Georgia McClay Friendship Center

While on my way to meet friends at Zona Rosa the other night, I passed this window at the Pasadena Playhouse. I stopped to gawk at the costumes, the masks hanging from the ceiling and the posters on the wall. The golden light made it all so attractive. I pulled out my camera.

A woman with a beautiful smile spoke as she passed. (I wonder if she's in the show.) "I think the Friendship Center's open," she said. I told her I had a meeting in a few minutes and thanked her for telling me what I was looking at.

I found a bit of info online. The Georgia McClay Friendship Center is a room next to the box office, adjacent to the patio. It's available for rent (lending itself to business events, workshops or parties, says the website).

Who is Georgia McClay? Somebody generous, most likely. If not that, at least she has good taste.

Bar Celona

If Bar Celona is any indication, Pasadena's bars are a tad more upscale than the "Coldest Beer in Town!" joints I used to frequent in my days of...frequenting.

My very cool, multi-talented, recently-acquired (long story) cousin Richard Burchard was in town this week. We had one evening. We wanted food and drink. I had passed by Bar Celona a million times and never gone in. We figured, why not?

The ambiance is sophisticated without being snobby. The music is not too loud (high on my list). The restaurant looks intimate but when you start to explore you'll find more rooms, including two bars and a TV the size of a movie screen. If you don't like crowds, I recommend 7:30pm on a Wednesday.

The tapas were probably fattening--tasty and substantial. Three of us were satisfied sharing seven of them. And the beer was indeed very cold.

If I Can't Grow Anything On It, Maybe I Can Hang It On The Wall

I'm trying to kill the lawn in my back yard so I can replace it with drought-tolerant stuff and a vegetable garden.

I looked online for information on how to kill the grass and weeds: chemicals.

I asked at a couple of nurseries: chemicals.

Some people suggested I smother the lawn to death with a tarp, which seems preferable. I don't have a big enough tarp so I bought cheap garbage bags and slit them down the sides. I am now in the process of placing them end to end across the yard. This is an extremely inefficient method.

Baby steps.

The rain is not helping. Grass and weeds like rain.

However, (silver lining), each little bead of water is a self-portrait. I made something!


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Update on Hahamongna: Due to this week's rain, the Walkabout originally scheduled for this coming Saturday is being rescheduled to March 5th. I'll be leading the 9am tour. Sign up and come with me!
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Primavera

 It's spring. Around here, that means Primavera.

You're invited!

I'm told this pretty poster is untweetable. How's this?

Saturday, March 19th, 11am-? Farnsworth Park, Altadena
Bloggers, families, friends & groupies welcome!
bring a dish, utensils or paper goods to share
info: altadenablog@gmail.com
or call 626-791-5327

I imagine that's more than 140 characters. I'll let you pick what to abbreviate. We'll have plenty of characters at the picnic, no abbreviations necessary.

Please spread the word (there's a little button below). I hope to see you there.

Walkabout

Horses, dogs, children, adults, toads, disc golfers, hikers, mushroomers(!), kite flyers, coyotes, mountain bikers, snakes, birds and all kinds of other people use Hahamongna Watershed Park.

I've mentioned in previous posts that HWP is under threat from a drastic plan by the LA County Department of Public Works to remove silt from behind Devil's Gate Dam. The silt needs to be removed but environmentalists (including myself) would like to see the LADPW examine gentler ways to do it. Otherwise some of the more vulnerable critters who live in the watershed might find themselves homeless.

There are several things you can do to help protect Hahamongna, our almost-wilderness in the city:

Now - Sign the petition demanding a full Environmental Impact Report.

Now - Write to Pasadena City Manager Michael Beck to find out the truth about waste dumping at Hahamongna.

Update, thanks to Pascal Jim:
February 17 - Cleveland Elementary School: the East Arroyo Residents Association hosts "questions and answers" for District One candidates.
Incumbent Jacque Robinson voted in favor of the soccer field at Hahamongna. (Miss H. says 7pm)

Update on Walkabout: Due to this week's rain, the Walkabout originally scheduled for this coming Saturday 2/19 is being rescheduled to March 5th. I'll be leading the 9am tour. Sign up and come with me!
March 5th, 9am-12noon - Join the Hahamongna Walkabout. Tour this delicate ecosystem with a fun guide (maybe me!) and find out why Hahamongna is worth protecting.

February 23rd, 6pm - Attend the Candidate debate at Cleveland Elementary School. Ask the City Council candidates about their plans to protect Hahamongna. (You can pre-send questions to event moderator Frank Girardot at frank.girardot@sgvn.com).

Ongoing - Don't let up.

Tim has more at Altadenablog.

Zen Monday: #133

Some Mondays are more Zen than others.

