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.

9. Where's your favorite place to be?

Cozy at home with my sweetie. That's easy. Note that his presence is necessary to the favorite-ness of the place.

Which reminds me, we're getting the house (outside and a couple rooms inside) painted next week. We really need to settle on the colors this weekend. :P

sunshiny day

Well. Now this will be interesting. Too bad Pelosi isn't going to push impeachment, but I understand the point of view that it would get in the way of all the other important things that need fixing and doing, like restoring habeas corpus, and fun with subpoenas, and explaining to those who seem not to get it that: no, the executive in the American system of government does not get to do whatever s/he wants however s/he likes.

First woman Speaker of the House! Cool. Go go San Francisco values! Which to me means: let people do what they want short of hurting someone else, treat all people fairly and equally, try to have a safety net for the unlucky, and be creative.

edit: and environmentalism, of course. that (almost) goes without saying.

My favorite reading for the day was Glenn Greenwald here and here.

a taste of Hawaii

Here is a photo from the first place we stayed, which was our favorite. (It didn't hurt that they upgraded us.) This is a little after 7 AM on our first morning there. I had walked roughly 100 yards across a palm-studded lawn to reach this point from our room's first-floor patio. Later in the day, while snorkeling over by those rocks at the end of the beach, we saw our first two sea turtles of the trip. The word for "turtle" in Hawaiian is "honu."

8. What's the last movie you saw in the cinema?

Since the cost of a pair of movie tickets these days is roughly comparable to the price of a re-watchable-in-the-comfort-of-one's-home DVD, we don't get out to theaters a whole lot. I think it was An Inconvenient Truth. Which, btw, everyone needs to (a) see, and (b) make other people watch who haven't seen it. Gore/Obama '08: dream ticket. Too bad the press hates Gore, seemingly because he's not as much "fun" as they'd like. If you want to pick on him for something, I'd choose the idea of Lieberman as veep. But at least it would have gotten Mr. Pomposity out of his Senate seat, which otherwise he seems to think is his personal property.

Next theater-movie will probably be the new James Bond, since the sweetie is a Bond partisan.

farewell to runnymede

I haven't been paying as much attention as I should, and neither have a lot of other people, but I am at least awake enough to notice that today appears to be a historic day. If I'm understanding correctly, today is the day that 791 years of Anglo-American tradition -- that the head of state cannot simply imprison people at whim, but must either charge and try them, or release them -- is interrupted. For Congress is giving Our Leader the power to imprison anyone he wants, U.S. citizen or not, at his whim and for as long as he wishes, simply by deciding that the person has been aiding terrorism in some way. If the person (or anyone else on their behalf) disagrees, tough shit. Nobody gets to second-guess The Decider. Unless something is done to overturn this bill later, the history of the USA might be all downhill from here. That's without even getting into the part in the bill about torture.

I can't completely believe this. Fine, the House has been taken over, but I thought there were more Senators left with some sense. Obviously not. And McCain is a complete poser. Why is nobody even trying to filibuster this? If I were in there, they'd have to physically drag me from the podium; at least that way maybe a few more people might passingly notice the situation. No, I'm probably still being too optimistic.

Anyway, go read Glenn Greenwald linked up there in the title; he's got the rundown.

IN style

Driving home last night I found myself following an Indiana license plate of recent vintage. On top it said "Indiana," and along the bottom it said www.IN.gov.

Thought 1: Welcome to the 21st century.
Thought 2: Wait. Why wasn't California, home of Silicon Valley, the one to do this first?

7. What's the last CD you bought?

hrm. I have never been a music junkie, in the sense of buying up lots of music, although music in certain contexts (e.g., film scores) is important to me. And now we're in the era of MP3s and iPods. I honestly can't say for sure, but I think it might have been the spoken-word album put out around last Christmas by Sarah Bunting of Tomato Nation, collecting her phone-conversation-with-a-friend essays into audio form.

(I've got all the honeymoon pics back now, but I still have to sift for the best ones and scan them.)

back to reality

Whew. In case you've never been there (I hadn't), the Big Island of Hawai'i? Is beautiful. We just got back this last weekend. I took a bunch of pictures that I can't show you yet because they're in old-school slide form yet to be developed. Partly this is because I am somewhat old-school in attitude, and partly this is because I am not-rich and have no digital SLR (used "my" old standby Nikon N70 which technically belongs to my dad, but we share it). I did once have a little pocket-size digicam, but it had a fatal chip attack a few months ago. So. Patience.

The theme, or perhaps mascot, or symbol of our honeymoon trip I have decreed to be TURTLES.

who's a princess? i am i am

okay, i have both a makeup and a hair person now (have had since shortly after that last post, but it's been a bit hectic 'round here). and we are back to the original hair plan which is piles o curls cascading partly down the back. because my dress is rather poofy and so i felt the hair needed some poof to balance. wow, i'm going to be married by this time tomorrow. wow.

simplicity

I haven't lined up a replacement hairstylist yet. I've contacted a couple of people, but I haven't been pursuing it as doggedly as I could, because a thought has been growing in my mind: maybe I don't truly need one. The rubberbands and hairpins necessary to create the gorgeous mass of cascading curls in both of my trials began giving me a bit of a headache, later in each afternoon. Don't want headache. Maybe a simple braid, of the front part of my hair, down the back of the rest of my hair, naturally straight, long and free-flowing, like usual. Not only shouldn't it give me a headache, but it feels more ME. The me who, normally, hardly gives much thought to hair or makeup. The braiding would still allow for putting in some flowers and attaching the veil. I think. And it's something that my mother used to do with my hair once in a while, back in the day. We could probably do it again. In fact, that might be kind of neat.

