ants

This notice tells its own dismal story.  It wasn't a day in which I needed to walk into the bathroom first thing, and encounter battalions of tiny black ants.  They were coming in at the top of the window, marching down one side, and one platoon then struck out across the floor, and another into the washbasin ...

Luckily, we had some diatomaceous earth left over from earlier invasions, and I've been generous with its distribution.  But still - that bathroom is off bounds while the white powder does, I hope, do its job.  However, I'm itchy all over with imaginary ants, and that's on top of a very itchy reaction to the adhesive on the heart monitor I have to wear for a week, which feels like having a whole lot of mosquito bites under it.  This seems (for what else is google for, if not wondering about shared experiences) very depressingly common ...

 

LA wall

It's LA abstract wall week ... or: I seem to have spent a very great deal of today in the car.  I might easily resent how much driving one has to do in Los Angeles (I certainly resent how much I have to pay for gas at the moment, but that's another matter), were it not for the fact that there is always so much to look at.

 

architectural eclecticism

I feel that I should be able to extract some kind of contemporary allegory from this: a Russian orthodox church; a very shuttered and boarded off gas station, but it defeats me.  Even if the reason for my driving across town today was to visit the dentist, it was still good to have a sustained exposure to Los Angeles's architectural diversity - something I've just discovered, too, enhances the first couple of pages of The Day of the Locust, a novella that I really should have read before now, but haven't ...

 

caesalpinia pulcherrima

Down the street and round the corner, this tree is always spectacular in September.  There are plenty of trees and plants - well, at least three that grow around here - known as "Bird of Paradise." This is one of them, also known as Pride of Barbados, as well as Red Bird of Paradise - but to distinguish it from other ones, let's give it its full Latin name: extremely beautiful, indeed.  You wouldn't think that it belonged to the pea family, would you?

 

cracking street art

A claw extending on this large street mural in Venice CA, cracking and peeling in the sun.  That was how we felt when we went off to have lunch with a friend at Gjelina's - normally a great place for lunch, but it was so hot, so humid, that we ordered take-out and retreated.  Of course, how can one not wonder if this is the new and awful normal?  It is surely never this humid and hot by the ocean - not in mid-September.

 

a much quieter day!

Who knew that we'd get a second round of roses in September: these are The Poet's Wife, looking good.

I was so grateful, after yesterday, for a quiet day... and I feel fine, if somewhat tired.  Which isn't to say that I'm ignoring that weird event and what it told me my blood pressure can do (I'm very inclined to blame the heat and humidity for sending things haywire): it was soberingly unpleasant.  But my gratitude for being able to sit around quietly is nothing to my gratitude to you kind people who reached out, and who recognized what a scary day it was.

 

not the day I was planning

All seems to be well, thank goodness - but I spent most of today in Glendale Memorial Hospital (and may I recommend their emergency room and teams of people, should you need them ...).  We were heading off for a walk this morning in Griffith Park, parking at the zoo - and I suddenly felt very dizzy and weird, and thought it best that Alice drove me straight to the ER ... and I was tested for everything under the sun: CAT scan (no stroke); a long, noisy MRI (nothing remarkable); ECG (heart fine); blood work - presumably fine, since no one ever told me it wasn't ... the only unusual thing was very high blood pressure when I was admitted.  So I'll need to sort that out: everything else was a huge relief.  Also a huge relief was being released ... Top marks to Alice for her thoughtfulness, even while also trying to deal with the gutter menders.  I'm exhausted ...