Please experience the photo and tell us, in the comments, what you've learned.

(Your first Zen Monday? Tell us what the photo makes you think of. There's no right or wrong, no prizes. Just have fun.)

I Heart My Watch Cat

Sure, he looks sweet. Benign, even. But see the sign? Not the heart--that's a trap. I'm talking about the one that says "Protection One." That's this kitty's middle name and I don't take these things lightly.

He's a feline chameleon, and don't think he doesn't know it. He could hang out on a higher step where he'd show up against the house. But down by the gravel he blends in. Approach and your leg is a mere grab away from his claws.

The mailman won't come near our house if Boz is on the porch. Little does he know.

Traffic

It's bad enough to have a long day. But when your long day is topped with a bumper-to-bumper commute on what's laughingly called a "freeway," it feels like the world has it in for you.

I had one of those days yesterday. It wore me out. When I got to the Colorado Street Bridge I was glad to be home (and no, I didn't take this picture during a Friday rush hour).

I used to be a radio traffic reporter. People would call in to ask about accidents, rules of the road, the back-up on the 605. Often they aired their traffic frustrations to me and I reminded them, as I reminded myself yesterday, that if you're not involved in the accident that created the backup you're sitting in, then someone out there is having a much worse day than you are.

Plus how often do you get to just sit and listen to the news? Yesterday was a fine day for that.

Social Media

I finally made it to a meeting of the Social Media Club of San Gabriel Valley. The group meets monthly at the Business Technology Center in Altadena to discuss--

--well. I've given it away, haven't I?

It's not like this is the wave of the future anymore. Potential clients, customers or employers no longer ask for a resume or a flier, they just Google you. You have a good deal of control over your online presence and it's important to know how to shape it.

I can operate a blog one-handed. My Facebook page is doing okay. But I'm awful at Twitter and I keep forgetting to use my LinkedIn page. I figure maybe, just maybe, these Social Media people have a few things to teach me.

Still Life

The news says the president has quit smoking. It's not easy and I congratulate anyone who achieves it. I did it myself once and it was so hard I haven't so much as taken a single puff since August 31st, 1991, because I never want to have to quit again.

I feel sorry for people who are addicted to cigarettes and I try not to be too hard on them. I remember feeling shame associated with smoking--you're sent outside to indulge in your habit. You can't smoke in civilized places and many people don't even smoke in their own homes.

To those who have never experienced addiction, the need is difficult to describe. The nearest I can come is to say it's like hunger. Your body tells you when you need food and if you don't get it, you crave it. The longer you go without food the stronger the craving gets.

The craving is the same with cigarettes.

The difference is, your body is lying to you.

True Luv, Written in Cement

We've begun a pedestrian theme this week, of shoes and feet. I didn't know if it would continue or not, but I happened to have this sidewalk shot in my files. I say it counts because sidewalks are for walking.

And for lovers, apparently.

Do you suppose Chris and Patty are still in true luv, 4 ever?

Boz's Feet

Boz has the prettiest toes. As he ages his fur has turned white but you can see the golden brown color they were when he was younger. Look at those black claws/toenails! I am enamored of Boz's feet.

Boz doesn't particularly care about my feet. Shoes, however--shoes he does take an interest in. If I'm wearing my slippers, he knows I'm staying home. He can relax. No change is on the wind.

But if I put on a pair of shoes, he needs to know which ones and why. If they're my good shoes, are we going to Hollywood and does he get to go? If they're the walking shoes that smell like mud and weeds, I'd better put them on last unless I want him to follow me around the house until I've collected the camera, water bottle, sun visor and leash because he knows those shoes mean fun and he expects to get some.

Boz has shoes. He once injured his foot and had to wear a bandage while it healed. He could still walk, and we wanted to get him a shoe to keep his bandage clean. The only thing we found in his size were little doggy cowboy boots, and the store sold them exclusively in sets of four. We only have a couple of pictures.

Something was bugging his ear.

He didn't much mind the shoe. (We still have three clean ones.)

Zen Monday: #132

Students of Zen are taught through experience. Or so I'm told.

Please experience the photo and tell us, in the comments, what you have learned.

(Your first Zen Monday? Just have fun.)

Not Everyone Watches Football

Everyone has stocked up and gone indoors. They have their wide screen TVs, their sofas, their chips and salsa, their chicken wings, cole slaw, sandwiches and noisemakers, and enough beer to last a dozen people all day.

Everything else is all yours.

My Walk With Tommy

The famous Tommy, of My Life With Tommy, had an opportunity to check out Hahamongna Watershed Park the other day. He gave it countless stamps of approval (the solid ones responsibly removed by Tommy's human, Susan).

