it was not a dandelion.

There was an impromptu rainshower last night. It lasted all of three minutes before hastening off to another clime... it was as if you could hear a director shouting "cut, cut!" behind the scenes. Or like a singing telegram at the wrong person's house... oops! That's San Diego rain for you.

Anyway, we watched it speckle the pool's surface from our back door, just in time to see our downstairs neighbors across the way painting their walls a vivid Chinese Red. The last strip of the previous shade, a bright Coral Pink, was glossed over forever... fun to watch, indeed. And why were our neighbors painting their living room at one in the morning? Just 'cuz. Gosh!


Do you know what i do miss, though? The kind of weather that foxes get married in... When i first saw Akira Kurosawa's Dreams, years and years ago, i was so taken with that story. If i'm lucky, the day that i (if i) get married will be sunny and showering. Please watch this film if you haven't already.

Saw an "S" on the floor of a cafe last night, formed from a frayed and discarded piece of string– a broken shoelace, perhaps? The bike ride home graced me with a "c" (errant black tar spill), and an "m"– not sure about this one, it was probably a straw wrapper or something.
The prevalence of 'S's and figure eights that i find is starting to making me suspicious... i guess they are in that family of shapes that is just generally more likely to occur in nature (like 'V's, and 'T's, for whatever reason). i am also starting to wonder if i should quit reporting on these until i can get photos, which would make it all ever so much more interesting. But for truth's sake, i think i shall continue the chronicle. They are obviously not spelling anything out at this point, although at the beginning i have to admit that i thought maybe they were.
Is it going to be an anagram, then? Or do i fill in the blanks as i see fit? Do i have to wait until the end of my life to figure it all out? And what will it say?


In other news: there was a house, a tiny, skulking house which no person was ever seen walking in or out of, on Raymond Street, around the corner from us when we lived on Alcatraz Ave. This house's singular characteristic was a great gossamer mass of fluffy seed-puffs all over its frontice (yes, i just made up that word, go with it) and all over the monstrous prickly weedy plant in the yard beyond the sidewalk. They would adhere in teeming numbers to this sprawling mass of vegetation from which they (presumably) were spewed, which itself appeared to grow from directly beneath the house. It was weird because they never seemed to actually float away; to get anywhere to take root... it could very well be that this creeping plant was some sort of enchanted organism, designed solely to intimidate and reproduce, and that a Sleeping Beauty of sorts lay within the house itself, waiting to be awoken.
In any case, this choking mass of fluff would appear once a year, clinging quietly to the stucco, the brambles, the crabgrass. We used to walk by and delight in it... i would scoop up great big handfuls of the stuff and fling it into the air above our heads, where they would scatter, startled, and drift lazily down.... it always seemed like they were airborne for an exceptionally long time.
My greatest dream back then was to collect enough of these puffos and place them inside a giant makeshift snowglobe, which proved to be the project's main hindrance– could i find something big enough? Glass would almost certainly be too fragile at that size, but would plastic be pretty enough? And what would the scene be, inside this little world? A girl, playing in a huge meadow? A farmer, endlessly raking up pile after pile of them? A stretch of lonesome highway, depicting a Tumbleweed Attack? Or a simple snowscape, diaphanous and gentle? Could someone my size shake it? Should i go beach-ball sized and keep it tangible, or rent an entire storefront and use some sort of air funnel to keep them constantly in motion?

I never figured it out. Bummed about that to this day.

And i know that that house is still there, sitting quietly between its neighbors, not asking for anything or giving anything in return, except for this wonderful yearly crop. If anyone is ever on this particular block, it is a small, unassuming house somewhere on the west side of the street, and of course i can't remember which time of year it does it's thang- probably summer, but what do i know. Have fun. Hope you find it.


Leaving you with my favorite track from one of my favorite movies... Takes me right back to the glory days of youth. Until next time.

Carrot cupcakes: Success!

So, i got a great bicep workout grating another cup and a half of carrots, and this time everything went swimmingly. Didn't over-walnut the batter or overbake the cakes themselves. Had a little less maple syrup than i wanted for the frosting, so i added some vanilla extract and grated nutmeg on top. Not as maple-y as i would have liked, but still delish!

But seriously, enough about baked goods already, heather. Here's the really interesting thing i have to tell you all:

It snowed here in Las Vegas.

No, seriously.

If we had flown out here just two days earlier, our flight would have been canceled because McCarran International Airport was clooooosed. Four inches in the city itself! Six in Henderson, nearby! And it stuck to the ground! When our plane began its descent, the mountains surrounding Vegas (on three sides) were completely covered in white. It was a brisk 44 degrees when we got to my mom's house, and the backyard had a nice thick layer of snow on it! I'm sure her cactus garden was like, wtf? But they'll survive. And their little cactus memories will always have the frosty winter of '08 to remember.

