is. You know I googled. All I got was yellow fungus.

Any ideas?

Octoberish

It's still more than a week 'til Halloween and the pumpkin patches are up all over town. They're like Christmas tree lots. (Sure enough, once the pumpkins are gone the same lots will be stocked with trees set out to dry.)

You've got eight days--well, nights--to get on over to East Jackson Street and see the Halloween decorations. I don't want to build it up too much for you. It's just a nice block with nice decorations, better than most blocks. There may be others that do it up bigger. If you know of any let me know in the comments and maybe I can get some pictures. But if you go to Jackson, start at El Molino and walk west. The Pumpkin God, at the west end of the block, tops it off.

And you must go at night.

If you see me out there with my tripod, say hello.

Debris at the PWP Corral

In yesterday's comments the Altadena Hiker reminded us of the high waters behind the Devil's Gate Dam after a storm in spring of 2005. Greg Sweet wrote of the debris that builds up behind our local dams after big storms. That gave me the idea to post these pictures from spring of 2008 to show what Pasadena Water and Power does with storm debris behind Devil's Gate Dam.

In the first two photos you can see JPL in the background. I didn't know what the line of connected logs was for at first.

But as the water recedes it becomes clear that the logs are in place to corral the debris that has gathered in the flood.

A lot of the debris is twigs and logs. But if you enlarge this photo you can also see plastic bags, styrofoam cups, a flashlight and a lot of unidentifiable stuff. If the water gets high enough, plastic bags and all sorts of weird junk hangs in the trees.

Sprocket and Boz find it absolutely delightful.

I'd say the PWP does a fine job. But I have no idea where they put it all.

Water Control

There's water under the Devil's Gate dam again. We were told that last week's rain wasn't much and truly it's only a stream, but it's good to see.

Click on over to the Pasadena PIO's recent Mystery History piece about the dam and scroll down to the well-known photo of the "completed project." The dam is no longer a public road, but that square control tower or guard house is still there. From where I was standing when I took this shot, all the water in the PIO's photo would have been behind me, where this is now.

The dam was built back in the days when there was enough water that it needed controlling. We don't have that problem now.

I check in at LA Creek Freak a lot. I don't comment much because I don't know what to say. But they do, and they're worth reading.