Noble Beast

photo by John Sandel

The noble beast, the pompetus of love, the elder statesman of his radius, has been suffering neighborhood walks for an entire month. A month! Walking on cement! With his delicate toes!

I remind him that some dogs don't get a daily walk, but he's spoiled. He remembers hikes in the mountains. When do we get to go back to the wild? he wants to know. When do we get to smell coyotes again? Not that he wants to meet them in person.

Boz doesn't know it yet, but today we get back on the trail. He has new flea meds, a special water bottle and desire enough to carry him far past where we're going, no matter how delicate his toes.

But you can't tell a dog these things until the last second or they'll follow you at your heels, gazing at you desperately until the moment the leash jangles and the car door opens. So I haven't told him yet. Right now, the fava bean of farts is snoring.

Ubiquitous Utilities

At first I didn't see pipes like these.

Then I noticed one. It stuck out above ground. Someone had painted it a bright color.

Then I saw them everywhere. I mean, they are everywhere. All different colors and sizes and shapes.

I exagerrate. They're not everywhere. I don't have one at my house, for example. But I'm thinking of getting one.

Theme Day: Perspective

Today's theme at City Daily Photo is "perspective." That can be a technique used in art and architecture to show distance or elevation. It can also be how you look at things. For instance, this could be a hole in a hedge, through which you view a field of small avocado trees being watered by a sprinkler. Or it could be a window into the past, to the days before Henry Huntington bought his land in San Marino and this was merely a farm.

City Daily Photo is now 1412 blogs strong, the most recent being Denpasar, Indonesia. To see how other blogs around the world have depicted the theme, click here to view thumbnails for today's participants.

Guest Author: Linda Dove and "O Dear Deer,"

Linda Dove is that rare creature: a published poet. Besides her acclaimed books she has published poems in the L.A. Review, The Antigonish Review, Clackamas Literary Review and more, and has won several poetry awards. Please welcome today's guest author, Linda Dove.

I’ve encountered a few unexpected moments on the way to becoming a writer. After I published my first book of poems in 2009, I was surprised with the sense that I needed to take on a new voice, a new technique. Most folks would tell you to stick with what’s worked, or—more insistently—that you should keep to what you know, that you should write out of your authentic place. “Authentic” is a much-bandied-about word in writer circles, but I’m not sure anyone really knows what they mean by it. In any case, I felt like I wanted to try the sort of experimental writing that made my heart race when it was done well. I admired it because I didn’t understand it.   

So I did a lot of reading. For two years, I read everything I could get my hands on both in print and online—poetry collections, chapbooks, journals, anthologies, criticism, book reviews, theory. I followed poets on Twitter, 20 years my junior, who were starting innovative presses and e-zines. I not only read blogs, I read the comment sections of blogs, where the meatiest—some would say the nastiest—debates were happening. I once found myself sitting alone at a table in a decrepit Denver ballroom, which was sagging with Christmas lights though it was April, as I sipped red wine and waited for a packed house of Hot Young Poet Things—those who had never known a world without the internet—to present their work. If you perceive some anxiety about my age coming into play, you wouldn’t be wrong. I knew no one and was sporting the only gray hair in the room. At least I had an iphone to look busy with. 

In the midst of this re-education project, I got called for jury duty in downtown L.A. Surprise! I was launched into an alternate universe, full of odd-sounding legalisms and morgue photos and testimony about gang tattoos. My jury experience became the basis for my chapbook of experimental poems, O Dear Deer,, although I hadn’t planned on writing about the trial, which seemed too raw, too complex.  Wasn’t it wrong—sort of unholy—to experiment with so much grief? But I realized that, the more fragmented the lines, the more they spoke to human brokenness. I didn’t try to recount the events that led to the trial in my poems. Instead, I became fixated on deer, antlers, trees. Where clarity would have collapsed under the weight of its own detail, abstraction made room for what was truly authentic: the fact that nothing would ever be the same. 

