Patch

East courtyard at Baranger Studios

You may have heard about these new, hyperlocal news websites going up called Patch.com. There's SouthPasadena.Patch.com and Altadena.Patch.com and who knows what else. Patch, owned by AOL/Time Warner, is going into small-ish communities around the country. We won't be getting one in Pasadena because Pasadena's population is too large.

Some of our best local bloggers are taking part. Karin Bugge, the Altadena Hiker, will write two weekly columns for Altadena Patch. (Let's hope it doesn't keep her from blogging because her blog is nothing but brilliant.) Margaret Finnegan, who makes me laugh and think at the same time (ouch) with her weekly goddesses at Finnegan Begin Again, is a contributor at South Pasadena Patch. So is Susan Carrier, LA Times contributor and superblogger at Open Mouth, Insert Fork and Cancer Banter. Greg Middleton, Altadena Town Council member and blogger at Real Men Seminars, contributes to Altadena Patch. And so on.

Who am I missing? Hmm. Ah, Laurie. Laurie Allee. Ms. Glimpses of South Pasadena herself. Laurie writes a weekly column for South Pasadena Patch and her first one's a beauty. I want to single Laurie out because she introduced me to her editor, the way-too-talented Sonia Narang, and now I'm a Patch contributor, too. Thank you, Laurie. Thank you, Sonia.

My first article for South Pas Patch is about Baranger Studios, the pretty building at the corner of Mission and Orange Grove. It's got a wonderful history. I hope you'll get a chance to read and comment on the article.

I once said I wasn't going to blog about South Pasadena because it's Laurie's territory. Now, thanks to Laurie, I get to snoop around her territory, take photos and write history articles. That's right up my cobble-stoned alley.

I hope Patch will serve to improve all our area news outlets. It wasn't long ago that towns had more than one news outlet and it was considered a good thing. Healthy competition in journalism is healthy for our society.

Blog Action Day: Water

Today is Blog Action Day 2010. Last year's participants were given a list of topics to vote on, and we chose water for this year's topic. The topics were all important, but as the 21st century unfolds and access to water is already a crisis in so many places, water promises to be a serious subject for years to come.

I'm participating today to help raise awareness. The Blog Action Day people sent a few facts, which I'll quote. I've added my own italics:

1. Unsafe drinking water and lack of sanitation kills more people every year than all forms of violence, including war. Unclean drinking water can incubate some pretty scary diseases, like E. coli, salmonella, cholera and hepatitis A. Given that bouquet of bacteria, it's no surprise that water, or rather lack thereof, causes 42,000 deaths each week.
2. More people have access to a cell phone than to a toilet. Today, 2.5 billion people lack access to toilets. This means that sewage spills into rivers and streams, contaminating drinking water and causing disease.
3. Every day, women and children in Africa walk a combined total of 109 million hours to get water. They do this while carrying cisterns weighing around 40 pounds when filled in order to gather water that, in many cases, is still polluted. Aside from putting a great deal of strain on their bodies, walking such long distances keeps children out of school and women away from other endeavors that can help improve the quality of life in their communities.
4. It takes 6.3 gallons of water to produce just one hamburger. That 6.3 gallons covers everything from watering the wheat for the bun and providing water for the cow to cooking the patty and baking the bun. And that's just one meal! It would take over 184 billion gallons of water to make just one hamburger for every person in the United States.
5. The average American uses 159 gallons of water every day – more than 15 times the average person in the developing world. From showering and washing our hands to watering our lawns and washing our cars, Americans use a lot of water. To put things into perspective, the average five-minute shower will use about 10 gallons of water. Now imagine using that same amount to bathe, wash your clothes, cook your meals and quench your thirst.

While these facts may be grim, there is hope for real solutions as more and more people around the world are waking up to the clean water crisis. Earlier this year, the UN declared access to clean water a human right and groups like charity: water and Water.org continue to work tirelessly to bring water access to the developing world. 

Thanks for reading. We're a global economy now, a global community, and it's time to think of ourselves in context with the rest of the world.

Update: Pertinent to #3, here's something interesting that Dina found: the Q Drum, a rolling water container.

Teaser

Last week I mentioned we're going to have a contest. It doesn't start today, but I wanted to do another teaser. You know, get everybody excited, blahbedy blah.

Beginning Friday, October 22nd, every Friday for five weeks I'll be giving away a copy of Hometown Pasadena 2009-2010, THE guide to our home town. The binding isn't paperback but it's not quite hardcover, either. What is that binding, does anyone know? It's flexible and durable at the same time.

