the cake is a lie

For once, I think I may have managed to be on the early side of awareness about a Hot New Internet Catchphrase. Kung Fu Monkey gave me this awareness when he noted that it is "the perfect explanation" of the writers' strike (in the post before his extensive and excellent detailed rundown of "What's this all about then, oy?"). I googled the phrase and realized that it's from that interesting-looking game that M. was playing last week or so that I hadn't got round to trying yet -- this weekend perhaps.

T-shirts. We need T-shirts. As demonstrated above, it could apply to all sorts of situations (for antiwar protests, use one with a picture of a cake which is yellow). This is what makes me expect that it will be sweeping the nation.

Of course, since normally I only become fully aware of things as they've passed their peak, I could be wrong. But I want a T-shirt anyway.

Ghost of Halloween past

Huh. It seems to have worked after all. More police than partiers, from the sound of it.

But I agree with the people who say "OK, now let's plan better for next year." It sounds like things were getting a bit out of control in some aspects, but the solution to that is to be clever in attacking the problems, not to kill the tradition altogether.

No Halloween for you

I heard on the radio this morning that San Francisco has decided to cancel the Halloween revelry in the Castro because, in the last several years, it's been getting a bit out of control: six people shot last year (although "none seriously"). So they've been doing a local media blitz telling everyone to stay home, getting bars there to agree to close early, and promoting parties in other areas.

Understandable that they want to prevent people getting hurt. Taking action in that line = good. But.

Telling people not to do something. That they've been doing for nigh-on thirty years at least. That involves fun. In San Francisco. Yeah, okay, good luck with that.

ashen again

For the fourth morning running, when I came out to go to work, there was a light dusting of ashy bits on my car, an orange-brown haze low in the sky, and a faint scent of woodsmoke.

But last night, the moon was its normal color. Tuesday night, it too had been orange, after a day when brown smoke piled high in the sky at work in the afternoon. And today my knee is telling me that the weather is changing.

it's made of . . . ?

For a few weeks now, I've noticed that some of the burned swatches of Griffith Park, which I pass on my commute, have had some sort of bright green colored stuff spread on them. Last week I actually witnessed a helicopter dumping a load of green onto a slope. Just after dumping, the helicopter seemed to stand straight up on its nose for a moment -- from the sudden unbalancing? -- which I hadn't seen a helicopter do before. I was relieved to see it quickly right itself and putter off westward.

I wonder what the green stuff is. Something to attempt erosion control for the rainy season, I'm guessing, maybe like this.

11. Favorite TV show?

back to this question business. Hm. At this moment, the first one that comes to mind is Firefly. Though as I say that, I see Babylon 5 standing across the schoolyard, glaring at me bitterly.

Do you mean shows currently on? Um... we don't have cable. We watch our TV on DVD.

fishy?

Driving in to work this morning -- I've taken to using the 5 to the 134 around Griffith Park instead of the 101 through Hollywood for the last few months, saves me having to worry what Barham might be like today -- there's a stretch of the L.A. River where they've taken out the concrete on the bottom, and trees and bushes are growing. Kind of like a real, actual river.

This morning I glimpsed a guy sitting down by the edge on the other side -- I think he was fishing.

Fishing? In the L.A. River? Really? Because, on one hand, that would be awesome that there are (a) fish there at all, (b) big enough to be worth catching, (c) enough of them to be worth fishing for. On the other hand, dude, you do realize that those fish are swimming in whatever the hell the sprinklers have been washing off the streets lately?

grandma

My grandma died last week.

The funeral was this last Wednesday. This is what I said:

One of my earliest memories is just an image, a moment from when I was not even walking yet, but crawling, on the kitchen floor of our old house. I was over by the doorway, and saw feet on the other side of the baby gate. I looked up, and it was Grandma! Yay, Grandma!

It seems a bit strange that I could remember even a brief moment from when I was so young. But that’s the power of Grandma-love. All of us know that it just overflowed out of her like sunlight every time she smiled; it shone out of her whole face. Everybody’s face, I think, reveals their general personality over time. Her wrinkles were smiley ones.

Thank you, Grandma, for the ginger ale, the salmon patties, the small change in the little boxes with our names on them, the peanut butter cookies, the beautiful flower-print dress that fit me just right and that I wore every chance I could for years, until the shoulders were sunbleached and worn and the fabric finally gave way.

I loved that dress. But the real reason I loved it so much, the reason I have kept it and will always keep it, is that it was Grandma-love made visible. Every time I see it I feel an echo of her and of the same emotion from my first memory: the joy of seeing Grandma.

I love you, Grandma.

She was my mom's mom, the only grandma I ever knew. Both my dad's parents died before I was born. Grandpa died ten years ago. I don't have any grandparents any more. at least that I can talk with.

I looked at the flower-print dress after the funeral. It took me a while to actually find the rip; it was lower than I'd thought, and not as big. Maybe it would be fixable, sometime: not to perfect, but not immediately noticeable amidst the flower print.

board n batten

A hurricane, with bonus earthquake? Gaah. Hope everyone over there rides through it all. Good thing we got married last year.

10. Where's your least favorite place to be?

Again, thinking of one specific location is difficult. In general, I don't like bad smells, rooms with no windows, bugs, or strange unidentified growths, so a moldy buggy mostly-bare room with no windows that smelled like sewage would fit the bill. Luckily I can't recall ever having been in such a room.

If we're talking places I might expect to find myself, I guess I prefer not to find myself in a hospital bed, because that would usually mean there was something notably wrong with me, but hospitals don't in themselves freak me out.

um, hi.

I think I am probably back now. I shall restart with another driving-on-the-freeway item.

One evening last week (I think), I was down in the section of the 110 that I call the carpool canyon, and as I approached one of the overpasses I could see a couple of young women on the sidewalk above. One of them was waving to the traffic passing underneath her.

So I hurried to open my moonroof and signal back, first with a peace sign and then, as I became unsure she was going to see me before I disappeared, just my open hand waving. I think she might have seen me in the last couple of seconds, because she jumped up and down and started waving more energetically, but I can't be sure.

Fun though. It's nice to be looked back at once in a while.