When the rain came after the Station Fire in late 2009, water rushed off the mountains bringing with it the mountain's unprotected surface. Tons of ash, sand, rocks and burned tree trunks filled the watershed. As much as Tommy enjoyed inspecting the rubble, it's got to be cleaned out from behind the dam. There is some dispute, however, as to the best method for doing so. The Los Angeles County Department of Public Works has looked at only one alternative: digging out 50 acres of natural vegetation (read: wildlife habitat), turning Hahamongna Watershed Park into Hahamongna Wasteland Park.

If you'd like to help prevent that, or just learn more, click on SaveHahamongna.org. For starters, from the home page you can sign up for updates and sign the Save Hahamongna petition (and check out the videos to see why a watershed is not a great place for a soccer field).

Susan, Tommy and I strolled through some of the beautiful, semi-wild acres we may soon be missing. You can do the same any time, or join the Hahamongna Walkabout sponsored by the Arroyo Seco Foundation February 19th. Tours will leave each half hour from 9:00 am to 10:30 am, so click here, learn more about the Hahamongna Walkabout and reserve your place.

Mark your calendar! Not like Tommy would do it.

Pearls Before Whine

It's been chilly here for a few days, so I wanted to post a photo that would remind me of summer. I like our hot, languid days. Not everyone does.

My Chicago friends are freezing right now (30 below!) and I'm not going to gloat. The night before last, Lake Shore Drive was closed down, leaving people stranded in their cars. In some places, Lake Shore Drive is like a highway. Closing it is like closing Sunset Boulevard all the way from the ocean to Silverlake. There was so much snow that workers couldn't get to everyone and some people were stuck for 10-12 hours. (30 below!) Many abandoned their cars only to find themselves in white-out blizzard conditions, lucky to find their way back to their vehicles.

So. No whining here. Instead I'll link you to a song that never fails to lift my spirits even when they're already good, and makes me think of my Chicago days in the warmest way.

Notes on the Sam Merrill Trail

We've had cool weather for a few days and the sky is clear. I took this shot from about a mile and a half up the Sam Merrill trail, looking out from alongside one of the electric towers. If you enlarge the photo you can see Century City and Santa Monica. That glow is the sun setting over the Pacific Ocean.

Just looking at the photo makes me want to get on the trail--any trail. Each has different merits. The Sam Merrill trail is so popular I rarely use it on weekends. John and I like it for exercise because it has some steep parts and it gets your heart going, not to mention your lungs and thighs. And the views are great. Other trails in the area might be less well traveled and therefore better for bird watching, finding wild flowers or thinking.

I wrote a lot of the first draft of my novel on the Sam Merrill trail. John and I were living near the trail head while I was writing it, and I would stomp up the hill with a note pad in my pack, letting the characters talk to me. Whenever they said anything worthwhile I'd stop and write it down.

Most of what they said may have worthwhile, but not worth keeping for the final draft. But you have to write that first draft in order to get to the second, third, fourth, etc.

Walking is a great writing tool. I walk a lot, and I always have a note pad and pen with me. Camera too, of course.

Petrea's Kitchen Tips: Blueberries

Friends are coming for breakfast today. Isn't that grand, in the middle of the week? Each of us is grabbing an hour or so out of a busy schedule to indulge in coffee and talk. I'll lay off the caffeine so the laughing won't be too strident.

Because people will bring things to eat and the house was already clean, I used yesterday to prepare in irrelevant ways: I cleaned the oven (we won't be baking), trimmed the rosemary bush (it could have waited), returned a library book (talk about irrelevant) and went to the grocery store (we did need eggs).

And I washed some blueberries. A tip: wash them in very warm (not hot) water, then let them dry completely on a towel before you put them in their basket in the refrigerator. They'll last longer.

Petrea's Kitchen Tips is probably not going to become a series. This is the only one I can think of offhand.

Theme Day: Fountains

The first of the month is theme day, and we've got a good one: fountains.

There are many interesting fountains in the Pasadena area. This one's at El Molino Viejo in San Marino. El Molino Viejo was built and operated by Native Americans who lived at Mission San Gabriel in the early nineteenth century.

I was taking pictures for an article for South Pasadena Patch without a thought for the blog. But when the boy ran by (and I just barely caught him) he turned the picture into a theme day photo.

To see what other City Daily Photo bloggers are doing with the theme, check them out here. We're 1340 blogs strong now. That's a lot of international camaraderie.

P.S. If you'll be visiting the Pasadena area, you might want to read my latest article on Patch about the Arroyo Vista Inn.

Zen Monday: #131

photo by John Sandel

Students of Zen are taught through experience.

Please experience the photo and tell us, in the comments, what you have learned.

(Your first Zen Monday? Just have fun.)