Iowahawk documents his wild weekend in LA, including the soiree in Hollywood with your’s truly. Playboy bunnies, lots of playboy bunnies, are involved.
Category Archives: General
Another Good Thing About LA Living
Pippin apples. I could never find them in Florida, and they’re my favorite. Tart, crispy, and they make great pies. No need to add lemon. Or at least not as much. I’m munching on one as I type this.
Also, Bevmo. For years I’ve thought that there was a market for varietal apple juices and ciders. And lo and behold, this weekend I scored a six-pack of Granny Smith cider, 5% alcohol content. Better than beer for watching a fall football game.
Trapped
We’ve had critters in the yard in Redondo Beach for the past seventeen-plus years that we’ve owned the house. The ones that we’ve seen (besides squirrels and birds) were mostly possums (including a juvie that wandered into the house one day that was a chore to catch, and one that died out in the yard by the spa and smelled to high heaven). Back when I had a backyard artificial stream running, we heard a growl out the bedroom window one night, back in the nineties, and we shot a flashlight out to see a couple masked faces looking back at us.
When we moved in a couple weeks ago, the new next-door neighbors told us that they thought we had a raccoon nest somewhere, and we heard animals running around on the roof at night.
I called animal control, who told me that I could borrow a trap, with a deposit, but they didn’t have any available, because there was a waiting list. They also said we could call a private trapper. So I did. The first night, he left four traps, and we got a possum. The second night we caught two neighborhood cats. He came by yesterday to release the cats, and take the possum to release it in the wild (somewhere up in the Santa Monicas). The traps were reset and baited (with cat food), and this morning, we had the coon above, and another possum.
Where there’s one coon, I’m guessing there is at least one more, judging from the sounds on the roof. Unfortunately, we’re starting to run up a tab, because he charges fifty bucks per visit, and a hundred per animal taken away. I’m thinking that I should just buy my own traps at this point.
[Evening update]
Between the coons, possums and cats, maybe I should just get some more traps, and set up a neighborhood menagerie. I could charge admission to the kids. I imagine there’s some RB zoning law against it, though.
[Update a few minutes later]
I just checked prices on line, and traps are less than a hundred bucks each, including shipping. I think that’s the way to go before I pay him any more, assuming that Animal Control will come get my catch.
[Monday morning update]
Got another coon last night. I think I’m going to call it quits for now, and if the problems continue, I’ll do it with my own traps. This wasn’t in our budget.
An Existential Question
This is a sign I saw on the road from Las Cruces to Tucson.
So. What does it mean?
Is it a description of what might be? That there is a possibility of dust storms? Here, and now, but not other wheres or whens? Or is it (as we were reprimanded by our mothers or English teachers) simply an expression of permission for dust storms to exist? By whom? Our betters in Santa Fe, or Phoenix? These are state-sanctioned dust storms? And they’re not permitted elsewhere?
Or is it more of a Heisenbergian deal? That dust storms simultaneously both exist and don’t exist, and which is the case is determined only when one collapses the wave function by driving down the road to Lordsburg?
I’ll never know for sure, of course, but I can say that I never saw a dust storm on the trip.
Next up (or perhaps other things in between) — a road sign that I liked a lot more, on the American autobahn. There are a few things that the Germans got right.
The Division Series Is Underway
It wasn’t planned that way, but the schedule of Detroit and Minnesota worked out such that the last meeting of the season for both teams is a shoot out for the title. Going into it, Minnesota had to win three out of four to win, while Detroit only needs to win half the games. You’d think that would be good news for the Tigers (and a win would be a morale boost for the benighted Michigan residents, with the highest unemployment rate in the nation, albeit of their own making, due to poor political choices over the decades). But the momentum is with the Twins, who are on a hot streak, while Detroit has been slumping, particularly at bat. Their pitching staff has been great, but they haven’t gotten the runs they need to win, which is why they were separated by only two games going into the series this weekend, dropped from a seven-game lead early in September.
They were rain postponed last night, so today was a double header, and their unfortunate trend continues. They lost the first game this afternoon, 3-2 (again, can’t really blame the pitching staff). If the Twins sweep, they only need one more win, tomorrow or Thursday, to win the division. The Tigers would still be the wild card, but if they can’t win this series, there’s not much chance they can do the job when they have to win the league title, and then the championship. As a Tigers fan, I sure hope they can at least split today. As I type this, they’re up one to nothing.
Bill Safire, RIP
And remembering the great speech he wrote a little over forty years ago that fortunately never had to be given.
Been Holding Off On A Wii Purchase?
The price has dropped to two hundred bucks
Wisdom
…from Lileks:
Love and laughter are like water; you need them to live. And they run through your fingers no matter how tightly you cup your hands.
And the flow increases over time.
Appropriate Name
And now for something completely different: a near-miss for the Darwin Award. A man who was shocked and burned chasing a rabbit. His last name was Asher.
As is often the case, the Freeper comments are quite entertaining.
An End Of A Personal Era
There may not be a lot of posting over the next couple weeks. There are a lot of changes coming up in our lives, some good, some bad, but mostly (I think) good.
For the first time in over a decade, we’ll both be living, at home, in LA, and with a semi-normal schedule — getting up early, going off to work, and coming home at night. Patricia has a real job (something that I should have) that will require that. No more seeing each other only on weekends, no more wondering where each of us will be over the next month, no more having a cat who doesn’t understand why mom or dad are absent for days or weeks.
For the first time in over a decade, we won’t be watching tropical waves coming off of Africa with personal concern.
Way back in 1998, she moved to San Juan, and we started to have to worry about hurricanes. We got a break from that in 2002, when she came back and worked in Reno, then Milbrae, then (very briefly) in LA, then got transferred to south Florida, where we once again had to not only worry about, but deal with hurricanes, when I actually drove a car out here, knowing I was driving out to help get ready for Frances, back in 2004.
In another week or so, almost exactly five years later, I’ll be driving the same car back to California, again in the heart of hurricane season.
When I drove out, once I left El Paso, or a few hundred miles east, I left the mountains behind. I left the west behind (even though I know that many consider central Texas the west, despite its lack of scenery, mountains or cactus). I left it with regret.
Driving back west again in the same car, will be very cathartic.
I’ve always loved the west. I read about it voraciously as a kid, from Dennis the Menace to Mark Twain, and once I visited as a kid, over forty years ago, I was hooked. I can’t wait to get back, despite the dysfunctionality of the California government. The geography, the history, the people of California, I hope will overcome the current disastrous state. The state of California has always bounced back. I hope that it will do so again.
But if it doesn’t, I have property there, so I have to delude myself anyway…
In any event, I am going to enjoy the trip, in exactly the converse of the way that I disenjoyed the trip east, despite the fact that I was (bittersweet) driving to my darling Patricia. This time, I’m driving home, with all its flaws. And I won’t miss Florida. There is nothing that I will miss about Florida, except the new friends that I met here, and the thunderstorms. Those, are golden, all, and I will miss them much. But all we can do is say our goodbyes this weekend, and enjoy our new life, back home.