Camping in National Parks

I'm not the procrastinator! I'm the planning ahead person mentioned in the article. 

Pottery Class Oddities

My workplace recently reorganized the teams, and I got a new team.

To commemorate the last team's efforts, I made every member a Starro. Except for the Justice League writer. I made him a Jarro.

My new team doesn't have a name yet.

If It's Not One Thing...

You know when you get those texts or emails you really don't want?

I got one this morning. It was about stucco. 

Women's History Month, Part Two

Just before 9 this morning, I caught the #222 bus over the hill from Burbank to the Red Line in Hollywood. I arrived in DTLA by 9:30, much too early for my 10:30 a.m. tour honoring Women's History Month.

I walked rather than bussed it across downtown, stopping to look at things along the way, seeing what has closed and opened recently. It's funny how many places have changed hands more than once since I stayed on 4th and Main my first year out here.

My phone map directed me straight through Skid Row, past tents, men hanging out in parks, and two huge missions. The first few times I came through here, I was completely shocked, but I've since sat through talks by homeless people who explained their lives on the streets, so the vast number of homeless seems less unsettling to me than it was, though I always feel guilty and ashamed for wandering through on a frivolous field trip.

Green Thumb

Look what I managed to grow on my Burbank balcony!

Not that I have any great love for radishes, but this seemed like an easy place to start with container gardening.

Women's History Month

I went on a Women's History Month tour of The Ebell of Los Angeles today.

The Ebell of LA is a women's club founded in 1894, with the current headquarters built in 1927. It's still active, but its primary purpose is somewhat obsolete now. Women would gather to read and learn and make art, all things that were somewhat inaccessible to women in the past. Well, maybe it's still inaccessible, because we work all the time.

The club stays open by hosting events (such as weddings) and renting its space out to Hollywood productions.

Weekend of Whales

In January, 2017, I went whale-watching near the Channel Islands, off the coast of Ventura. I'd read this part of the Pacific is on the migration route for gray whales, who head south for the winter.

Sure enough, I saw several whales that day, along with dolphins and sea lions. But I'd also read about where those whales were headed—to lagoons off Baja California, where they birth and nurse their calves, as well as mate for the next go-round.

I didn't give much thought to whale migration again until I realized whale season was upon us here in 2019, and I hadn't acted to get myself south to Mexico to see the whales. Was it too late?

I researched every term I could think of. Solo travel to Baja. Independent travel to see Baja whales. Gray whales, Baja. Budget travel, whales. I searched guidebooks and websites, but didn't find anything truly satisfying until I really dug in. Central and southern Baja wasn't far away as the crow flies, but it was too damn long from LA by bus. Fifteen hours by car, longer by bus. Nope. Not gonna do that and be at the office by 9 on Monday.

Baja Weekend

Look what I did over the weekend.

Well, okay, I didn't DO this. But I went and saw this.

Cash, Parton, Cheech, Chong

Now is a good time to stop by the Grammy Museum.

En Route to DTLA

I was en route to the travel show* at the LA Convention Center, entering the Hollywood/Vine metro station, which is actually at Hollywood and Argyle.

There was a guy inside the platform’s glass-sided elevator.

The elevator was not going up. It was not going down. It was merely existing without bias—the guy did not seem alarmed, nor was he trying to exit the elevator. The doors were snugly shut, as if the elevator was at rest. Which I guess it was. The guy and the elevator were just hanging out.

I averted my eyes and walked to the other end of the platform. I kinda wanted to see where this story went, but self-preservation won out.

*At the travel show, I interrogated some Baja reps about the bridge from San Diego to Tijuana Airport, the CBX. From Burbank, it is possible to take the 4:50 a.m. Flixbus to Old Town, San Diego, hope on a trolley to the San Ysidro border, get on a $6 shuttle to CBX, then walk into the airport through passport control, and take a Calafia or Volaris flight south into Baja.