My books are available at Amazon and, locally, at Webster’sFine Stationers. Please join me at two upcoming readings, where I’ll be introducing the poems from O Dear Deer, : 

Two Heads are Better Productions Presents the Kulture FaCtory’s Sundays at Ellouise, 55 Waverly Drive, Pasadena, Sunday, September 18th at 4:00 PM, $5 cover charge. This appearance is a “10 for 10” reading, which means you’ll get to hear 10 of us read for 10 minutes apiece—short but wide and sweet. It also happens to fall on my birthday! 

Webster’s FineStationers, 2450 N. Lake Ave., Altadena, Saturday, October 15th at 6:00 PM. This reading is happening in conjunction with one of Webster’s regular wine pairing events, "Latin Wines for a Passionate Evening," which will be held from 4:00 to 6:00 PM, so that’s added incentive to come out and have some vino with your verses. They'll keep pouring wines through the poetry reading, and there'll be food, too!

Burnt

Growing up in Illinois there were days when it was so cold you couldn't go outside, or if you did, you bundled up in extra socks and waterproof boots. You added layers under your hooded parka, a scarf around your face to protect your nose and eyes. Then came mittens--not gloves--because you needed your fingers to generate heat and keep each other warm.

In the southwest we have days when you shouldn't go outside, but they're at the opposite end of the thermometer. You don't bundle up for such weather but if you must be out for a while you do cover up: you need a brim on that hat, plus sunglasses to protect your vision, long sleeves and preferably long pants to preserve your skin, and sunscreen on the remaining exposed dermal inches.

Our temps came back into the 90s yesterday, down from over 100 degrees, and it felt like relief. It got so hot this time I could go outdoors without a sweater even at night. (Now that I love.) We'll be back to the high 80s by Wednesday--in other words, back to normal.

This camellia will survive. But it's a good argument for sunscreen.

Zen Monday: #160

In Zen, one learns through experience rather than books or lectures. Zen Monday is the day you experience the photo and tells us what you've learned, rather than me lecturing you about it.

Don't get me wrong, I love a good book. It's just that Monday is the day you write it.

LA, Gloaming

John and I are not the party animals we once were, but we've been going out in the evenings quite a bit lately. It's kind of a big deal because we don't ordinarily step out much out after dark.

(This is not dark, I know that, it hasn't been that long. It's not even dusk. It's the gloaming.)

See the orange glow on the horizon? That's anticipation.

How was your weekend? What's on the horizon for you this week?

Haunting the Library

If my mother were alive, today would be her 90th birthday. She and my father taught me and my siblings to love books. It worked: I'm a writer, like Mother was. One of my sisters is a librarian. My brother is a book seller. My one sister who isn't in the book business has a Ph.D, like my dad did. We all seem to be partial to book learnin'.

I went to the library yesterday to research a new book. It was about 100 degrees out. On hot days people come in, find a book and a comfy chair and snooze in the air conditioning. Added to that, "the collection is being rearranged," or words to that effect, adding to the busy feeling at the library. I don't know if the new fourth floor teen center (pictured here in its larval phase) is a cause or an effect of the rearrangement. I found a quiet bench on the fourth floor near the construction area and read for a while.

After I checked out my books I stopped at the Friends of the Library book store to see if I could snag a bargain. A woman there was buying almost all of the children's books. She reminded me of someone who would be very old today if she were still here. But she'd have no trouble finding her way around a busy library.

Long Shadows

Whatever we put here, whatever we build or tear down, is irrelevant to shadows. They will crawl across road and lawn and seething Sahara as long as the planet rolls around the sun.

Knowing shadows have existed always, or at least as long as we conceive always to be, feels to me like a connection with those who came before. From Neanderthals to the bog people to Muhammad to Louis XIV to me, we all know shadows, we all know late day, we all know summer days that get shorter and light that's made of gold.

Thursdays in Old Town

One week from today it'll be September. It will also be Thursday. These are two good things because Old Pasadena Locals Only Thursdays are back.

The program must have been a success last year because it's been extended to two months this year. On Thursdays during September and October, Old Pasadena merchants will offer discounts to people who live and work in Pasadena. Click on the link above to get details of which stores, what they're offering, and how to prove you work or live here.

