Impressions from “Autumn Light LA 2009”. Artists and the city worked together and created a night filled with light, magic and music.
Author: Petra
We've Come A Long Way, Baby
That was fun.
But maybe I’ll hang on to the food processor for a little while longer.
Fire II – Going Home
Even though we are locals, we had underestimated how far the fire had come to some of the places we love to go hiking in. So it was a bit of a shock to be confronted with a closed park and this sign at the entrance road to the park.
As we could not drive up to the trail head, we stood there on the road beside our car for a while, looking up at the charred hills.
As we learned later, firefighters had started a tactical fire in the Deukmejian Wilderness to protect adjacent residential areas and some structures in the park. This measure was a success, but the park itself suffered severe damage. A lot of animals, amongst them deer and coyotes, fled the fire and came down into the residential areas – and suddenly we saw some of those on their trek “back home.”
These three deer just wandered out from a garden onto the street. They stopped about 10 yards away and eyed us. Then the largest one of the three ventured forth, up the hillside.
The other two stood very quietly, waited a while and then tentatively started to follow their mate.
The only reason imaginable that the deer did not bolt when they saw us must have been that they were exhausted and in a certain way shell shocked. First the race from the fire, then living in a residential area for a few days – they were ready to go back home, no matter what.
They climbed the hill and disappeared out of sight. But where to? We could see quite clearly that the top of the hill was fenced off with a chain link fence. So we, too, crept up the hill, much more slowly and not as graceful as the deer and we found them.
Two of them were resting in the shade, the third one must have gone further to check out how matters stood.
The final amazing discovery was the way they must have managed to get past the fence (with barbed wire on top):
They surely slipped back in underneath the fence. Try doing that with antlers on your head!
But as we all know – there is no place like home and you do what you have to do to get there.
A Moment Of Beauty In Times Of Fire
Serenity.
Devastation
I took this photo of the La Canada Flintridge fire yesterday from 40 m (64 km) away.
Since then the fire has increased to an area of over 35,000 acres (142 square km). Over 10,000 homes are threatened, some power lines are down, a number of communities are being evacuated.
The high heat does not help; temperatures have fallen from over 100 F, but the weather forecast predicts temperatures still in the high to middle 90s range for the next few days. More than 1,800 firefighters are up there, battling the flames, ten helicopters and eight air tankers are dropping water on the blaze, a DC-10 is unloading fire retardants in certain threatened areas.
Everyone is hoping for lower temperatures, more humidity and that the winds stay down. We all are following the reports and updates with knots in our stomachs.
Happy Times Are Here Again
Great! Temperatures are falling.
We are back in the double digit range again.
Not that I am really complaining, but anything over 100° F is just a wee bit too hot.
Smells Like Bacon In The Morning
This is just one of the companies in California converting Diesel cars to vegetable oil burning ones.
If I were not so much in favor of smaller cars, I’d get one of those.Have a cup of coffee and a sniff of bacon while driving – now that’s a thought for breakfast.
Catch-22
Under the new water conservation measures in Los Angeles and adjacent communities, watering lawns with sprinklers and hose pipes is only allowed on two days per week and only during a certain time window in the morning and in the evening. No more sprinklers running merrily all day long, even when it rains (yes, there were many proud lawn owners who never bothered to turn them off).
These new water codes (plus the higher costs for water) seem to have served as a wake up call to some, who seriously considered going even a step further in their efforts to create gardens and lawns needing less or no water. One way to go are gardens with local, drought tolerant plants, but such landscaping certainly does not lead to the lushly green appearance dear to so many homeowners. After having had the quintessential picture of the American Dream rammed down their collective throats for decades, they want exactly that – the house with the green lawn and the white picket fence.
To get the best of both worlds (no water consumption, but a nice green lawn), a gentleman in a city not very far from here (actually, so near that we do most of our shopping there), had a brilliant idea: he had artificial turf installed in the front yard of his newly built home. Not cheap, tacky looking stuff, mind you, but really nice fake turf, which cost him quite a few thousand dollars. Turf like that looks so real today and has so many advantages, that cities, golf clubs and private persons are installing it in parks, on golfs courses and in their gardens.
Then, however, this gentleman learned that in order to receive final approval from the local Design Review Board and adhere to required landscaping plans, he would have to replace the artificial turf with live grass, which would have required daily watering (forbidden under the City code) over quite a few weeks to take root. And if the grass died because of the water restrictions, he could be cited by code enforcement for dead landscaping in a front yard setback.
Now the turf war is on. After the initial request to rip out the offending green stuff, the homeowner has received permission to keep the illegal turf until City planners have set up an artificial turf display for residents to see samples prior to the issue returning to the dais for the City Council do deliberate.
And what about the neighbors of this gentleman? Well, they offered to sign petitions or to go to City Hall on his behalf. It seems that they are not offended – however much the Design Review Board and the City Council might wish for some expression of public outrage at this blatant attempt to… save water…while still…having a lawn…
Oh, I don’t know. My mind reels. As it always does when I encounter a perfect Catch-22.
Mind The Moose
Clifton’s Cafeteria looks so absolutely unremarkable from the outside that many probably don’t even give it a second look.
But should the adventurous city traveler step through the door to be met by this arrangement,
he or she might reconsider whether this is really your average cafeteria eating style place.
Walking up the staircase,
past some more bears engaged in slightly unusual activities,
one has a good view of the lower level eating area.
My personal favorite is the moose on the balcony.
Quite impressive, I must say. Judging from the size of the head, this was not a small animal at all. I probably would have given it a wide berth, had I come across it in the wild.
And there you have it – Clifton’s Cafeteria is certainly not unremarkable. It is not a fine dining place, but one of the last bastions of honest fare so dear to many who remember this kind of food from their childhood. I highly recommend it for breakfast, if one wants to attend events at the Convention Center, which is only a short stroll of a few blocks away.
All details of the history of this place, the last one left of several restaurants owned by the Clinton family in the Los Angeles area, can be found here. How long Clifton’s will survive is unsure – the family just put the building up for sale. What happens next – nobody knows.
Decisions On A Hot L.A. Day
Should I take a cool bath?
Eek. No!