So of course, Nat and i made snowmen, and i found out something very wonderful indeed: he had never made one before! His first snowman, and it happened in Las Vegas! Unbelievable... you know, last time he was here it was 120 degrees out, and windy, and we felt like we were in a convection oven every time we stepped outside. Truly bizarre.

Anyway, since my mom has a digital camera, i might be able to put some of the photos up here....



..so yeah! There's your proof positive. Mine is the small, silly-looking one, and Nat's is twice as big and strangely buxom. It was much fun. They lasted the night, and we decided that if they were still standing in the morning that my brother could kick them down. (we all really wanted him to.) So today, their demise came. Leaves flew, rock "buttons" fell to the ground, only rocks once more. i think this was a prelude to our trip up North. i know that all of us were feeling a little unprepared, but now we have been ushered in to the time of snow. Some of you out there are already living it, i'm sure. It's just been awhile for us :) Can't wait to see it falling, though. There is nothing quite like it.

Happy December to all.

p.s.) sorry about the weird formatting- we had some issues getting the pictures on.

failed: carrot cake cupcakes.

What a bummer, because i could tell these would have been mighty tasty. Plus, it's harder than you might think to grate 1 1/2 cups of carrots on the small side of the grater... well, you win some, you lose some. Maybe i'll wake up tomorrow and make them again? And this time i won't put in too much oil... grr! It's the maple-cream cheese icing that's really driving me, anyway; maybe i should just make that and call it a day (and grab a spoon).

So San Diego had a rainy day on Sunday. And everyone fairly panicked about it; tonight and tomorrow more rain is expected, and boy are the emergency crews preparing... for the rain. Seriously, rain! Sprinkles, even. Yeah, this is definitely gonna be the "fierce winter storm" they love harping about. ::cough:: not. These people should maybe cover the ice storms in the Northeast, maybe then they'd calm down a little.

Found an H and an x tonight. The first was a fall(en) twig, the second was a perfectly symmetrical shadow. Swear i'm gonna get a digital camera soon, then all of this will be a tad more interesting.

Must be inwardly freaking out about The Holiday Trip To See the Family- i've got horrible blemishes on my face, as if i were attacked by bees, or mosquitoes. WTF? This is like the time that Nat and i took our trip to Europe (in 2004). When we took off from Pittsburgh, i was a-okay, dermatologically speaking. 7 hours later, when we landed in London? Yeah, not so nice. i had the ol' pizza face, and all it took was a trans-Atlantic flight! Good times. (and probably bad genes- no offense, mom and dad.) It's a good thing i'm already extraordinarily un-photogenic, because these are sure to be doozies.

Anywho, enough with the vanity. Have you all heard about the hole in Earth's magnetic field? Pretty interesting. Always nice to be humbled by the awesome forces of the universe...

And, we finally watched The Happening last night. Been looking forward to it since it was first released. Ay, chihuahua- what a disappointment. I'm not ashamed to say that i've enjoyed each M. Night Shyamalayan film i've seen (although strangely, not Unbreakable, so much), and that my favorite so far was The Village. Go ahead, judge me. But The Happening was just too much, or rather, too little. The acting was atrocious (who knew that Zooey Deschanel was The World's Worst Actress?), the directing was obviously off, and the script was actually laughable.
Sample scene (vague minor spoilers, but really, who cares?):
Marky Mark: "Ask [your daughter] if anything has happened in Princeton."
Woman talking to daughter on cell phone: "Has Princeton been affected?"
Unseen daughter on other end: [unintelligible answer]
Woman: "She says everyone outside is dead! (sob)"
Daughter: [something else we aren't allowed to hear]
Woman: "honey, just stay in that room..."
Daughter: [blah blah blah]
Woman: "...don't open that door for no one..."
Daughter: [blah blah]
Woman: "..just stay near the window..."
Marky Mark: (what seems like five minutes later) "Wait, are you telling me that everyone is dead?!"

...And that was quite possibly the biggest delayed-reaction line delivery that i've ever seen. Awful, awful stuff. I'm not sure if this can really be conveyed through type. The cockeyed nursery guy was the best character, and the crazy old lady absolutely should have been the twist ending that we all wanted to badly. Instead, we get a weak affirmation of the silly hypothesis that's been floating around the whole movie, like a dandelion puff trying to catch soil and take seed. Boooooo.

Um, time to go! i think our last Netflix rental will be the Puppet Film of Jiri Trinka, just because i don't think i'm going to be able to find that anywhere else. Know what i'm sayin'?