The list of participants is heavy on restaurants, which is fine. But this has been a long recession and Petrea needs some new clothes! There are not enough clothing stores on the list! Come on, merchants!

Oh well, it's a start. Some Thursday within the next couple of months, I'll be shopping at the participating clothing stores that offer a discount worthy of the trouble of parking (there's at least one that's not), and I'm sure I'll spend some of my poor, dilapidated dollars.

For those of you who can't justify a trip to Pasadena to shop even on a weekend, I'm sorry. You really are missing out. Yes, Old Town has a few chain stores, but what makes it worthy of your leisure time and legal tender are the many singular boutiques and specialty restaurants you can't find anywhere else. Some of them are even on the Locals Only Thursdays list. Next year I hope there will be more.

It Ain't Over 'til it's Over

I hear people say summer's coming to an end. I suppose that's true if you have kids or you're in school. Otherwise it's all conditioning, and I don't mean the artificial cooling of indoor air.

It feels like summer's over because it's supposed to end in August. It used to end in August. (Oh, nostalgia.) The shadows are long, the light is golden. When I was a kid I returned to school after Labor Day and pretty soon autumn arrived.

But I live in southern California now and this year as we approach September, temperatures are rising. I have to wait until 7pm to walk the dog and even then I have to carry extra water lest we both expire. All summer long the rest of the country's been suffering from record heat. Well, my east-of-the-Rockies friends, we are finally getting it.

Oh, I just love it.

I've Got Your Pasadena Weekend

I know it's only Tuesday but calendars fill up. Listen, don't worry about it. I have your weekend planned for you.

Friday the 26th: Wine tasting and silent auction benefiting the Be The Match Foundation, the national bone marrow registry. They'll be tasting wines from some of California's top vineyards. There will also be a "pole dance" the likes of which I'm told Pasadena's never seen before, and that's all I'm saying about it.

Saturday the 27th: hike the Lower Arroyo with Tim Martinez, who knows everything about the native flora here except the Latin names. Tim's talk about plant uses was one of the highlights of last spring's Hahamongna Walkabout. Join him and you'll learn fun stuff like "the best" plant in southern California or what to mix with tequila as a topical for aching muscles.

Sunday the 28th: treat yourself to an ice cream social sponsored by the League of Women Voters, celebrating the anniversary of the ratification of the 19th amendment giving women the right to vote. It's only $5, you need reservations and there's still plenty of time to make them. It's being held at Hillmont House, one of Pasadena's most beautiful Victorian homes.

Then I'll see you back here on Zen Monday and you can tell me how much fun you had.

Zen Monday: #159

Zen Monday is the day you experience the photo and tells us what you've learned, rather than me lecturing you about it. In Zen, one learns through experience rather than books or lectures.

Don't get me wrong, I love a good book. It's just that Monday is the day you write it.

Sunday Steps

We've been having cool, cloudy mornings and warm afternoons. If you're one of those people who complains about hot weather, all you have to do these days is get up early. And not like 6am. You can get up at 10:00 and still get in a good hike before it heats up. I wonder how long it'll last.

Probably 'til I post this.

Have a beautiful Sunday, wherever you roam.

Whoosh

I was trying to make a "whoosh" with the camera, and I got this instead. It's more of a "whu-uhp!...phhh."

I'm fine with that. Often, when I set out to create something, I have to let go of the outcome.

Pomegranate

Wikipedia says pomegranate trees were introduced to California by the Spanish in 1769, to be exact. Someone must have kept a record of it. Wikipedia's article doesn't mention how long it took them (the pomegranates) to reach Pasadena.

Our neighborhood pomegranates will be ready to eat in December or thereabouts. Tell that to this bug.

Victorian Pile

Someone once asked me for a photo of a Victorian mansion, as opposed to the usual Pasadena Craftsman. A "Victorian pile," I think she said. Pasadena has them, but the fanciest ones are behind fences and foliage, hard to photograph without trespassing or at least being downright rude.

