West Coast Book Party

Time for the West Coast celebration of Black Power White Heat - and, as befits Los Angeles, decidedly less formal than on the East Coast (both were much fun, though ,,,).  Luckily, the rain cleared off and out, and although no one could remotely call it warm, especially as the sun went down, we were definitely all out on the deck, which is a wonderful party space.  And it was a belated retirement party, too, in that some of the people who had been invited to bounce out at Alice on her last day of teaching couldn't be there then ... so all in all, it was truly celebratory, with food from Porto's (for those of you who don't know, Porto's has been in business since 1960, so only a little younger than us, and serves wonderful Cuban American food - my favorites are the cheese/pepper/potato balls, and the dulce de leche bisochitos, which gives you a sense of quite how deliciously unhealthy they are).  We picked them up so as to be as fresh as possible, which meant that we weren't back here until 3.15, unshowered, for a 4 p.m. party ... but by the time people turned up, we were clean, and ready ...

and the Cake!  A shout out to Sweet E's Bake Shop, who do custom photo cakes ... and who deliver via Doordash ... I was so nervous about how this might turn out, but this was perfect.

 

a new use for utility meters

Somewhere down the street and up Effingham: a resourceful neighbor has realized that utility meters make highly adequate shelving for variegated heads.  I must go and look and see what repurposing ours could be put to ...

 

Not actually Moth's birthday

... but Alice's.  Moth, however, is taking a decidedly proprietorial interest (her birthday is March 8th, she might point out, and she'd like some butter, or some ice cream, please - both of which are forbidden her on medical grounds).  She would doubtless have liked the Birthday Dinner, too - foiled by the weather in our plans to go to the ocean, have lunch over there and walk on the beach, I devoted several hours to making an exquisite Julia Child coq au vin - perfect down to every little individually cooked pearl onion.  OK, I'll be honest: Moth did sneak one quick lick of Alice's plate.

 

the dampness of carparks

The top of the Royal Street carpark, drying out, but that won't be for long.  

Why should Royal Street, however, be called Royal Street?  I suppose, maybe, possibly, improbably, but why not? someone wanted to evoke the old Camino Real, linking the Jesuit Missions - not that I'm confusing the car park with one of these structures, and in any case, the CR more or less followed the 101, not the 110, which is the freeway by campus.  That is, the 101 followed the route of ... Or maybe it's named after the Royal Cinema, which was a theater that opened in the 1940s and showed Latino films.

I can't find any regal connection between the street and the Shrine Auditorium, opposite the carpark (Royal Street runs up its side), so I was on the point of saying No Kings, until I found, at last, a Kingly connection: the scenes in King Kong where the giant ape is chained and displayed on stage were filmed in the Shrine.  I think this is what's known as an interpretive stretch.

 

bathroom assemblage

Not, by any means, a deliberate assemblage, but a surprising combination that caught my eye as I was exiting the bathroom this morning: some drying clothes (not ones for the drying machine, and it's not exactly the weather to hang anything out of doors); the window tied shut (it blows open in storms, with wind) with a string from some pyjamas; and hanging from its knob, a Northern New Mexico sage bundle, with grasses and dried statice and some red twine.  Hang it in your bathroom, said the woman at the Farmers Market.  It'll make it smell wonderful.  It didn't, of course, make any difference, but it looks pretty...

 

when it rains ...

... it really rains - that is to say, pours.  The garden seems to have grown a great deal more green stuff very quickly - that is, where plants haven't drowned in water-logged pots or bits of ground; and out on the street, in front, we have a fast flowing hillside stream.  I think it's raining on and off for the next week ...

 

Gramsci, shoulder cat

For once, the tabby stole is gracing Alice's shoulders.  He's quite happy up there.  Indeed, he prefers moving around the house this way, much of the time, and he'll leap up there from a stair, a bed, a table, or when one's sitting down (as happened when I was in an administrative Zoom meeting on Friday).  If he can't find a suitable surface to launch himself from, then he yells at one to bend down.  When I go to the dermatologist, my shoulders are covered in a million scratches (he's especially lethal jumping from the bed when one's getting dressed or undressed).  And then he purrs.  Indeed, as I'm writing this at my study table, guess who's just arrived ...?  Of course, we find this utterly adorable.  If heavy.