plants

Posted on by

The construction is progressing now. We have a concrete block and some framed walls. I think we might get a roof soon.

the piles of dirt have been pushed back into the holes they came from. At least in the front yard…And that leaves big smooth stretches of bare dirt.

And a lawn that was unwaterable for the hottest months of this year, and has given up the ghost.

My beautiful plants!

I couldn’t stand it. I couldn’t STAND it. A dead lawn, and naked dirt. I felt like I was grocery shopping in a ratty bathrobe. I was ashamed.

So I found some blue sage on sale, and planted it around the edge of the bare dirt. I thought at least that I could look like I was planning on doing something there, but it just wasn’t happening yet.

it looks kinda nice.

Soon, I will shop for a peach tree.

news

Posted on by

So, the Wall Street Journal was bought by Rupert Murdoch.

I was against it, mostly because I did not want the paper to change, and it was a change.

Newspapers right now are having trouble. The publishers don’t know what to do about the internet, and all the other sources of news. So, they are losing audience and money.

In my town, we have a local paper. The Claremont Courier comes out twice a week and it really does focus on my city.

In Los Angeles, we also have the LA times. When I first moved here, I really liked the times. But it became unbearably smug and full of opinions instead of reporting. Phoo!

and I”m not the only one that is fed up with the LA times

It’s like LA wants to be New York. LA is it’s own self, and doesn’t need to imitate. If they would focus on our own area, and let other people cover the world, I bet that they might win back readers.

As a matter of fact, there is a local paper that is doing it the way I think the LA times should: The daily bulletin for the inland empire.

I got a copy yesterday, for something to read while eating lunch out. On the first page, they had a story about a rescued puppy. They have a food reviewer that reviews drive=thru food…Now, THAT”S where I live.

Nothing in the LA times seems to have anything to do with me. Oh, except maybe the movie schedule. But I can get that online.

And that’s part of the problem.

Stilettos-and I don’t mean the knife

Posted on by

So the Wall Street Journal did a fashion article about the spike heel.

Flats are this year’s much-hyped shoe trend, with sales of comfy shoes shooting skyward, according to retailers such as Nordstrom and Zappos.com. But those friendly flats tend to disappear at key moments — the biggest meetings, confrontations and transactions.

Yes…I noticed that. Flats are the new trend precisely because the Stiletto heel is really the new trend. Women who try to wear the spike heels are required the next day–maybe the next week– to take it easy with the flats. Sprained ankles and swollen fore-feet require a recovery period.

I won’t say I don’t love the stiletto. I admire the women who can wear them. I would…I would stomp around in 5 1/2 inch heels that could draw blood samples.

I just can’t. I don’t know if it is the lack of self-hatred or the lack of self-esteem that keeps me from working the righteous leather pumps until my feet can carry them effortlessly.

I will admire–out loud–the women I encounter with the heel mojo. “I love your shoes..I’m not enough of a women to dare wear things like that.”

They will give advice. Find the right fit, the right designer…

It’s quite possible that my problem is that I can’t seem to spend more than 25 bucks on shoes. I shouldn’t be surprised that they don’t feel like Nikes.

But the WSJ is talking about how high-powered women keep a pair of high-powered shoes around for when they need them:

“High heels indicate power,” says Stuart Weitzman, designer of many a power heel. “For some reason, it’s a natural instinct for human beings.”

This is partly a factor of height. At 5’9½ in bare feet, a pair of heels leaves Kristin Bentz, who runs a fashion-investment blog, towering over many men in a room. “I totally use the shoes for the intimidation factor — for women and for men,” she says.

Yet, as much as I’d like to argue that this is all about the added height, I’m afraid it’s not. High heels are sexy. They offer an inherent contradiction: They make us more fragile, but conquering them to stride alongside men in their sensible flats creates mystique.

MMm….all the things I would like to be. Sexy, Powerful, Intimidating…Don’t mess with me!

But it hurts to wear those shoes.

maybe that’s part of it. When a tall women walks into a room in her dangerous stilettos, maybe that’s what she’s saying:

“I eat you for breakfast. You think you scare me? I can take what you’ve got and feed the leftovers to my dog. You think you can hurt me?
Look at these shoes. You talking to me? There’s nobody else here but me.
You don’t know the meaning of pain.”

Yeah, that would be pretty intimidating.

They’ve figured out how to do botox to numb the face into smoothness.

When are they going to let us inject novocaine into our feet?

THAT’S when I’ll wear the heels.

Depending on Roads and Overpasses

Posted on by

I live in a desert.
IMG_1350

Asphalt and chapparal cover the earth that is my chosen homeland.

The chapparal will always win, but the asphalt is gaining territory.

North 605

It is getting vertical, too.

Layered like a cake, or like strata in archeology.

10 East at the 15 intersection (1)

Or stacked like firewood.
10 East at the 15 intersection

VERY stacked:
IMG_0936

I’m counting six layers of lanes in that intersection. Six seems to be the limit. I’ve never seen seven.

I live in a desert, so these overpasses are over earth.

But it shook me pretty badly when a bridge collapsed yesterday.

I couldn’t stop watching the news. My first thought was whether one of my favorite writers, James Lileks, was okay.

Lileks blogs the way I wish I did. He talks about his wife and a LOT about his daughter. I was very worried for him, and for his family. I imagined what sort of sadness it would be if one of them had been killed in this horrible tragedy.