But wait. How many times have I driven by this place on Marengo? Not fancy but huge, and gorgeous in the way a tattered, vintage nightgown might be. It's got "former glory" written all over it. Nathaniel Hawthorne himself would have drooled.

At first I thought no one lived in it.

I was wrong.

Guest Author: Irene McDermott and The Internet Book of Life

Today's guest author is all about computers--and libraries. Made for each other! Please welcome guest author Irene McDermott.

In the Old Testament of the Bible, the “Book of Life” contains the name of righteous souls. The Internet Book of Life: Use the Web to Grow Richer, Smarter, Healthier, and Happier, is my new book. This book of life lists the names of righteous web resources: reliable, useful sites on a variety of subjects designed to help families in all aspects of daily life.

I am a librarian at the Crowell Public Library in San Marino. People often ask me if the internet will put libraries out of business. When people think of libraries, they think of books. Yet, since the web came on the scene in about 1995, library use has increased by 50%. Many come for the computers and then pick up a best seller on the way out.

So, the internet has been nothing but good for libraries. I know that I owe my career to it. I studied for my master’s degree just as the graphical web emerged, from 1993 to 1995. At an internship at the Getty Institute for the Arts I learned about the web and taught it to the librarians there. The skills that I learned that summer, playing with the baby web, landed me a “cybrarian” gig at the USC, and later, my current job where I not only staff the reference desk but take care of the computers, too.

When my husband became ill with colon cancer in 1998, I used the web to find an experimental treatment that saved his life. Unfortunately, even the latest medical research could not save him from the glioma that took him from us in 2008. Still, we were active partners in the treatments that prolonged and enhanced the quality of his life thanks to timely information that I found on the internet.

A couple of years later, after I felt sufficiently recovered, I turned to an online dating site to find new love, a divorced dad who healed my broken heart.

As a mom, I find the web essential for managing my household. I use it for shopping, recipes, making travel plans, online banking, and even learning how to make repairs around the house. My son has become a search master, using it for school.

In 2002, I spoke to the Library of Congress about reference resources available to librarians on the web. My sister, who accompanied me, insisted that I share these helpful sites with the world. The Internet Book of Life is the result. I hope that the sites and the stories in my book will help families everywhere to save money and live happily.

Keep current with websites from the book on my blog: http://imcdermott.wordpress.com.

Tool Talk

I have a red wheelbarrow. I like it a lot. I don't need a blue wheelbarrow but if I did I'd go to Altadena Hardware, because last time I was there they had a pile of wheelbarrows.

I love hardware stores and we have many excellent ones in the Dena. Besides Altadena Hardware there's Crown City Hardware (specializing in antique and Craftsman stuff), the highly recommended Berg Hardware and Eagle Rock's beloved Tritch Hardware. You probably know of more you can tell me about. I'll be honest, Pasadena's OSH isn't bad, either--the staff there is knowledgeable.

But I like the small stores. I like aisles not quite wide enough to walk two abreast. I like shelves stacked from floor to ceiling with things I want but don't recognize. Shiny!

The best, though, is the language and the experts who speak it. "What you need, ma'am, is a consarn two. They used to come in two sizes but they don't make the three anymore, the two's standard now. How's your wingbrack? Threads still tight? Huh? Oh. Lemme show you. Here's a wingbrack. It's got this here hinge, and you just flip the spring--no? Okay, so you take the consarn two like this, and you jam it into the wingbrack until the flip nozzle opens..."

I will arrive home with a bag fully of shiny wingbracks, flip nozzles and consarn twos. I will love them and perhaps not remember what I learned about how to use them. I might regret not having bought the blue wheelbarrow, but I've still got my red one and that is one tool I know how to use.

Zen Monday: #158

In Zen, the emphasis is on learning through experience as opposed to books or lectures. Zen Monday is the day you experience the photo and tells us what you've learned, rather than me lecturing you about it.

Don't get me wrong, I love a good book. It just happens that Monday is the day you write it.