Not That Secret Santa

I made this for DC editor Jessica Chen, whose name I pulled in Secret Santa. I'm pretty pleased with it. Fortunately, she was too.

Of course, she knew immediately who her Secret Santa was, since I make lots of bags.

LAX

Here's a view I don't see every day. When I got to LAX (while en route to a meeting on Long Island), the escalator to Departures was out of service. I went to the elevator, but it was full of Marines, so I went over to the elevator in the parking garage instead.

Turns out the Marines did me a favor.

Conversations in Lyfts

Two more for the road:

11/16 Lyft driver: "New York City is now a ghost town, because everyone has moved to LA after becoming sick of paying $15,000 a month for studio apartments."

12/4 Lyft driver: “You know that movie Willy Wonka? My theory is that it’s based on LA. Because people come here and they indulge too much and it destroys them. They have to moderate their behavior like Charlie and his grandfather. And the 405 is the chocolate river.”

Yard Work

Do you remember when I discovered my backyard leaking water into my Jersey City basement on New Year's Eve?

Water was pouring in through the closed-off hatch (maybe an old coal chute? hard to say) and through cracks in the wall nearby. I had a hard time finding anyone to deal with it. I called the landscapers in town—the best-known of them sent over a guy who showed up with alcohol on his breath, then kept saying he'd send me an estimate.

He never did.

Scavengers

In October, something was happening with squirrels and corn in the backyard. It may be that the nuns grew the corn and the squirrels stole the corn, or maybe they only stole from the nun's trash.

Happy Holidays

Los Angeles' train station was all decked out in holiday cheer tonight.

Making Stuff

Today's accomplishments!

The mug is too small, but maybe you can't tell from a photo. The bowl is the right size for eating oatmeal or fruit and yogurt or anything that fits in a regular bowl.

National Bundt Day 2019

Today was National Bundt Day!

I haven't celebrated for years, but today I made a Bundt cake and took it to work.

The tunnel of fudge didn't really form this time, but there's always next year.

Arrival

September 12, Tokyo Airport.

I mailed a small box to myself, containing work clothes, a few odds and ends, and some Japanese fabric from the Tokyo garment district. I intended to send it airmail so it would beat me home, but the airport post office didn't take credit cards. All the yen in my pocket amounted to enough for sea mail.

My new fabric arrived today!

Fun With Ride-Sharing

Last night, as I do every Monday night since the buses stop before pottery class stops, I used my phone to summon a Lyft to take me home from the Burbank Rec Center.

The driver told me her stomach hurt.

She said she'd vomited, but she lives in Sun Valley so at least she didn't too far to drive home.

She thinks it was the fish tacos.