I wanted to go out picture taking and made Nathaniel go with me. I was heading to a Cao Dai temple in Garden Grove, but spotted a restaurant sign I wanted to get a shot of, so we stopped to get it.
Then I noticed across the street an adult book store, so I made Nathaniel walk over to it with me.
Then next to it was another adult place called Spanky’s, which was so nice on the outside, it looked like a really cool restaurant. There was an old 40s cop car parked outside it:
Then we noticed some murals painted on the wall in the back of the parking lot:
Interesting.
On the way back to our car, I said, “Do you think it’s cool to have a mom that takes you to adult book stores to take pictures?”
I do. But I don’t usually realize I’m doing it. I do it when I’m alone. But I’ll do it in public, too–when I’m alone in public. If that makes sense.
After I say something to myself, I’ll realize I’m doing it, but that’s not enough to get me to stop.
When I was in high school art class, I’d talk to my paint, my paintbrush, my painting. It was a lot like that painter on PBS, Bob Ross, but I wasn’t consciously imitating him. I mean, I wasn’t saying stuff like, “Where does this tree live? This tree lives here, by this friendly little bush…” or whatever. It was more like, “You need paint on you. No, not that color, this color. Don’t go that way! Stay here!” My friend thought it was hilarious. I just knew it helped me concentrate.
My kids think I’m weird because I’ll talk to drivers in other cars when I’m driving. Like if we’re at a four-way stop, I’ll say, “You go, then you go, then I go.” Or if I’m changing lanes, “Stay where you are over there, I’m moving into this lane.” At first my kids were like, “You know they can’t hear you, right?” But now they think it’s my superpower. I can make other drivers hear what I say when I drive.
I’ve been doing this thing lately where I email a group of people and ask them to send me a song related to some theme. I compile them as a playlist and listen to it. One theme recently was songs about a specific (and real) location.
Daniel and I took a road trip up to Lake Arrowhead last week. I’d burned the location playlist to a cd, so I put it on. He kept asking who had sent which songs. Whenever a song that I had contributed myself came on, he always knew it was mine.
James Taylor: This is yours, isn’t it?
Yep.
John Denver: This is yours, isn’t it?
Yep.
He said, “I can always tell your songs because they’re the cheesy ones.”
Me: “They may be cheesy, but they make you feel good!”
Daniel singing along with the song, a few moments later: “Rocky mountain high, Colorado!”
I had one of those moments when I laughed so hard I was crying hysterically today.
The boys were telling each other stupid popsicle stick jokes. I love those and I can sometimes figure out the punchline because they’re such silly puns. The joke as I heard it was: What do you call a sleeping bowl?
To figure out the answer I usually start throwing together various possible answers to see if anything triggers the actual answer. I made the mistake of saying my first guess out loud: A snooze dish?
The boys started laughing because I heard the joke wrong. It was: What do you call a sleeping bull?
Oh, OK, a bull…A snoozing ox? They had me flustered from laughing at my snooze dish, so I just told them to tell me the answer:
A BULLDOZER.
Then we started telling each other silly jokes.
Me: Why did the cookie go to the hospital?
Elijah: Because it was feeling crummy.
Elijah: Knock knock.
Me: Who’s there?
Elijah: Orange.
Me: Orange who?
Elijah: Orange you glad I didn’t say banana?
Me: You did that wrong!
Nathaniel: It doesn’t matter, it still makes sense. I mean, aren’t you glad he didn’t say banana?
Me: Knock knock.
Elijah: Who’s there?
Me: Soup.
Elijah: Soup who?
Me: Superman!
Elijah: OK, that might be the best one so far.
Me: Knock knock.
Elijah: Who’s there?
Me: Moo.
Elijah: Moo who?
Me: Interrupting cow!
It was at that point that the laughing-till-you-cry commenced. I had totally gotten the joke wrong. The boys would not stop making fun of me for it, and I could not stop laughing. Daniel had missed it, so we had to explain it to him, but he wasn’t familiar with the interrupting cow joke, so first we had to tell him how it’s supposed to go, and then explain how I had messed it up. I mean, the boys had to explain–I was still laughing too hard.
Eventually Elijah said, “OK no more laughing–she’s going to die!”
I have a thing for certain numbers. I’ve never tried to put it into words before. This might make me sound completely bonkers, or completely autistic, but here I go anyway.
The number 0? Nah, not interesting to me. I know what you’re thinking–but it’s round, which is like a symbol for eternity, yet it actually represents nothing, nil, nada. That’s kind of interesting. But I see the number 0 and just don’t feel anything special.
The number 1? Also not that great. Unless it’s surrounded by other numbers in a pattern. I’ll get back to that idea.
But the number 2…Ah, 2. I love 2. It even sounds cute. It represents doubles. I love that. 2 is never lonely. And it’s even. Who doesn’t like to count by 2? But mostly I love it because it’s the only even prime number. 2 is special.
3? 3 is ok. Mostly just because it’s 3.
4 is another special one, though. Partially because it’s two 2s. Plus I was born on June 4th. But it’s just such a complete number. There are 4 sides to a square. 4 is just right, somehow.
