Category: General

The plan was – go out, have some Mexican food and then go for a hike in the park.  As it sometimes happens with plans, this came to naught because we passed a banner saying “Lithuanian Fair.”  How could we resist? We parked the car, paid our entry fee and wandered in. First some food, very yummy. Then we were treated to a speech opening the fair. The speech was not too lengthy, which was good, because it was given in Lithuanian.  After some songs by two choirs a folk dance group took the stage.

That was some spirited dancing! Such a pretty sight, these lovely young women (later joined by some equally good looking young men) in their colorful traditional costumes, showing off their skills.

Anyway, we still wanted to do our hike, so we checked out the stalls at the fair after the dance performance at a pretty fast clip before leaving.  It struck us as slightly strange that at each and every stall we were first addressed in Lithuanian and only upon signaling that we were not able to understand did the very friendly stall operators switch to English.  Upon arriving back home my curiosity got the better of me and I checked out “Lithuanians in Los Angeles” on the Internet. It turned out that by pure chance we had stumbled upon the largest Lithuanian fair outside of Lithuania. With only 10.000 people of Lithuanian descent living in Los Angeles, of which only 2.000 still speak their native language, for 60 years this fair has been the annual highlight of this smallish community.

So they do keep up their traditions.  They also try to keep up their language with a school of their own which operates on Saturdays. But – they also live completely in the here and now, as is amply demonstrated by this photo from the sidelines:

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.

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.

Out in the park it is still cool at a lovely, balmy 75°F.

The city down below  gets ready for another busy day.

The perfect time for running. Everybody is out.

Before it gets really hot,  we’ve all had a lovely time.

Due to the continuing drought in California new regulations re. water preservation are kicking in as of today.

The City of Los Angeles realized quite correctly that higher prices for water might be the best incentive for people to refrain from wasting water. In the best Los Angeles fashion a way was found to lower water consumption so asinine that it makes ones head swim. They actually hit those who did not waste water in the past the hardest with the highest rates.

How this works? Here we go.

As an example take a single family dwelling on a lot of under 7,500 sq. ft. This dwelling was allowed a certain amount of water per month at a Tier 1 pricing per HCF (= 748 gallons). Any amount of water exceeding this base limit was priced at Tier 2 prices. Under the new system all users are evaluated by their past water usage. The highest usage during the winter season of the past three years ./. 15 % becomes the new allotment for Tier 1 prices; water exceeding this baseline will be priced at Tier 2.

And herein lies the rub: Anybody who preserved water already will still have a baseline lowered by 15 %. All those water saving measures in that single family dwelling now lead to the fact that this family has a cut off-point for Tier 1 water so ridiculously low that there is no way not to run into Tier 2. Whereas a family in a single dwelling on a lot that same size which squandered water until the cows came home only needs to not run the washing machine 10 times a week for only one pair of jeans and two t-shirts, to not let the shower run for five minutes until stepping under it, to replace those dripping faucets and the leaking toilet tanks, to not let the sprinklers run all day long even when it rains, only needs to reign in water usage by a fraction – and will be rewarded by paying less per month than before, because their baseline at Tier 1 is so much higher, even when 15 % are shaved off it, that they probably never run up enough water usage to get into Tier 2.

It really is mindbogglingly unfair.

I am all for saving water, being conscious of our environment,  saving  our resources and not squandering them. But this new system makes me grind my teeth. If the present user of the system are evaluated according to their water usage of the last three years, it would have been so easy to put in a parameter saying “single family dwelling with less than xxx HCF water usage in winter = do not take off 15 %. Water conscious already. Send postcard thanking them for saving water for Los Angeles.”

Okay, maybe no postcards. But no hitting with unfairly high prices either, simply because these people did not waste water in the past.

Perfect temperatures.

Beautiful light.

Balmy wind.

An amazing flower arrangement.