On Friday of the sixth week, I'm giving away a copy of At Home Pasadena, definitely a hardcover and too big to tuck into your purse. Mine's on my coffee table, to show off.

You can win both books, so if you want At Home Pasadena, don't let that stop you from entering to win Hometown Pasadena, too. It's possible you could win every week. Holiday gifts! Yowza.

Thanks to Colleen Dunn Bates of Prospect Park Media and Hometown-Pasadena.com for the prizes. Hometown Pasadena is the place to go to know what's happening in Pasadena. And Prospect Park Media--well. They publish these books and many others, including their latest--their first novel, Helen of Pasadena by Lian Dolan, to be released November 1st. I am very, very excited about Helen of Pasadena.

The contest will work like this: each Friday the photo will depict a question. The Google-able answer will be in the text of the post. For example: if today's photo were a contest photo, which it is not, I might say this is the back of a barn-shaped restaurant on Fair Oaks Avenue in Pasadena, and I might ask you what restaurant it is. All the clues are in that sentence. If you don't know the answer you can Google it.

All correct answers I receive by email, not in the comments, between midnight and midnight Pacific time on contest day will be thrown into a hat and the winner randomly drawn on Saturday by the cutest, youngest, most innocent neighbor I can find. Got it? I hope so, because this post is getting too long!

Update: I received word this morning that a new prize has been added: After November 1st, we'll also give away a copy of Helen of Pasadena! Thank you Colleen, Lian and Prospect Park Media!

Making Something

Koi at Houston's Restaurant

Boz and I took a walk last evening and got a look at some of the Halloween decorations going up in the neighborhood. Some people do the same thing every year. (If it works, don't fix it, right?) Some people try new things. It's fun to see folks being creative.

So far the Pumpkin God has not appeared. I hope he does. He's my favorite. But that display is a lot of work and maybe his creator wants to try something new this year. Or maybe he'd rather put up nothing at all. I don't blame him. I usually stick a couple of gourds on the front steps, and rarely do they even get carved.

I guess people are creative in different ways. There's the chef, the painter, the tailor, the interior designer, the architect, the gardener--these people do things I envy. Then again, I'm glad I get to take pictures and write stories. (And as soon as my talents make me enough money to hire all the aforementioned people, then perhaps I can stop envying their talents so damned much)

Sometimes I do the same thing because I know it works. Sometimes, I like to shake it up.

Mary Linn's Bridal

When you've been snorting and coughing for five days--when you've barely managed to get dressed each of those days and (you're not sure, but) you might not have managed a shower every 24 hours--when you begin to fear you're going to be a mouth-breather for the rest of your life--that's when you need a pick-me-up.

Food will not do. I've been lying around for five days getting no exercise. And for those who've been following my alcohol- and caffeine-deprivation saga, I've got nine days left to go to make it to six months. I'm not giving up after making it this far.

My cold clings to me in a much less attractive fashion than this dress clings to the mannequin, and the mannequin's not even real.

I just need something pretty.

I don't have the energy to go out and take a photo, so I dug through my archives and found this one. It practically satisfies my sweet tooth. We're peeking into the window at Mary Linn's Bridal shop at the corner of Green Street and Fair Oaks. We might even be drooling a bit, which is partly why this is perhaps not a perfect photo. But does it matter, when it's such a perfect dress?

I've never been inside Mary Linn's, but it would be fun to wander through their collection and daydream a little. I think I'll plan for such an excursion as soon as I've beaten my cold and started drinking coffee again. I promise to take a shower and get dressed before I go.

Zen Monday: #116

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

There's no right or wrong. We're here to have fun.

Composting Appeals to Me

Something about composting appeals to the Midwestern farm girl in me.

Okay, I've never lived on a farm. But I grew up in the Midwest, that's gotta count.

I enjoyed assembling my compost bin and here you see my tools. On top of the bin are the kitchen knife I used for gouging the holes that needed widening, and the hammer I used for pounding through the screws when they needed a little encouragement. The shovel was for my first layer of dirt and the rake was to gather my first layer of leaves. Then comes the organic waste.

It's satisfying to save the planet, but it's almost as satisfying to save money--or, I should say, to waste less of it. Before we got our compost bin our organic waste went into the trash. If we over-bought at the farmers' market or never got to that leftover salad, it felt like we were throwing money in the garbage. Now that waste goes into our backyard savings account.

Something about composting appeals to the miser in me.

