faboo mama

This is odd.

Yesterday, for the 4th time this year, we went to the Natural History Museum.  This means walking through the rose garden as Exposition Park.  As usual, I fully charged my camera’s battery the night before.  I can usually get about 300 photos on one charge.  Inside the museum, I took about 12 photos and the battery indicator read ‘full’.  Step out to the rose garden and it’s red.

This has happened to me all 4 times this year and 3 times last year.  I even take an extra camera that takes AA batteries, making sure the batteries are new.  When I whip out that camera, the batteries are dead.  My phone, which is fully charged also reads low battery.

It’s the strangest thing.  I’ll try to shoot a photo and the camera will just shut down.  Once we leave the rose garden, everything is back to reading full.  It matters not, where in the rose garden I am.  And to make it worse, it only seems to happen to me.

Mysteries of the universe…

Vlog on a recent LA Times article regarding red light camera tickets:

Enjoy!

Or 5 Minutes With a Wacktivist…

Dear Peter of the 9/11 Truthers…remember me? I sat next to you at the panel featuring Amy Goodman, Howard Fineman, Tom Hayden and (shudder) Hugh Hewitt. I’m the one who told you your actions do more harm than good, that you’re useless like Code Pink and World Can’t Wait. See one of the reasons I said that was obvious, but you were too busy being a self-important asshat to notice what was going on around you.

While you were shouting to your friend that 10 people in the audience had signs and that CSPAN may be covering live, you were too dimwitted to notice the producer standing right behind you, too dumb to notice the cameraman standing 6 feet away staring at you and repeating everything you said into the walkie-talkie. It was you and your loud mouth that got the Q&A canceled. It was you and your 10 friends lining up to the mic holding identical pieces of paper, that got that Q&A canceled.

You like to pretend that you’re so high-minded and everyone else “just doesn’t want to know the truth”. It’s not that we’re uninterested in Truth, it’s just that you guys and people like you (your friends on Conspiracy Theory Row for example) ruin it for the rest of us. You’re loud, obnoxious and have very little facts on your side. Any sane argument does not ever include “That’s what they want you to think!”

Even the judicial use of logic should make you think about your actions. You said that Amy Goodman was the most powerful and influential voice in the media. You said that you were going to ask her to cover this. We normal and sane people, write letters to the “journalist” and the news agency. We put pressure on them that way. Disrupting a panel on current interests with off-topic subjects does not make anyone want to listen to you. Your tactics also presume that Amy Goodman somehow managed not to notice 9/11 and look into the back story, that she’s never heard of your conspiracy theories. Tell me, when has “the most powerful and influential voice in media” ever shrunk away from reporting a story, especially the uncomfortable ones?

I’m more than a little excited about attending the Festival of Books this year.  See the last time we went to the Festival of Books was in 2002.  We had big plans on going in 2003, but Ilia was born the first day of the event and I spent the weekend in the hospital.  Every year after that, it was either not looking forward to pushing a stroller on the grass, morning sickness or just too damn hot.  Ilia is tickled that the festival starts on her birthday and she’s excited about seeing Julie Andrews, though we’re not going that day.

Contrary to popular belief, Los Angeles is home to a lot of readers.  Attendance is always high and it’s so much fun meeting people who can give you new tips on authors or books to check out.  Many of the booths have authors there signing their books and you can chat with them if the line’s not too long.  Sadly, this past year has seen the passing of several LA bookstores.  Their presence at the Festival will be missed.  It will be odd not to see their booths at the Festival.

There are several panels and speakers this year, but not that many or appealing to me so I’m only attending one this year (got my ticket!).  Check the link above for panels that will interest you.  You can also see what exhibitors will be there and which authors will be signing their books.

Hope to see you there!

We headed over to the Wilshire Center’s Earth Day street fair yesterday and I got a lot of great shots of the area.  I haven’t shot Koreatown in ages and I usually avoid Wilshire Blvd. if I can help it.  But I was happy because we parked on Oxford Ave. which is home to The Coolest Lights in Los Angeles:

This lights are around the entire building in the arches.  I call dibs on them if the building ever closes down.

We spent the day at Exposition Park today and right near the entrance to the rose garden I saw this:

The branch was so big it dented the metal table. I also have another angle and you can check how far it fell.

That’s the sign outside Chronicle Wine Cellar. I wouldn’t know anything about the prices though. They’re only open “when the flag is out” and I’ve only seen the flag out 3 times in the past year and all 3 times we either didn’t need wine or the kids were acting up, so the thought of going into a wine shop was far in the back of our minds. One of these days I’m going to take $40 and go there and get a bottle of wine. One of these days they’ll be open when I need to get a bottle.

The Chronicle Wine Cellar is located at 913 East California Blvd., Pasadena, CA 91106. We are hidden just behind the Pie N’Burger shop. Cellar hours are Monday through Friday 11:30am - 6:30pm, Saturday 10:00am - 4:30pm, and Sunday 11:30am - 5:00pm.

And our clients wonder why I want to charge for mileage.  At $4.29gal (and I do use premium), it’s almost not worth it for me to shoot one site a day.  I’d much rather wait and pile up sites, shooting an area in batches.  I never thought I’d pine for $1.49/gal gas.  Of course, I’m slap-happy we didn’t go with a diesel engine car.  We’d have to sell our firstborn in order to fill up the tank.  The price of diesel is killing everyone. I can barely afford to eat now, since everything is that much more expensive.

