Forward With Pants Held High

I'm tired of pulling my pants up all day so I don't walk on the cuffs. I took three pair of my dress khaki LL Bean pants to the tailor to have him sew on suspender buttons. Then I bought a pair of wide khaki suspenders from Amazon.com.  I am so together these days.

My Day

A cool grey day on the patio when I go out to read the paper.

The Distressed But Still Functional Eagle Rock Library

I rode my bike to the Eagle Rock branch library (that's my bike on the right with the green panniers) to pick up "Fighter," a book about the Battle of Britain by Len Deighton. So far it's pretty good in that it dispenses with the loyal band of brothers cliche in favor of a clear-eyed assessment.

This is a view of the library to the left of the entrance. The head librarian ordered yellow tape put around the bushes to keep the local homeless population from living in there (and sleeping upright in the library chairs during the day). I once stopped off at the library on my way home from Trader Joe's with a bag of food in my basket. I was only in the library for perhaps 2 1/2 minutes but when I came out my $15 bag of food was gone (crackers and cooked frozen chicken wings among other things). I was indignant at the thief and furious at myself at being so trusting. I jumped on my bike and rode up and down all the local streets trying to find the thief. It was only a week later that I realized that all the local transients I saw hanging out by the library were living in the bushes at night. I went back there and searched and found a matted Trader Joe's bag ground into the mud.

The homeless lived there for the better part of the year until the library finally kicked them out. I still see them around though (there is a service center for transients just half a block away) but I don't think they live any longer in the bushes.

If this had happened in Glendale, the homeless would never have been allowed to set up shop in the bushes right next to a building used by hundreds of kids every day. Glendale has so many cops, if someone gets pulled over for having a broken tail light or expired tag, in five minutes they have 5 squad cars at the scene.

Twenty years or so ago when Tom Bradley was mayor he failed to win a tax hike and closed all the libraries in the evenings out of pique. I always thought he did it to punish the voters for not increasing taxes. But most voters wouldn't notice the library closing now. It mainly serves as a safe place to go and hang out or study between the time school is out and their mom (not so many kids have dads these days in LA) gets home from work.

Nick's Cafe--Now I don't Have to Go Back Again

I had lunch at Nick's Cafe on North Spring Street. I can't see what the fuss is about. People want to make this ordinary greasy spoon into some LA tradition of cozy little off beat spots that nobody knows about except for the local cognoscenti who stop by when they need a simple but great breakfast or lunch. It's not so much that the food is bad here as that it's well . . . ordinary. Also it wouldn't hurt if the guy who wipes  the counters and sweeps the floor made a few more passes during the day.

My Neighbor's Oranges

 Cheerful little buggers

Decline of LA

I stopped off at my local golf course for a cup of coffee this morning. The place is falling apart. The cafe had no pie. The formerly well-stocked pro shop is now just a vacant storeroom for stacked up chairs. The baseboard was coming off the wall in the access corridor. I could see wood rot in the support beams outside. This is a municipal course and Los Angeles has no money for upkeep. It's like living in a third world country, which increasingly it is.

Life on the Patio When Spring Is In The Air

I went out on the patio bench this morning to read the LA Times (sigh), drink coffee and enjoy the warm sunshine. It went up to 88 today but Weather Underground tells me the temperature won't go above the sixties for the next week.

It upset Holly that I put the glass and aluminum patio table back out on the patio for the  year. I said "Hey, it's daylight savings time in 9 days. And spring is on the way." But even if we get only wet and cold what can that do to glass and aluminum? It could affect the canvas umbrella but that's easy enough to take down and put in the garage for another week.

When it's really cold in the morning I go into the back room and have my coffee there (much warmer than the kitchen because the sun is shining in). Best yet though is to sit on the patio. Even on a cold day it's warm in the sun and the fence keeps off any cold wind. 

This is Holly's cactus garden. Cheerful in the morning.

The other evening I saw the moon rising over my neighbor Gary's big pine tree. For some reason my camera though doesn't capture any details of the moon. It always shows up as merely a white disk--no craters. I assume the camera design (or my settings) cause this but I don't really know why. I think it has to do with the moon and sky being too contrasty. If the moon were dimmer the image would come out just fine.