We keep a little container on the kitchen counter for egg shells, grapefruit rinds, coffee grounds and whatever else can be composted. (Tea bags? Can I compost tea bags?) When the container is full I march it out to the compost bin and dump it in. We're getting a good layer of organic waste. We've already got some fluffy, white mold happening. It's almost time to add a new layer of dirt. Then I'll add more leaves. Then more organic stuff. The instruction booklet said to balance the different elements.

Something about composting appeals to the obsessive-compulsive in me.
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On a different subject: it's 10/10/10. Do we get any prizes for this?

Door, 4

While you're out enjoying Art Weekend it seems fitting to post another door, especially one that's padlocked, as I'm shut in with a cold.

I'm not feeling sorry for myself. Oh, no no no no no. I'm feeling all benevolent and everything because I'm not going out and spreading my germs among the multitudes, unlike whoever spread this germ to me.

This provocative portal can be found at the Hahamongna Annex north of Oak Grove Park. At least it was there when I visited last spring, and I don't believe anything's been torn down. I hope not. I love rusty old sheds with creaking doors, and I'm feeling a particular affinity with this one today.

I'll get over it and, as I said, I don't feel sorry for myself. John's taking good care of me. And there's something luscious about being forced to rest for a few days. It's an excuse to putter around the house, to write, to read, and to appreciate the days when I feel human. I promise you, those are the norm.

Art Weekend

Pasadena's bursting with art. There's always an exhibit, a concert, a play or a spontaneous expression. Twice a year, in October and April, we have Pasadena Art Weekend, an event that's dear to my heart. This weekend the slogan is "6 events, 1 weekend, all free."

Art Night kicks things off tonight, when local art museums and other venues open their doors to the public, gratis. Free shuttles will take you from site to site. Plan ahead to see as much as you can.

There's quite a list of four events happening Saturday, including the Latino Heritage Parade and jamaica (ArtHeritage) culminating at La Pintoresca Park, Art of Food on South Lake, ArtWalk in the Playhouse District and ArtRhythm at the Paseo Colorado. I don't see how it's possible to catch all of Saturday's events, but it's worth a try.

Sunday is the Cultural Dance Festival at Memorial Park. It lasts all afternoon but at least it's all in one place so it should be easy to see it all.

All of this is free. Pasadena's just bustin' with art and you should go get you some.

Garages, 2

I thought doing a series on garages in Pasadena would be easy. My favorites are the old ones, some going back to the early part of the 20th century. (This does not impress the European readers or those on the east coast, but so be it.)

But it's hard to find a garage without a car or a garbage can in front of it, so I grabbed this shot hoping the purply-blue flowers might make it into a photo. I didn't notice until I got the picture onto my screen how interesting the garage is, regardless of the flowers. I love the complete individuality of the doors. Even the hinges don't match.

The fact that the padlock is painted the same color as the rest tells me these doors are rarely opened, if ever. I can't tell from the street, but this could be a storage space, or someone's studio or office, entered from the yard on the other side of the fence.

I hope they don't plan to "fix" those doors. They're perfect the way they are.

Pick One

It sure feels like summer's over. It is over, I guess, with kids back in school. Summer stays late in southern California, but here it is October and I'm lamenting its departure. I'm a glutton that way.

It's been nice, though, to feel the fall chill. Why is fall so nostalgic? I think the word "nostalgic" was invented to describe autumn. My reaction to cloudy skies is to relate them to similar skies of days gone by. When early darkness comes, I remember earlier days that ended too soon.

But I'm being over-dramatic. We have one more day of rain, then tomorrow it'll be sunny again and the weekend will be hot. Maybe I should have saved this picture for Saturday. Or maybe then I'll post gloomy skies and moan that the rain ended too soon.

Do you have a favorite season? Mine's summer. But I do like rain.

The Giving Season

We've been enjoying some wet weather. It feels like winter, southern California style, although it's only a taste. We can expect the heat to be back this weekend, with perhaps more rain next week. Nice.

The weather puts me in mind of what's to come: Halloween, Thanksgiving, and what we like to call "The Holidays": Christmas, Chanukah, New Year's and The Tournament of Roses.

You're going to need fortitude. You're going to need sanity. You're going to need presents.

I'm here to help. At Pasadena Daily Photo, we've got a contest coming up, with prizes courtesy of Colleen Dunn Bates at Hometown Pasadena and Prospect Park Books. Beginning later this month, we have books to give away. Not just any old books, but five (count 'em, FIVE) copies of Hometown Pasadena 2009-2010, the definitive guide to our fair city. (That's a $24.95 value.) Hometown Pasadena 2009-2010 is a great gift for your favorite Pasadenan.

