Last Day, July 2010

The Last Day Project has its merits, though I admit I'm losing interest. If you're new here, Last Day is an idea I borrowed from Marley, a blogger from Cheltenham, England, who for one year posted a monthly photo of the same downtown corner in Cheltenham. It was fun to share the changes of season with Marley's followers.

I think my ardor for my own version of this project began to wane when the little tree was mowed down sometime around May 5th.

But I'm committed. I'll stick it out. We have one month to go. And if you click on the Last Day Project label below, you can see there have indeed been changes at Johnson Field over the past 11 months.

Nesting in Limbo

Nest Furnishings may look like it's going out of business, but it might take a while. The store is located at 680 E. Colorado Blvd. on the southeast corner of Colorado and El Molino, where plans for the new IDS Playhouse Plaza building project have stalled.

The proposed building apparently exceeds city size requirements. The City Council initially waived those requirements but a group of residents, including former City Council member Sid Tyler, filed a lawsuit that has put the project on hold. The Council created a committee to review ways to bring the project down to size and I'm sure we'll hear more about it soon.

In the meantime, there's a wide variety of stock roosting at Nest. The prices are decent. I have no idea how long it'll all be there and I bet the store owners don't, either.

Window Tweetment

I have Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn and a blog and it's already enough/plenty/on the verge of too much. Some people digg and delicious and Classmates and Flickr and Friendster and the list goes on and on. (I tried Library Thing briefly but that was too obsessive even for me.)

Do you tweet? "Tweeter" was my nickname when I was a kid, but as an adult I'm having a hard time coming up with things to tweet about. Location tweets are out--too dangerous. An occasional retweet is okay, but too many of those and you start looking lazy. And I don't want to be boring: I swear, some people will tweet about whether to have the chocolate muffin or the peach tart with their coffee. Do you care whether I'm cleaning the bathtub or stuck on a sentence? You do not.

I could surf the web for interesting websites or newsy bits to tweet about, but I'm not desperate to tweet. I understand the importance of platform, but mainly what I'm doing over here is trying to write.

Part of my problem is I have two Twitter accounts, one for PasadenaDP and one for me. I must shut one down. I think I'd rather be me.

What do you tweet about?

Boz and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day*

First, June gloom. In JULY.

Why get up? I did. I forget why.

Finally the sun comes out and what happens? BATH. They give me a BATH. It is TORTURE. Lather, rinse, REPEAT. Why repeat? WHY?

I endure because I know I will get the traditional pig ear for my reward. I take it to the back yard to have it and what happens? They leave. The people leave. I must guard the house alone for five minutes. Or five hours, I'm not sure which. It is AWFUL. I am bored. But I am vigilant.

When they come home oh joy! We go outside and another dog comes more joy! BIG DOG. I show him my move. My play move. He does not understand. He charges with teeth, growl, ar ar ar ar ar I don't remember but fast scared kill and the people--the male pulls big dog away and the female holds me. It takes five seconds. Or five hours, I'm not sure which. It is HORRIBLE. Scared.

My dinner is late. I don't get a walk.

I get a new bone. I don't remember why. Belly rub. TIRED.


*with apologies to Judith Viorst

Stylish Nerds

A while back I promised you a photo of me and John in our new glasses. We finally had our picture taken by our fabulous neighbor, Linda Centell (thank you, Linda!) and voila! New glasses.

It's a good day to post this photo because today is special: it's the birthday of my husband, my best friend, my helper, my comedian, my teacher, my light, my safety net, my power switch, my sounding board, my partner, my question, my answer, my absolute love. And now that we're past the mushy stuff, he's also my favorite silly person. No one has ever made me laugh as much or as hard.

I keep coming up with special things for us to do today, but I don't think he wants to do special things. He wants to relax, get some work done and enjoy his home. And really, when a couple of nerds are happy together, that's special enough.

Maybe it would be best to celebrate by doing something silly. Your silly suggestions are welcome.

Happy birthday, sweeney.

Zen Monday: #105

You won't be surprised to know it's Zen Monday.

Today's the day you experience the photo and give us your thoughts rather than me telling you what I think the photo's about. There's no competition, no right or wrong. We're here to have fun.

I look for a photo worth contemplating or, failing that, something odd or silly. And unless I absolutely must say something I stay out of the comments box to avoid influencing the discussion. Ohm.

Abundancia

photo inspired by John Sandel

There's always something to photograph at the Saturday Farmers' Market at Victory Park. Yesterday everyone was exclaiming over the purple peppers (near the top of the photo) at the Jaime Farms booth.

We shopped all around the market: peppers, zucchini, eggplant, broccoli, arugula, freshly baked bread, peaches, granola and fresh swordfish. You can also buy oils, plants, beef jerky, cheese, olives, and a lot of other things I'm forgetting. The only way to get fresher produce is to grow it yourself (or to have a generous neighbor who gardens).

We ate our peaches for lunch and had the fish and broccoli last night. We're going to make a ratatouille this week; I was inspired by the Altadena Hiker. I probably won't take pictures of mine. I'm not the Julia Child disciple she is.

There's a new Farmers' Market in town called the South Lake Avenue Summer Farmers' Market. It happens every Wednesday from 3:30-7:30 pm until September 29th in Shopper's Lane at Del Mar Blvd. And don't forget the Tuesday market at Villa Parke and the Thursday market at Robinson Park (also 'til September; check out the Pasadena Farmers' Markets here).

Pasadena has so many Farmers' Markets we could buy fresh produce almost every day if we needed to. But we don't. I didn't have to buy tomatoes for the ratatouille yesterday because we have a generous neighbor who gardens.