6. Gold or silver?

Silver, the mirror, the moonlight and starlight, the echo of
mithril, the family heirlooms, the jewelry gift of my love on a birthday.

5. Favorite physical feature of the opposite sex

Smile, which is as much about the eyes as it is about the mouth. Both are incredibly sexy on my sweetie.

His nice strong arms are close runners-up, though. Hugs good.

Hair-raising

Right. Wedding. So. Everything has been going fine, until yesterday, when drama at last arrived. The short version, as best I can tell, is that my hair and makeup artist decamped to Boston sometime around mid to late June, without notifying me or indeed many other brides who had booked her. And paid her. It seems likely that if I had not attempted to check in and confirm our arrangements yesterday, I might have discovered this only when she did not show up the day of. Luckily I've got a couple more weeks, and have already lined up another makeup artist who is a friend of a friend. Still working on the hairstylist, but at least we've got two weeks to find one instead of two hours.

Long version:

Yesterday I decided to call her just to confirm everything was set, and discuss exactly what time we wanted her to show up. I tried to pull up her website for her phone number, and discovered the site no longer exists.

Disconcerting.

I googled the website's name, Artistry By Tess (also known as the Artistry Group), and discovered an entry called "Special Report: The Artistry Group" at a blog called Wedding Bee.

Goodbye disconcerting, hello lead weights in my stomach. I'm one of the people who paid in full to get the discount, back in April, on the basis of several years' (I think) worth of glowing reviews on the weddingchannel.com and theknot.com forums with nary a dissenting voice. At least I paid only for me, and my maid of honor's hair, and not more. It sounds like others may have lost significantly more.

The bottom line appears to be that Tess Standley (aka maiden name Teresa Johnson, according to her pricing page) says she has cancer, and also a pending divorce from her husband, and has decided to stay in Boston with her family while she undergoes treatment and tries to rebuild her career there. A blog where she made several posts about these things during early July had already been taken down by yesterday, but helpful Google has cached a copy here.

Using emails previously exchanged, I looked up her (Pasadena studio) phone number and tried calling it, and it is indeed disconnected. I sent a brief email inquiry, half expecting it to completely bounce, and got an autoreply, which seems to be missing a few lines in the first paragraph:

For updates pleasde visit:
http://dayinthelifeoftess.blogspot.com/

As you may or not be aware, I have been fighting cancer since March. On
a recent trip to Boston to see my family have been my closest
assistance for the past 5 years and can always mimic what I have done.

I understand that this may cause you stress and anxiety and having been
a bride, I can completely understand.

I have provided a list of contacts below as replacements for your
services. Design Visage and Stacy Oliver are happily taking brides.

I am so sad that I will not be able to personally fulfill my obligation
to you on your wedding day.


Love and Thanks
Tess

followed by a list of contact information for several Southern California hair and makeup stylists.

I did discover a mirror of her website which is still up at this writing, which announces "Booking both Los Angeles and New England appointments for 2007," although the phone number listed is still the disconnected Pasadena one: http://theartistrygroup.com/

I'm a patient sort (sometimes too patient) who usually gives a person the benefit of the doubt, until I have reason to do otherwise. It is possible that she is telling the truth. Fighting cancer is as good a reason as any to have a bit of a nervous breakdown, BUT: not notifying her clients of this situation is a big ol' honkin' red flag. She had enough energy to set up and publish a blog, if only for a week or so. Said blog, and the email auto-reply, would only reach those who attempt to find her. Those who do not suspect that anything is wrong, which was me until yesterday, would have none of that information. In my opinion, the honest professional's very first response to a situation beyond their control would be the mass-email notification of all clients. The autoreply demonstrates that she does or did have access to her email, which presumably contains her clients' addresses, yet she did not do this.

That said, I sent her another email today taking her at her word and inquiring about refund procedure, and I will give her a chance to answer before I decide whether to take further action. Anyway, I've got a few errands this weekend, what with getting married in a couple weeks and having to find a new hairstylist and all.

feral feline update

At least for this last stretch of falling-down-on-the-posting, I have the pretty good excuse of getting ready for my imminent wedding. More on that front in a moment, but first I want to follow up to that last post.

We've only done the one round of trapping so far, with the two traps we borrowed from TLC Adoptions. We got the mother and the black-and-white kitten, who also turned out to be female. Poor kitties were freaked right the hell out, of course, to be picked up and carried along in strange boxes to be stashed in the garage. It was a bit stressful on me, too, keeping them in the traps in the garage overnight for those two nights on either side of the trip to the vet (they were still groggy afterwards, and it wouldn't have been safe for them to let them out yet) -- I hated causing them so much fear, even though we were doing it For Their Own Good.

Of course after I let them out, those two in particular made themselves very scarce for the next many days. Happily, they seem to have forgotten now, a month and a half later, and have resumed thinking of me as the Person Who Puts Food Out. (If Fiance steps outside though, whist! no cats anywhere. They don't associate him with anything else besides the traps.) Mom and kids are always waiting for me outside the sliding door every morning now.

Gray kitten ... I really need to figure out what their names are. Gray kitten is bold enough to even brush past me now and then, dancing around my feet when I have a food bowl in hand. He probably won't do that any more after we trap him, sigh. But my goal is to have at least our core little family -- mama and two kittens -- fixed and living happily in our yard, as long as they choose to.

My digital camera's been broken for the last couple months. When I decide either to fix it or get a new one, maybe I'll put up some pictures of them.