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 '09

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.

Embracing Our Diversity

Folks said 7:30 was a little early--not to be out of bed, necessarily--but to be showered, dressed and out in public being civil on a Monday. But none of us would have missed it for anything.

It was the Pasadena YWCA's Women for Racial Justice Breakfast, chaired by Ellen Portantino, emceed by NBC's Beverly White and put together (obviously) by a lot of unsung but dedicated people. I was one of the lucky women invited to share a table with my friend and Pasadena's Public Information Officer, Ann Erdman. Did you know the YWCA's whole mission is "Eliminating Racism and Empowering Women"? And the YWCA in Pasadena is huge.

I knew I'd enjoy it. I even knew I'd be inspired. But I didn't know how much.

This year's recipient of the YWCA Racial Justice Award was Marge Wyatt, a Pasadena activist for more than 50 years. Sandra Davis Houston gave Wyatt a rousing introduction, saying there's no way we can know how many lives she influenced over the years. Wyatt has fought for equality in many ways: by writing about it, by standing up for desegregation, as the founder and former board president of Child Care Information Service and as an active presence on the PTA. When asked what his mother did, one of her sons once said, "She goes to meetings." She has spent the better part of 50 years going to meetings to make Pasadena a better place for people of every heritage.

Dr. Joy DeGruy, yesterday's keynote speaker, holds more degrees than a hot day in Pasadena. Her speech was funny and poignant. Most interesting to me, she challenged my assumptions and those of everyone else in the room, from the responses I heard. She spoke for about half an hour but I could have listened to her all day. If she writes like she talks then her book, Post Traumatic Slave Syndrome: America's Enduring Legacy of Injury and Healing, promises to be a hell of a read.

All thousand or so of us took a Racial Justice Pledge together yesterday morning. You can take it, too.

I believe that every person has worth as an individual.
I believe that every person is entitled to dignity and respect.
I believe that every thought and every act of prejudice of all kinds is harmful; if it is my thought or act, then it is harmful to me as well as to others.
Therefore, from this day forward I will strive daily to eliminate prejudice from my thoughts and actions.
I will discourage prejudice by others at every opportunity.
I will treat all people with dignity and respect; and will strive daily to honor this pledge, knowing that the world will be a better place because of my effort.

Other posts about the event: An Inch At A Time, Hometown Pasadena
If you see other posts about it, let me know and I'll link to them here.

If you think about this pledge, it's not an easy thing to do. But let's all take a good shot at it, shall we? And when we mess up, let's keep trying. That's what Marge Wyatt did, and she's succeeded in making the world a better place.

Zen Monday: #68

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. This time, frankly, I have no idea.

In Plein Air

Plein air painting is a southern California tradition. (It's a tradition anywhere there's lush scenery and decent weather.)

To me, a plein air painter can be scenery, too. (Though it depends somewhat on the painter.)

I'm so glad to have a dog who needs walking.

Oak Grove Equine

inspiration: Laurie

Yesterday at Glimpses of South Pasadena, Laurie posted a photo of a front yard with an unusual tree swing. The more I thought about it, the more I thought, "I've seen that before. I've even photographed it."

Close, but no cigar, as they say. At Oak Grove Park, a similar swing hangs from a high branch not far from the parking lot. This is a lesson to me, which is Never Delete a Photo.

See My Shells

I met Shell Sherree over at Paris Daily Photo. I don't remember if I visited her blog first or she visited mine, but she's well entrenched in the Pasadena blogging community now--a regular over at Finnegan Begin Again as well as the Altadena Hiker. I've seen her hanging out at Cafe Pasadena, too, and I've seen all these folks over at Shell's place. She's practically a Pasadenamanian, or she would be, if Pasadena were in Brisbane, Australia.

Shell is a talented painter. You can see her works on her blog (and purchase select items at her Etsy shop). On September 29th I won her first year blogaversary contest. The prize was a Shell Sherree original! It arrived the other day from Australia in a pretty package, with a bonus: a Shell Sherree original with my name on it.
(I'd seen it on the blog. Shell used it to announce the winner and I wasn't shy about asking for it.)

Thank you, Shell Sherree. These are swell and lovelee. I'll get 'em mounted, framed and into a place of honor (instead of the porch) asap.

Blog Action Day 2009

NASA's Jet Propulsion Lab hunkers down in the foothills of the San Gabriel Mountains. Enlarge the photo (or, as the Altadena Hiker says, "enbiggen" it) and you can see patchy scrub growing on the low hill behind the campus. The higher mountains beyond are barren. Every bit of vegetation that once grew on them burned in the Station Fire, which began on August 26th. Amazingly, the Station Fire continues to burn in small "nuisance smokes" today. The fire's been at 98% containment for a couple of weeks now.

