Blog
Another Vanity Posting
Have you taken a good hard look in the mirror lately? Forget bad hair and wrinkles. Gaze into this Catrina mirror and see a grinning skull superimposed on your face for an all-in-one before-and-after picture of things to come. The skull is etched into the back of the mirror to create the effect. The rest is papier-mache (of […]
Spaceship Betty Goes 3D
When I first met Spaceship Betty she was on the phone. Specifically, on the back of a smart phone owned by creator and alter-ego Lynnda Rakos. She was adorable. I wanted one, and I don’t even have a smart phone. With her huge space helmet coupled with a flippy a-line dress and ballet shoes, she hearkens back to […]
Vegan Deer Skull with White Rose
No redemption I’ve been hitting the seltzer hard over the summer, generating bags of empty bottles for recycling. A pet peeve of mine is that it is darn near impossible to get the full deposit back on bottles and cans in LA. I have confirmed with friends back east that it is still common practice […]
Some Like it Hot (others Not)
It’s hot in LA…finally! I know most people, plants, and animals are suffering but, frankly, I’d feel cheated if we didn’t have at least one week of weather in the triple digits.While the papier mâché projects bake outside, I indulge in a perverse pleasure: sweating on the couch while watching films where the hardiest humans survive […]
Purposele$$ Art
Stuck in traffic When I grumbled to a friend that I seemed to be working hard every day and getting nowhere, very slowly, she suggested that I think of it as “being stuck in traffic.” It hit me, she’s right, I’m stuck in traffic, the key difference being that there is no paycheck at the end […]
You can’t spell “blog” without “log”
Saturday at around 7 pm, the doorbell rings. Mark immediately responds with “No. thank you, we’re not interested,” thus fulfilling his husbandly duty of deterring yet another of an onslaught of solicitors who peddle everything from tree work to eternal salvation. Except this time, I recognized the truck out front. And in it was an […]
Walk in Beauty
I joined the sustainability group at Los Angeles Valley College because two professors whom I respect are members and they were looking for volunteers. The signal achievement of the committee is the acquisition of Tree Campus status for the college, an honor bestowed by the Arbor Day Foundation. Little ol’ LAVC is the only community […]
Artists and Island Gardens
Like many people, I look forward to reading Robert Genn’s Twice Weekly blog. If you aren’t familiar with him, Robert Genn is a Canadian landscape painter who happens to write extremely well. Each entry is an insightful essay marked by a generosity of spirt. One entitled “Summer Joy” caught my fancy well enough to check […]
Christmas in July
It’s July and summer is in full swing. Thoughts turn to beach blankets and BBQs. But for me, it is never too soon to start thinking about Christmas. Not because I am wishing the summer away–anyone who knows me knows that summer is my favorite time of year, even here in LA. While others wilt […]