This gas station is on Alameda, next to Olvera Street.  One of the most amusing things about this gas station is watching the prices rise on a Friday afternoon.  I’ve seen the price of gas go up 20 cents in a space of 45 minutes.  The workers there deny it.  The oddest day was right before we moved here, I had driven past there, on the way back to the apt. and sat on Alameda for about 20.  The price of gas when from $2.19 up to $2.49 (keep in mind I only look at the premium price) then down to $2.09.  It dropped to $1.99 for a heartbeat, and 4 cars swooped out of traffic to get gas.  Then it was back up to $2.29

We attended the Cherry Blossom Festival in Little Tokyo yesterday. It was a lot bigger and more fun that I expected. Kudos to the organizers of the event. As usual, with things like this in Los Angeles, it emcompassed all of Asia (though Indians were not represented at all), so we got to see things from all along the Pacific.

We started out our morning in the Plaza. Our original plan was to have get some coffee and pastries from Homeboy Bakeries but they were closed. So we wound up in the Japanse Plaza at the bakery there. BTW, they had surprising good coffee and the baked goodies we got were tasty. While we had our coffee, we sat outside the shop and watched this group. I guess they’re jazz singers and usually they’d be using a piano…I don’t know, I hadn’t had my coffee when they were introduced. Anyway, later on in their set, they sang Sukiyaki but the original Japanese song. I know some of the Japanese, but I know the English like everyone else. My husband asked me, “What is this song?” I was shocked. Mr. Music didn’t know this song? “It’s Sukiyaki!”. He looked at me, “How do you know that? See, I told you you know everything.” Whatever.

Something totally unexpected and random, Red Hat Society singing on stage. Yes. You read that right. I have pictures if you don’t believe me. We walked around, everyone and their brother were giving away trips to Hawaii. There was a section for kids with bouncy thingies. We watched a Hawaiian group play. Ilia liked that because she has a ukelele too. The kids made Chinese lanterns, something that took a lot longer than expected. There were quite a few tables set up for kids. They could learn origami, do a fish kites, paint a pet rock or make a lantern.

We walked around a bit, and looked for lunch. That should have been an easy task, but most of the places we usually eat at were closed. We wound up at an okay place, but $1.50 Kirin on tap. How could we not? Really? After lunch, we went to rejoin the crowds on the street. We caught the tailend of the Kabuki dancer.

Ilia loved it, but Alton did not enjoy the music. Then we went on the other side of the stage to see the Geisha dancers:

We also got a chance to watch the Japanese groups (I call them dance crews, since I’ve never seen them do anything but dance) do a dance in a circle. There were 4 “crews” and random people in a circle doing a dance who’s name is escaping me right now. It’s always fun to watch and it was even better to see more people under the age of 60 involved.

My little girl just loved all the dancing and the music. She wants a taiko, she wants a kimono, she wants to learn hula and kabuki. She wants to learn Japanese! That she wants to broaden her horizons and learn more about the world means the weekend was a success.

On Saturday, we went to Descanso Gardens for the World of Good Weekend. (see photos here)I had never been to Descanso Gardens before, but I heard it was more like the Arboretum than the Huntington and it was. In theory. Even though the Descanso gardens has a lot of different kinds of gardens and pathways, I prefer the Arboretum.

The one thing at Descanso that was truly impressive were not just the number of lakes and ponds on site, but the different layout of them all. It is a beautiful place that seems more like a large nursery than a place to study plants. Sadly, there is also a severe lack of customer service onsite. From the moment we got there until we left, no one who worked there knew anything about what goes on 4 feet beyond them. The guy at the ticket booth didn’t know procedure on if we give our receipt to the lady or what. The lady at the entrance had no idea if they sold sweaters or jackets in the gift shop. “You can ask”, is what we were told. The little girl had to go to the bathroom. We hiked all the way up the hill to the Boddy House couldn’t find a bathroom. I asked two people who worked there where it was and neither of them knew. I’m expected to believe that they were up at the top of the hill, working, and had no idea where the bathroom was? I could say that you get what you pay for, but the Arboretum and the Zoo both cost the same and the workers at both places are unnervingly friendly and helpful that you almost believe they’re robots…or not from LA.

One of the most wonderful parts of Descanso was the lilac garden. Yummy. It was like heaven with that scent in the air. Every time I found a lilac that was beautiful, I found another that was even better.

The camelia forests were also nice. I wasn’t too dazzled by the California garden and was very underwhelmed by the succulents and cactus there. The iris garden was amazing and most of the irises hadn’t even opened yet. I should go back to see the other hundreds of cultivars available. There were only about 10 open this weekend.

The kids loved the little train and even Daddy thought we should get one for the back yard (yeah right). Oddly enough, I loved the tulip garden. That was outstanding.

At the entrance of the park, there is an installation titled Edible Estates. As you know, I’m virulently anti-grass, especially for Southern Californians. We are slowly getting rid of most of our lawn and had considered giving it over to food. The subject came up again, as my husband tried to convince me to move my veggie garden to the front yard so we can put the pool in the backyard. The Edible Estates installation, prodded us a little closer to that goal, though I still need more sun than I get in the front yard.

The artist, Fritz Haeg, will be back at Descanso on May 17th for a book signing and artist’s reception. I believe he’ll unveil his summer theme at that time too. (Brasil Brazil is also playing that weekend, so I’ll definitely be there!)