My plan is to do this contest-style, beginning Friday, October 22nd and giving away a book each Friday for six weeks until they're gone.

Did I say six weeks? I believe I said I have five books.

Okay, well, the sixth prize will be a copy of At Home Pasadena, a beautiful, hardcover coffee-table book about the artful Pasadena life we'd all live if we were totally creative and organized and had a landscaper, a chef and a cleaning lady. (This book lists at $39.95.)

Hey--I didn't say the presents couldn't be for you.

I'm trying out my Amazon links for the first time today. Full disclosure: if you buy the book from Amazon via the link here, I get a cut. Frankly, I'm not sure how much. I'm probably not going to pay the mortgage with it, but I like to be upfront about these things. Let me know what you think.

Thanks for the books, Colleen!

Zen Monday: #115

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 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 until the end of the day to avoid influencing the discussion.

There's no right or wrong. We're here to have fun.

Webster's Fine Networking

Anton Anderson emcees as Lori Webster looks on. Fluorescents be damned, I like the shot anyway.

Like a lot of people, I've been looking to spruce up my online social networking skills for the sake of my business. I'm okay at blogging, but I've got a few things to learn about Facebook and my LinkedIn page is neglected. (I'm so pathetic at Twitter I'm not at liberty to discuss it here.)

Lately I've been speaking to groups about blogging. The first thing I tell them is that blogging is networking. The second thing I tell them is that networking is giving. Networking used to conjure up depressing pictures of dreary social functions where you'd pass out your business card in hopes of getting work. It felt like begging and I was lousy at it. But that's an old idea. Now, networking is about service--finding out what your network needs and filling that need, knowing the returns will come. Giver is a much more powerful position than Beggar.

Last Friday night, Webster's Fine Stationers in Altadena showed us how it's done. WFS, owned by Scott and Lori Webster, hosted a well-attended Social Media Meet and Greet event, free and open to the public. The audience comprised upwards of 50 local entrepreneurs of all stripes and levels of networking knowledge. Everyone was eager to learn and share.

Anton Anderson of Productivity Consulting emceed and Hilary Cable of Business.com Answers led the evening with an informative talk about using Facebook for your business. (She cleared up some Facebook mysteries, which until Friday I would have told you was impossible to do.) I spoke briefly about blogging, and Deb Halberstadt of HalfCity Productions guided us through the uses of LinkedIn.

Then we got to eat! courtesy of Amy's Patio Cafe. And there was wine tasting! provided by Anne Louise Bannon and Michael Holland of OddBallGrape.com. And there was much offline networking, quite social, provided by a lively and interesting crowd.

It would be nice if you clicked all the links, though I know you won't. Still, it gives you a visual idea of how many people and businesses contributed to the evening.

I'd like to see Webster's Fine Stationers do this type of event again, perhaps with even more community input. At a time when so many of us need to stay on top of these changing networking platforms, WFS provided a forum, a gathering place, a community service. Lori, Scott and their great staff filled the needs of their network, and I know the returns will come rushing back to them.

Love Tag

I almost posted this photo for yesterday's "graffiti" theme day. I see this kid-sized blackboard on my walks in the neighborhood. I've even featured it before. The messages change, as you can imagine. This time I got permission from the homeowner to come onto the porch and get a close-up.

I resisted posting about graffiti yesterday--so much so, that when I did I used an old photo where the graffiti is off to the side in the picture. I don't want to encourage taggers. I don't want to spread gang messages.

As Margaret mentioned in yesterday's comments, "tagging and graffiti art are different things." As long as the owner of the "canvas" (i.e. wall, fence, or whatever's painted on) is fine with it, it's fine with me.

I do wish we, the City Daily Photo bloggers, would vote for more ambitious monthly themes. I'd like to see us challenge ourselves more.

Theme Day: Graffiti

Pasadena's good at cleaning graffiti when it happens. If you see graffiti and you want it removed, call the Pasadena's Graffiti Abatement Hotline at 626-744-7622 and the offending tag will be removed within 24 hours. Sounds like a tall order, but so far I've seen it work every time.

I took this photo two years ago. I'm pretty sure this graffiti's gone by now. Sure, a new tagger will come along. But the City's got more paint.

The City Daily Photo family is now 1286 blogs strong, and many member blogs around the world participate in theme days. Check them out here.

Inspired Gardening

I joke that my back yard is a desert. Actually, until recently that wasn't true. It was a field of weeds.