These empty, gray mountains go on for miles in either direction. As you drive through the towns below them it shocks you how far the fire went. And you see what the firefighters had to do: they beat the flames back and protected towns and structures. Beyond that, they had no choice but to let the fire go. 250 square miles of it. They saved the people. They couldn't save the forest.

In time, the forest will renew itself.

What if there had been no water available to fight that fire?

As of last count, 9975 blogs in 151 countries (and counting) are participating in today's Blog Action Day, expecting to reach over 13 million readers in a global discussion of climate change.

At the Copenhagen Climate Summit in December it will finally be time for America to step up. From Here to a Global Climate Treaty, a recent blog post at Avaaz.org, gives an idea of where the United States stands. There's a link to the Senate Finance Committee so you can see just which individuals it comes down to, besides you and me. We are a top emitter of greenhouse gases. We can urge our senators to help us take responsibility for our emissions. We can do something.

I think we can all agree climate change is happening. I'll leave it to the scientists to figure out how and why. Other crucial issues exist, but if there's not enough food because the earth can no longer grow it--if there's not enough water left on the planet to drink, let alone protect us from the inevitable fires brought on by global drought--then nothing else matters, does it?

Rainy Day Muse

We had rain yesterday, lovely rain, for the first time in many months. It rained all day and into the night, but reports said it wouldn't be enough to cause landslides. Fingers crossed.

I had the kind of day where I didn't get to practice as much art as I like to. I guess most days are like that. Most days are filled with errands, tasks and work you get paid for (if you're lucky), and usually that work isn't writing the great American novel or performing Shakespeare or poking your camera around pretty gardens.

I mean the "general you." Well. I mean me.

I worked in Valley Village (which is--what?--a nice way of saying "north Sherman Oaks?"--"west North Hollywood?"). When I left there I took the freeway to an appointment in La Canada Flintridge. It was (appropriately) along the stretch of the 134 that runs between Disney Studios and Forest Lawn Cemetery that I had an inspiration. My muse came to me and said something brilliant, and I said, "Could you jot that down for me, please? I'm driving in the rain here." She laughed and disappeared. Haven't seen her since.

It'll come back to me.

I pulled over and took the photo of Lupe's Place in La Canada Flintridge because that bright orange table looked forlorn in the rain. Look what's next door to Lupe's. You can see it just beyond the sign in the other picture. My muse is mocking me.

Margaret, this photo's for you.

Update from the Pasadena Star-News: Resources for residents in potential mudslide areas

Lost Garden: Entropy

I'm back online (yay!). And so, on to the final post about Earthside Nature Center. The first three are here.

I'm a fan of entropy. I like it as a photographic subject. I don't know if it's much good for the urban landscape; I leave that to others to decide. But I'm glad I had a chance to photograph Earthside Nature Center in its--I won't say decay--its overgrown condition.

Peering between Earthside's wild grape vines, you'll see this old train car. I don't know how it got there, but it was obviously used for something. Someone took the trouble to add stairs. Someone took a lot of trouble to create all of Earthside, and now others are deciding what the next use will be for this land.

That's what happens. The old people drift away, or die. New people come and make use of things as they see fit. I hope they keep some of it--the pretty railings, maybe, or some of the plants. I hope the memorials will find a home.

Some people don't care, they're just glad they got to go there with a friend.

Zen Monday: #67

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. And 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).

Cafe Culture (#10 in a Quest)

I'm blogging from my favorite coffee joint so far, though this isn't my favorite picture. I've got photo uploading software on the laptop but nothing with which to edit.

Long story short: here on the ol' blog we were in the middle of a series about Earthside Nature Center when my home DSL line stopped working. We'll return to Earthside as soon as possible because I have another day's worth of photos, but they're on the Mac Mini which doesn't travel well.

In the meantime I'm at Cafe Culture and glad to be here. I love this spot. I hear music but it's quiet. Sometimes the TV is on but that's never loud either. There's free parking out back. Inside there's a varied menu plus the usual baked goods, decent coffee, wifi, an outdoor patio (with a view of St. Luke's) and a laid back atmosphere. The place has all the comforts of home except photo editing software and soft chairs. It even has the chairs but only two, and other people are in those right now.

The owners are a married couple. Sweet people. The woman makes all the breakfasts and lunches and I hear it gets pretty crowded here around meal times. A lot of items on the menu have a Middle Eastern flair. Cafe Culture is at 1359 N. Altadena Drive, just north of Washington Blvd.

I was pretty mad earlier this afternoon when I thought I wasn't going to get to post or check my email. Sometimes machinery gets the best of me. I know one can go to a coffee house for one's internet needs, though the case for programs like MobileMe and GoToMyPC was driven home today. For me, though, as you know if you've read previous installments of the Coffee Shop Quest, not just any coffee shop will do.

If I ever find a spot as comfortable as Cafe Culture with yet more perfect chairs I'll be in heaven. But I have my doubts. I think this might be it.