Did a recon mission to Test Site for County Job

Gad! Mapquest said it would take 1 hour and 18 minutes. Ha! Lets try two hours. Also, the exit for the Temple street was like 100 yards past where I got on the 101 from the 110, . . .on the other side! Thank God, there was only one other car on this section, and it too, was headed for Temple street. Circled the block twice, and found a parking garage. Maximum total was 17 $. If I got out of there in less then one hour and sixteen minutes, I would get some money back Went out onto the other side of the building, got twisted around, and oh, how I had to pee! Ever try walking fast when you are afraid you will pee your pants? Walked down the wrong street, figured it out, found Temple, went a little ways in the wrong direction, doubled back and found the building. It's next to the county supervisors meeting room building, (yes, that's what the front said). Went in, desperately seeking a bathroom. The guards ask if they could help me. "Women's bathroom?" I moaned out, clutching my hands into fists. They told me where it was and laughed at the expression of relief in my face. Peed, went back to them. They wanted to know where I was going, I told them where and why. They told me I better find the basement room as well, since it's hard to find. Went down there and found it. Left, got five dollars back from my seventeen and got on the freeway home. Forgot to ask the maximum amount of hours you could spend at the parking garage, will try to find it on the Internet. Also, want to go down by 101, so I don't have to try and get across three lanes of freeway traffic in under 100 yards.

ASSORTED CRAP

Well, I experimented with watering this morning. I turned on just one of the lawn sprinkler sections. This section does not have a broken head, but the pipe is cracked around the control knob. I bet myself I could get to the dairy to buy cat food for the cats and back before it flooded and ran into the gutter. I was wrong, I lost. Unfortunately, it turns out that the asshole across the street is now using a movable sprinkle head. In the two weeks that I have been hand watering, I have seen no sign of him. Today the movable sprinkler was out there. It had been moved from when I departed, and then returned. Shit! What if he reports me? It's a $1000.00 fine. They have to catch me in the act, right?

Last night, besides the gun fire and the ensuing hour and a half ritual of the ghetto bird circling overhead, I was waiting in bed, for any sign of the trespassers. I swore at one point I heard the chair I moved to block the beaten path to my bedroom window, ( and tied to the antennae post with the nylon thread) was moved. But this morning when I went out there, the chair appeared to have been unmoved, and all the nylons threads were still unbroken.
However, the duct tape was peeled a bit from the shed door. I smoothed it back down. I couldn't tell if some one had tried to put it off, or if it had just peeled off by it's self. Will keep an eye on it.

Oh

Oh yaa! A few minutes ago, i heard what I hoped were fire crackers. Nope, must have been gun fire, because the ghetto bird is circling the neighborhood. I can't sleep with all this noise.

Update on Backyard

I have strung the fishing line. Only had enough to go across three places. Two of the are at chest level. The third line I came up short on and had to tie it down lower then I wanted. All I want is for them to realize that I know that they are there and I don't want them coming around. I want them gone.
Later still,. . .re-taped the shed door (the trespassers had slipped in the sprinkler trench in front of the door and had grabbed the shed door to catch themselves and broken the top attachment on the right side), and oh, yes, they have rearranged the insides very nicely, while stealing one of Daddy's car ramps, and Crystal's mattress. Can't tell about anything else.

They Are Still Trespassing

Last night I was woken up (around 11:30, this usually occurs between 11:30 to 1:30) by the crunching and a man voice saying "She's in the back." So now they are giving guided tours to my backyard? I think I will put out the fishing line tonight.
These are the assumptions I'm going on.
A. It's not my neighbors.
B. They don't live on MY street, but might on the street behind me. The house behind burned down and the lot is empty, ungated and provides easy access to my back yard, with the mild exception of a SIX FOOT TALL BRICK WALL!.
C. Although in fairness, I have thought of three reasons why they are there; .i.e. 1.) Shortcut, 2.) Storing drugs, 3.) Peeping Tom, I'm afraid that the answer lies in number 3.) Peeping Tom, mixed with mind games.
Why else would they bang the screen door at the front? Why do they keep talking? Why does it matter, which side of the house, my bedroom is on? I do occasionally turn on my light and peer out the window. Unfortunately I'm afraid the answer is that they are indeed, playing mind games with me.

A Waste Of Paper And Ink

For 15 days, Brian has been collecting the excess credit card slips. For every one the computer prints out, there is a second one printed (along with two little coupons as well), because the programmer didn't know we had duplicate paper. It doesn't look like much, but Brian has collected them everyday (those of us who are participating) and stacked and stapled them. So there is a lot more in there then you can see in this picture.