Now 5. 5 has always been a big favorite of mine. 5 and 7. And I don’t even know why…something about the way it looks. And maybe the way it sounds. There’s a band called 5ive and I love that name. When I was young I was really disappointed when I figured out June was the 6th month and not the 5th. I really wanted my birthday to have a 5 in it.
So 6? Yeah, another blah number.
7. Lucky 7. It’s always been my favorite. Who doesn’t love 7? 7 is bliss.
8, 9 and 10? Pfft. Boring. Well, 10 is ok, because it’s two 5s.
As for teens…well, 13 is cool, being unlucky and all. 14 I love, because it’s two 7s. Plus, because 13 is considered unlucky, there are a lot of floors in buildings that are numbered 14 when they’re actually the 13th floor. I love that. The hospital my oldest son was born in had the labor and delivery unit on the 13th floor, but they called it the 14th. I noticed in the elevator on the way up when I was in labor that the numbers skipped 13.
15 is cool because there’s a 5 in it.
When I’m out taking pictures, I’m always drawn to address numbers, especially if they’re cool somehow. Like this one.
12345, just not in the right order. Did I mention that 12:34 is my favorite time of day? So you know I had to shoot this:
Also:
And how much do I love this building?
I love to see repeating numbers:
I would have liked that photo more if it’d been 313, or 1313. The other day I saw some address numbers on doors that read like this:
1312 1313 1314
I took a picture but it didn’t come out, dang it.
Even numbers that I don’t particularly feel are special, if you get them in a repeating pattern, I love them:
On one of our trips to Vegas we stayed in this room:
I had the girls I teach Sunday School to over for a pizza/swim party. I did a photo scanvenger hunt that they enjoyed–I had them fill out a goofy questionaire before the party, things like would you rather eat strawberries or pizza, what’s your favorite movie, etc. Then I used their answers to make up the scavenger hunt things they had to take pictures of.
After the party I used the pictures to put together a little presentation about the girls. It was fun.
They didn’t make the connection between the questionnaire and the photos so it was a surprise. I was sneaky–one girl said her favorite book was A Series of Unforunate Events, so on three of the photo lists, I had “take a picture of something bad happening.” They were creative too–one girl took a picture of another girl being pushed down some stairs, another did a picture of someone choking, and another did a picture of the other girls falling into the pool. It was funny. I showed them the finished result in class and they got a kick out of it.
I also have a little underwater plastic camera that I let them use. They got some cool pictures of each other under the water, but I doubt their parents would appreciate me posting them on the Internet. So here’s one I took of myself to finish off the roll–I held the camera under the water and took a picture of me peering down into the water from above.
It’s been hot here yesterday and today–so hot I actually got in the pool yesterday. Although my swimsuit is too big (I’ve lost weight since last time I wore it) and Daniel had to sew the straps together so it wouldn’t come off in the water. Of course hot for us means anything in the 80s–it stays pretty mild where we live, we’re close enough to the beach.
Someone who shall remain nameless sent me the first two seasons of 21 Jumpstreet on dvd for my birthday. My son Elijah and I have been watching it together. I love bad TV. He does too. Yet he won’t watch Miami Vice with me, only 21 Jumpstreet. I think I raved a little too much to him about what an influential show Miami Vice was. You rave about anything to Elijah and he’ll immediately dislike it. He’s like his father that way.
So, can you guess the address of Johnny Depp’s apartment in the show? He lives in unit 222.
I was stoked when I saw that. Cuz I always take pictures of any addresses I see that are 222. Here’s the most recent, an old car dealership or something in downtown Long Beach:
This is a building in downtown Santa Ana:
And a building on one of my fave streets in downtown LA, Winston Street:
Did you notice the bird?
Couple more shots of it:
What cracks me up about that place is that it’s in the Toy District. Looks more like Skid Row, doesn’t it. Well, it’s Skid Row, too. The Toy District is basically in Skid Row. Wanna take your kids shopping for a cheap stuffed animal? Let’s go!
I re-watched the movie The Soloist recently, because I’ve become way more familiar with downtown LA since the first time I watched it, and Winston St is where the homeless guy sleeps in the movie. There’s a funny part where he says he doesn’t like to sleep on Wall St, because it’s too dirty–it’s funny because everyone associates Wall St with NYC and the bankers there. But in LA, Wall St is in Skid Row. Is it dirtier than Winston? I don’t know, Winston gets pretty dang dirty.
21 Jumpstreet is interesting to watch now. I don’t remember it being such a socially conscious show. The first season is all spent with the characters undercover in various high schools, which is the entire premise of the show, right? But the second season, they start tackling all these important social issues–teen pregnancy, racism, AIDS, and it’s kinda funny. Except there’s not a whole lot of undercover work going on. There’s even a Valentine’s Day episode–which entails all the male characters playing a poker game and sharing stories of their worst dates of all time. Yes, you read that right. It’s the only episode so far I haven’t made it the entire way through.
It’s fun to see some of the guest actors that have since gone on to bigger things too. None of which I can remember right now…But don’t worry. We’re about two episodes away from the Brad Pitt episode. Gonna be awesome.
