another dry cleaners

It could be that I feel another photo-series coming on ... This was passed by chance, on, I think, Wilton - and I didn't quite get all of that hinge-shaped sign (when did those angular signs start to become a Thing on shops?  And there must be a technical term for them, surely?  I think of them as being very American).  But the idiosyncrasy of dry cleaners is quite marked, and I've already scoped out an excursion ...

if only ...

... I could have spent today like this.  Unfortunately, there was rather a lot else that needed to be done, but at least I had calming company ...

the 'hood

At least, in the Silver Lake /Los Feliz borderlands, irony is alive and well and driving around in a flashy red car.  At least - one hopes that it's ironic ...

evening light - with palm trees

Extraordinary light driving home this evening, with storm clouds still blowing through, and the evening sun hitting the palm trees ...

dry cleaners

I don't think that this counts as Christmas decorations - I rather think this shirt and pair of flares are up there all the time.  This isn't my dry cleaners - it's across the road from them - but it's next to the Silver Lake Trader Joe's, and I was on a buying ingredients-for-museli mission.  Nor, for that matter, was it that dark at 2.30 in the afternoon - but I wasn't going back in the dusk, so punched up the contrast in PhotoShop.  You get the gist of it.

let it snow, etc

I have to confess to a deep dislike of Christmas Songs - even when they are beautifully arranged and executed, as was the case at the USC President's Holiday Party this evening (which, I'll say in passing, was a wonderfully unpretentious affair, after the Nikias Era).  "Let it Snow," and "I'm Dreaming of a White Christmas" make the hairs on my spine crinkle with embarrassment, for reasons that I tried to work out this evening.  To me, they seem very American, and hence Foreign - unlike traditional Christmas carols (which I love - so this isn't some kind of seasonal allergy) - so they reinforce a sense that I'm 6,000 miles from music that I traditionally associate with this time of year.  I also deeply suspect that I imbibed my mother's prejudices, although I can't remember, if I ever knew, what they were based on.  Almost certainly what she called The Americanization of Christmas played a role ...

the weather has cleared ...

... at least for a couple of days.  This is the view that I woke up to ... actually it's not quite the view.  The view had LucyFur sitting in front of it, but she regarded the slightest sign of movement - like me reaching for my cell phone - as incontrovertible evidence that I was about to get up and feed her.  So imagine a tabby sitting in front of this ...