He's also got one of the roll tubes, and he's going to tape the slips together and re-roll them. When he presents his case for a program fix, and gets to the waste of ink part, he's going to dramatically unroll it. Probably won't accomplish anything, but he wants to try.

Another Real Big Orchid

This one IS biger than my palm!

Really Big Orchids!

This one is as big as the palm of my hand.

more trepassing news

Last night I was woken up about an hour after I had gone to sleep. Eventually, I figured out I had hear my screen door being slammed shut. I wasn't terribly alarmed, I knew there was nobody in the house by the way the cats were acting. I didn't get out of bed. Once again, what good would it do? If someone is playing a cat and mouse game, getting up would only fuel their game. But eventually, I'm going to have to figure something out. Maybe a video camera, or something.

Head is Blowing Up!

I have been filling out a county job application for two days now. It's fairly simple on the surface, but if you read the instruction page. . .not it's not!!! I have made mistakes on all three copies. . .sob. I will turn it in, tomorrow. It's for county assessor trainee. They train you for a whole year, WHILE PAYING YOU OVER $3000.00 A MONTH!!! Okay, I not strong on math, but if there is a regime, and I do the same type of math over and over, then I can do it. I CAN take measurements, look up data in databases, and write three kinds of reports, specially if I have a whole year's training at it. I can do this, and we all know I can definitely find places, and walk great distances. I am qualified for this job.
So why can't I fill out an application without freaking out and making mistakes? I have a headache. Cider time with muscle relaxant (I am done with it).

Hey! A Century Plant across The Street!

And a proper good one it is! Twice as tall as the houses.

Getty

Latter I will get the stuff about the exhibit out of the car, and take pictures about it. I had the most marvelous timing, got there just in time for a curator talk on the exhibit! And I got to wear a blue tooth thingy so I could actually hear what the curator was saying!
I learned a lot of things I didn't know before. Her name is something like Maria Sybil Merriam. I always thought she divorced her husband because he was a loser, lowlife, cheater or something. Turns out that we don't know why she divorced him. She joined a Utopian christian community, and her husband went with her. She contrived to have him left outside the gates, locked out. Supposedly he went mad waiting for her to take him back (but he remarried six years after their divorce, so it can't been that bad). She gave the community everything she had, and six years later it went bust. She had nothing. Moved to Amsterdam and started a business, supplying specimens, and art supplies to people. She was supporting her two daughters and her mom. Then, about 3 to six years later, she went off to South America with one of her daughters. Didn't quite work out like she planned. She wanted to stay for an number of years, but got malaria, and had to go back to Europe. Couldn't traps off to the jungle like she wanted, was too dense. So the Indians bought her stuff. But not everything of their life cycle. So she had to guess in her paintings. She was know for being lifelike and accurate in her depictions, and she was one of the first to include all parts of the life cycle of the subjects, instead of laid out, adult, dead, numbered and pinned.
Her daughters continued her work, one of then going back to S.A. and sending stuff to the sister in the Netherlands. Man, I wished I had bought the book, but, no, I lost my ATM card this morning at the gas station and I was/am aware of needing cash money. All I bought was a motion pen, Bah!!! Maybe I can get it from the library.

More Cati

Century Plants At The Getty With A View of Down Town L.A.

Catus Garden At Getty

More lovely purple!

Thistles!!

This is a different type, then the kind we get at the store. The green part was blueish, the the cone top had no purple "hairs". On the other side was yet another type, that had white streaked green parts. [sorry, know the word, but can't figure out how to spell it.] But of course, my phone had died by then. . .

A White Dahia?

A View Of L.A. and The Getty Walls

The walls are actually butter colored.

What is it?

It's almost like a orchid, but it's a vine! The bees liked it. They were working hard to get under that curl thing.

Dahias At The Getty

So many different shades of purple in the garden.

Cone Daisy

The garden was lovely. Unfortunately, I didn't plug my phone in last night, and it died in the garden. I would have taken a lot more pictures, if that hadn't happen. Was also continuously deleting other pictures to make room to send to this blog.

By The Garden

Everywhere, there was outdoor art, (and there was an apparently paper mache sculpture off to the left) there were guards. This was always noticeable inside the museum, but they didn't use to have outside art.

It doesn't show very well, but the bougainvillea is now mature and spills over the holders. It was always so scanty before. There are now tables and chairs underneath them.

One of the Modern Ones

It's a reclining mother holding her child in her arms. The child is mildly abstracted, the mother greatly so.

Sculpture Garden ByTheTram At The Getty

This is new, I swear, or at least I never noticed it before. Has some modern type bronze sculptures, and also some more traditional type (but still modern) like a horse.

