screen door (non) up-date

my hope of hiring my carpenter neighbor to install the door has come to naught. i think i'm gonna start asking in the construction dept. at work. this has been stupid for years now.

harumph.

in other news: just ran into my pal, yuri, down at catering. he's a background actor in a couple of scenes today. bonus!
snack of note: mango flan! turkish coffee

so long, farewell...

i consider it a mission. a task.

in an effort to not outgrow my apartment, i've been working on culling stuff from my belongings. stuff i don't use.
been working on it slowly, steadily for about a year. there are a couple areas of stuff that have been difficult: 1: music, 2: clothes
i'm not a fashion plate by any means, but i tend to keep clothes for ever. last night i was wearing coveralls i've had at least 10 years. last week, a sweater i bought at a thrift store when i was in high school.

this brings me to these t-shirts. the black one is from an FM rock station i listened to when i was in jr. high and high school. the back of the shirt says, "stick it in your ear."i cut the sleeves off and the neck out. i wore it to tennis practice in high school. and probably to the mall when i wanted to look cool (because sometimes my nazareth t-shirt was in the wash.)
the mottled, beige looking shirt is a 1982 cheap trick tour shirt. my mom poured bleach on it, not knowing it was in the washing machine. that's how it got it's color (this is NOT the only article of clothing that fell to this fate: my first 501's, my favorite yellow striped shirt. at a certain point i began doing all my own laundry for this reason). cut the sleeves and neck out of this one, too. back then, everything was cut for guys and had high necks: i cut the necks out of all my t-shirts.
i got the cheap trick shirt at a concert in hayward with my friend, patty sparkman, who had never seen the band before. (science fact: this was in the non-tom-peterson/ jon-brant days {see inset}).

there is a pic of me wearing this shirt, pre-bleach, in my sophmore yr. yearbook.

so. two weeks ago i took these shirts out of the "shirts in limbo" pile with the intent of either cutting them up for dusting cloths or throwing them in the trash.

they got as far as my sewing desk, where they still sit.

by the end of tonight, they will be in the bag of former shirts now in the service of wiping the dust off surfaces in my apt.

maybe.

SCREEN DOOR MACH II

brief update: the screen is mended, paint is re-touched, and is now back leaning in the kitchen door jamb awaiting proper installation. it will happen!! tomorrow i'm calling a shop in hollywood that installs doors. if it's not prohibitively expensive, i'm gonna make an appointment and get this show on the road! WOO, DAMMIT!
{this shot was taken after the torn screen was removed and paint touch-ups were in progress}

for the record:
beer of note: deschutes brewery, mirror pond ale
snack of note: trader joe's nuts about raspberries and chocolate trail mix

why i didn't see grant-lee phillips on saturday.

saturday morning i drove up to the greek theatre to buy some tix for a show. turns out the box office there is closed for the season. so. decided to use the out and about early on a saturday momentum to visit the DMV to replace my stolen (grr) car registration sticker. had to stop by the apt to look up the saturday hours. the information i found on their website stated that saturday DMV hours have been discontinued b/c of california's budget, which has yet to be set.

now. i remember that i can get this DMV service at AAA, so i head out. from the time i pulled out of my drive way, to the time i was pulling out of the AAA driveway: 45 min. done! easy!

back at the homestead i worked on a few things including the Never Ending Screen Door Project.

yes! (for those of you familiar with said screen door, it is, at present, lying on the floor of my dining room, torn screen and moldings removed, fresh coats of paint covering the scratches and dings from The Incident {sigh})

decided to walk to kaldi cafe in atwater. it's a great walk that takes me around the reservoir on rowena, over hwy 5 and the los angeles river. i really wanted to see the state of the river after two days of heavy rain.

armchair birder note: no birds on the reservoir. hmm. there was a flock of what looked like geese on the bank of the river. it was a bit far from the hyperion overpass to see.

at kaldi i had a rich americano, sat outside and read some roy blount. it was cool, but not raining and the sky was full of dramatic cloud formations. when it got too cold to stay out i got another americano and headed to the little knittery. .

i hung out there, did some knitting, chatting. when i got up to leave it was about 6:30. as i put on my sweater i looked out the window: downpour. i reflected on the decision i'd made hours before to wear a fleece jacket, instead of a rain jacket. to carry a wool bag, not a nylon backpack. to wear hiking shoes instead of my impervious muck boots. to bring my dinner-plate sized travel umbrella instead of my full sized, morton's salt girl umbrella.

when i headed home from atwater on foot, it was pouring rain. this was the heaviest rain i've ever walked in. and i lived for six years in humboldt county without a car. i've logged a lot of time walking in the rain. as i was walking over the hyperion bridge back to los feliz huddled under my umbrella, a car drove by, through the rain running down the gutter of the overpass and DRENCHED me. instantly. it felt like someone threw a bucket of water at my back. i turned to look down the road and saw the traffic light change, and watched two lanes of traffic headed my way.

it felt like someone was hurling buckets of water at my back in 2 second intervals for the next 2 minutes. a couple times, i put my umbrella down to cover my back, but it was raining so hard my head was getting soaked.

i was able to keep my head, and therefore headphones dry, so at least i could listen to music as squished home. there is never a bad time to hear ray charles.

when i got home i went straight into a hot shower. just out of the shower: lightning. decided to stay in, listen to some sarah vowell's "partly cloudy patriot" and continue on my crafting jag.

beer of note: mendocino brewery's eye of the hawk
snack of note: trader joe's mini dark choc. covered graham crackers.

i did miss grant-lee's little room show. again. dammit.

photo is of me during happier rainy times: june 2004, bonnaroo. pic taken by suzie. :)