For me, he was the personal face of Minnesota during this time. I couldn’t turn off the TV until he posted online and I knew he was okay.

The sad part is, there are other families that are not okay.

Trying to whistle in the dark, I said to Chris, “At least I don’t have to cross any bridges when I am driving around.”

‘Yes you do!” he said.

“Well, not over water.”

right. But if I fell through onto asphalt or chaparral, it would be even less forgiving than the Mississippi river.

I’ve admired the beautiful freeways and overpasses I travel for a long time now. But what are they hiding beneath their swooping exteriors?

I can look down, when I am traveling on the higher of the six layers, and think about what holds me up.
710 west at the 105

IMG_1334

IMG_1333_2

Or what keeps me safe as I travel under:
IMG_1009
IMG_0990

How safe am I?

My heart is with the Minnesota people. I hope the best for them.

why we became fat

Posted on by

Okay…I’ve been watching the show Mad Men. I’m loving how carefully they recreate the attitude of the early 60s.

And the clothes! Oh my gosh.

I love those clothes the ladies used to wear. They were so fitted and constructed.

There was a lot of architecture that went into a simple wool suit. And the underclothing they used to wear!

it was not comfortable, though. I mean, there was a reason that women burned their bras a few years later.

But it wasn’t just bras. We still wear bras now.

But we don’t wear the slips and camisoles and garters that were the uniform then.

and don’t forget:

the GIRDLE

I have never worn a girdle. I don’t think I’ve even ever SEEN a girdle. But I have heard stories.

These massively tight full-bum tourniquets that melded two cheeks into one derriere unit–those were worn every single day by women young and old.

thank god we are free from these.

But then I started thinking…America has recently been complaining about the obesity epidemic.

We were not so fat in the 60s.

I bet when we lost the girdle, we lost a bit of internal restraint.

When you’re wearing very tight elastic panties..WITH LEGS..you probably notice a lot sooner if you’ve gained a pound.

Who needs a scale if all day, every day, you are feeling the red welts of a too-tight girdle reminding you not to have a second bon-bon?

there is a connection…

2 years

Posted on by

today is the two year anniversary of my current job.

wow.

If I make it one more year…and right now I feel like I will…that will be the longest I’ve ever worked at one job.

but that’s a year away.

right now, I feel pretty good.

what a wonderful world

Posted on by

well, I’ve had lots of great thoughts that I wanted to put up on this blog over this last week and weekend.

But I’ve been working REALLY REALLY hard. And not getting much sleep.

“what has murphy been working on?”

well you might ask. You might ask. You didn’t, but I will tell you anyway.

There is a mighty website going to launch today. My nerd quotient had increased exponentially–LITERALLY EXPONENTIALLY–as i learned what i needed to learn to make it work.

ugh.

it will be up by the end of the day, if I have to pull the last few to-do items out of the mud on my own back.

but it will be up.

YAY!

you can check it here
www.1250ships.com

yes, okay. So that is what I’ve been doing instead of posting. Or sleeping. Or even bathing as frequently as is my custom.

phew.

But today, since I’m pretty much done with the herculean site raising, and since I’ve not quite gotten enough sleep, and also since my big curly brain is throbbing, I kinda feel like I’m in a stream of subconcious.

you know that feeling inbetween snooze button clicks? when you are likely to board any train of thought that passes by?

it’s all fine and good until I open my mouth. The censor is not at the gate, and inhibitions are down.

woo hoo! I ‘m happy!

…but still…perhaps i should stay in my cube and work on solitary projects today…

*giggle*

watching someone to watch

Posted on by

So, I’m watching CNN today as I am eating my banana and morning coffee. CNN is always on around here, because we have to have a source of video and audio to test with at any moment.

I think we watch CNN because we can’t seem like we’re having fun. CNN is boring, and when it’s not boring it’s horrifying. I half-seriously suggested we chip in our own money and get Animal Planet, because at least that is cheerful. Or maybe Home and Garden TV! We could decoupage the desks.

the suggestion was not recieved well.

Anyway, this morning, I was watching the recap of the sex scandal and then some blonde woman got up and was doing a press conference. I made a snarky comment “I guess Miss New Hampshire has to do something afterwards…”

I looked again and decided she was too skinny. “No, she’s the runner up.”

My co-worker said, “I thought they all became trophy wives.”

“NO! They all get together and form a coalition to start world peace.”

He gave me a look.

But the woman on the screen had started to interest me. She was not taking any garbage from the reporters.

I had to google her: Fran Townsend.

It turns out she rocks. She is in charge of the council on homeland security. And she deserves it! She had to work her way through school, and became a lawyer and then an Assistant District Attorney in Brooklyn and the got into Intelligence work for the Coast Gaurd. I added things up and figured out that she’s only 46!

How impressive.
“Fragos? That’s a horrible middle name to live down.”

Then I went to wikipedia.

“Wait no…That’s her maiden name. Her dad was Greek.”

So you know what else? She Orthodox like me! I love this lady.

So I looked up at the screen again and watched her in action. I couldn’t really hear what she was saying, but I could see she was in control of the room.

And then I saw it. She had not one, not two, but THREE earrings dangling from her ear! Oh yes, she did live through the 80s.

I’m a fan now. I hope she goes far.