Watering

The water situation in my valley is so bad, that the Mayor and the city council had decreed that there shall be no watering between the hours of 10:00 a.m. and 10:00 p.m. There shall be no running of water in the gutter longer then 5 minutes. There shall be no pooling of water deeper then 1/4Th of an inch ( they are working on a variance to this, as they belatedly realized that this outlawed swimming pools). If you do, it's an $1000.00 fine.

This means I am getting up an half an hour earlier, as I have a broken sprinkler head and I am hand watering. Oh, thank you, you #%@*&! What about business? Hmmm? Their water sprinklers run forever and loads of runoff everyday! (I'm drunk, cancha tell!!)



On a completely different subject I worked today for the florist. The Monday driver needed today off. I get Wednesday off in exchange. I am going to go to the Getty. It's closed on Mondays, so wasn't able to go before. They have the book, marvelous book of a 17Th century WOMAN painter, who joined a christian church (with major cult overtones), divorced her husband, (How bad did you have to be, to get a divorce then?) and went off to South America with her two girls, and spent the next three years creating her masterpiece. She illustrated bugs, like botanical flower paintings! Her 13, and 10 year old daughters would catch the big poisonous bugs and keep then in the the drawing area with sticks for Mom. Must see this.

Come and get it

One of Margaret's mom rabbits died. Margaret went out to the horse barn to feed the rabbits and found the mom rabbit in the nesting box, stiff as a board! The babies were outside the box in the cage. Margaret said that the mom rabbit was sitting upright with her front feet on the lip of the nesting box. Margaret thought she was alive and was wondering why she wasn't hopping out to eat her foot. Worrying, her eyes weren't clouded over. If she had been dead long enough for rigor mortis to set in, they should have clouded. I pointed this out to Jackie and asked her if she was sure the rabbit was dead and not in some paralytic state and Jackie quickly said that the rabbit had already been taken care of (buried). So here is one of the babies being bottle fed with kitten formula,

I Have My New Glasses!

I love them! But it's strange. . .they don't look like I remember them. For one thing, they seem to be a lot narrower then I remember. I will contribute this to the fact that everything was out of focus when I tried them on. Secondly I remember them being clearly purple, and these are more mauvey pink then purple. Also, on the surface of each lens, like it's embossed, I can see a round circle, and below it, the number 20. Doesn't wash off. eventually I will post a picture of them, but not now. Right now I'm all blown out and greasy from the heat (110 today). My make up looks terrible. And yes, once again I cried my eyeliner off even although I was wearing the new sunglasses. So, maybe allergies?

I'm So Hot!

It's 108 outside. I only have a swamp cooler. And it's humid. And, yes, today is the first official day of our annual contest, WHO'S THE CRAZIEST DRIVER YOU SEE, WHO'S INSANE FROM THE HEAT! We still haven't beaten the winner from three years ago who made a left hand turn on a red light from the number ONE lane. I'm already texts Best Friend to be very careful as it was obvious that today was opening day of the contest. Every year, when the temp goes over 100, the people who moved up here from down below, go wacko. They just can't figure out the simple rule, that all us natives live by. . . get everything done by 11 a.m. that has to be done outside of the house. That's why we get up early.

The Car Is In The Shop

I'm getting my timing belt done. Only about 15,000 miles over due! I would have done it in March, but took a look at my tax bill and realized that everything I had saved up was going on for the IRS. Fortunately, we have the stimulus check!!! I was expecting only $300.00, but got $600.00! Maybe because I work two jobs?
So the money already spent (and more). I'm getting this timing belt and yes I got new glasses, regular and sunglasses. I was originally was going to get new lenses, but my lenses would have cost $389.00 for each pair. That's almost a $1000.00. But they had a sale going on. . . 50% off if you buy frames and lenses. It was actually cheaper to get new everything then just buy new lenses. And yes, I got the works, sunglasses, featherwates poly, progressive, polarized, regular glasses, featherwates poly, short fit progressive, scotchgard. I wear these thing from the moment I get up until I go to bed. I want to be comfortable. I don't want to be peering through the equivalent of a small port hole, that gives me a headache while sliding down the bridge of my nose from the weight. The pair I'm wearing right now is chipped inside and out and scratched. They are always dirty, because I cry my makeup off when I drive, because I'm trying so hard to focus down the road.
I don't have the new glasses yet, they won't be in until the 16Th. The sunglasses I do have. They are wonderful. It's like I'm wearing contacts, my field of vision is so unhampered by distortion. I can see the leafs on the trees again. they are just damn comfortable. And the best thing? The new glasses are purple!

Hummingbird Nest

My sister's house is loaded with hummingbirds. A few years ago she found out that they build their nests at eye level, so she started looking for them. And they are every where! This is the walk way to the front door. It is literally right by the walkway, at hand level!

Lamb

Maybe it is only 2 and a half foot high!!!