I've mentioned I want to plant a tree. I aspire to planting ground cover one day. But a garden, lush with native plants, populated with objets d'art and a shady pergola, that's--that's--well, I haven't thought that far ahead.

Last weekend I was visiting Kat Likkel, the owner of the fantasy garden pictured above, when the Pacific Horticultural Society tour came through (yes, they were expected). They came for ideas, learning and inspiration.

Mayita Dinos, the designer behind Kat's space and Pasadena's beloved Arlington Garden, spoke to the group about the garden's creation and told them (modestly, yet truthfully) that she didn't do it alone. She had the help of Horticulturist Shayne Naudi as well as that of Marco Barrantes of La Loma Development, who did the fountains and stone work. And of course Kat and her husband have added personal touches throughout the grounds. It's a group effort, a collaboration, an ensemble piece in which even the home's previous owner participates through the things he left behind.

Here's Kat (facing us), answering questions. (You've met Kat over at Pasadena, 91105 and Beyond.) That's Shayne Naudi on the right. Hats were necessary. The sun was on a rampage that day.

Kat says, "Sometimes I pinch myself because I think it can't be real that I stumbled into such a nest of super-talented people, and have ended up with the garden of my dreams. They've not only been the people who helped create the garden, they've become really good friends..."

The other day I finished weeding the back yard. There's nothing out there now but dirt. It's a blank canvas.

I am inspired.

Playhouse Elements

I'm not an insider when it comes to the Pasadena Playhouse or to Elements Kitchen, but I'm charmed by the sight of the Elements tables set up for lunch at the Playhouse Plaza on a hazy day.

The reviewers gush over the food at Elements Kitchen. (A better word might be "slobber.") I haven't eaten there, so I can't give you a personal recommendation, but one of these days I mean to do so (eat there and tell you about it).

I can't tell you what's going on with the Pasadena Playhouse, either. For a while it looked like this grand old institution wasn't going to make it through the recession. But they've got a fall season coming up and it looks interesting. Let's hope the reviewers gush, and use their napkins.

Compostiltskin

A bench outside Eaton Canyon Nature Center

What could get me to a workshop at 9:00 on a Saturday morning when I have an appointment at 11:30, another one at 1:30, another one at 5:00 and another one at 7:00, and somewhere in there I have to make two pies?

A $50 compost bin.

Last Saturday morning I got up early for the City of Pasadena Public Works Composting Workshop at the Eaton Canyon Nature Center. Gabriel Silva and Mike Lara, two delightful guys who work extremely hard and love their jobs, led a casual workshop about composting. They even brought worms, so you can imagine how fun it was. I left knowing everything I need to know to get started. I don't even have to use worms if I don't want to, so I am totally down with composting.

You can spend as much as $500 on a fancy compost bin. You can spend a lot less for a crappy one, but if you live in the City of Pasadena you can get a pretty decent one from your city for $50
AND they will deliver it to your door
AND the bin actually costs the City $52 so this is a deal.

Compost bins are delivered Mondays and Wednesdays following the receipt of your check, which you make out to the City of Pasadena and mail to:

City of Pasadena
Public Works/Recycling
P.O. Box 7115
Pasadena, CA  91109

Include your street address so they know where to deliver the bin, and indicate the drop-off location you prefer (front porch, driveway, etc.). I suggest you also put in a note saying the check is for a compost bin, and ask them to bring you a copy of their nifty little booklet, Pasadena Recycling Resources, while they're at it.

The City wants you to compost because composting can diminish your contribution to the garbage dump by as much as one half. If enough of us do it, we can decrease the rate at which we fill our landfill. Composting cuts pollution and saves the City money. And you know who the City is--it is Us.

John asked me why I got so excited (I'm really excited) about my compost bin. Well, I do love a bargain, and it's not only the compost bin. It's FREE DIRT and I make it myself! It's not your, uh, garden variety dirt, either, but nutritious, black dirt that plants particularly enjoy. Let Rumpelstiltskin turn straw into gold. I'll make my gold from garbage.


Composting information: smartgardening.com
Pasadena Public Works: 626-744-4721 or 626-744-4087.

UPDATE: for those interested, I just received email notice that a meeting of the Hahamongna Watershed Park Advisory Committee will take place tonight at 6:00PM at City Hall, in Training Room SO-18 (in the basement). For ADA accessibility, use ramps to access City Hall elevator. Metered street parking is free beginning at 6:00PM. Public comment is early on the agenda (limit your comments to 3 minutes), so be on time.

Zen Monday: #114

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 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.

There's no right or wrong. We're here to have fun.