Effusive Valentine

I thought about using this picture for Zen Monday, but apparently that thought has crossed my mind before.

I decided not to make fun of this house, though, or these people. I think they just love their holidays. I don't know if I'd want to be their neighbor, but it's better than gang members hanging out on the front porch. (Always looking on the bright side, that's me.)

So, happy Valentine's Day to you. Some people hate this day. I did, when I was single. But I love you! Isn't that enough?

Yeah. I know.

To Everything,

(turn)
It happened late one night. We all dashed out of our houses to discover what had made the creak, crash, boom.

(turn)
I guess the tree got old and gave up. I'm 5'4" tall. When I stand next to this, it comes up to my shoulder.

(turn)
It was nice, all of us outside in the night, chatting, wondering, exclaiming, grateful no property or person was damaged when the giant tree came down.

We miss the tree. Our neighbor who loved it in her front yard got a mountain of firewood. But she misses the tree most of all.

A new season awaits a new tree.

Outgrown

Looks like somebody got too big for this small, sweet house in Northwest Pasadena.

I haven't outgrown anything lately, although I may have to give up a favorite pair of shorts if I'm not careful. You get to a point, eventually, where you stabilize. If you are careful, that is.

It is to be hoped we are referring only to our physical size here, not the size of our willingness--to listen, for example, or to learn, or to just be open to what's next.

Baked Feet

I took this photo for no other reason but the light in the window from the late-day sun.

I got the shot yesterday--walked too far to get it, wearing the wrong shoes, and now my feet hurt. It's a good enough excuse to stay home today and write, something I often feel I don't have enough time to do. (And I always feel like I don't get enough writing done.) Boz will get a shorter walk this evening, which he won't mind. I think his feet hurt a little bit, too.

Our new neighbors move in today. Boz and I will take them some store-bought scones. (I trust our toes can make it across the street and back.) Don't scold me for not baking; nobody wants homemade baked goods from me, they taste like old sweaters, or dog feet, or the wrong shoes.

Serene Sunday

I was going to say I hope you have a serene Sunday planned. But that's presumptuous of me, isn't it? Maybe that's not what you want. Maybe you're heading out to the NASCAR races or off to fly a jet. Perhaps you're participating in a rodeo today or you'll be entering your first boxing match, and serenity is the last thing you need.

Have at it, I say. I'll be sitting it out.

Please do come back tomorrow, if you survive. To commemorate Zen Monday #200, there will be prizes. For whatever.

PB Phone Home

First picture taken with my new iPhone. I guess I'm not the only one who thinks it's Christmas.

So my brother called yesterday while J. and I were hiking out of cell phone range. When we got back into range and I saw the message I thought, "I know! I'll call him back!"

Yeah. I'm crazy that way.

You've got to have a phone--or at least I do. Yet since last year, when my phone began its downhill slide to iHell, I've put off buying a new one. We're having a recession over here and I'd rather save money for a vacation than spend it on a phone.

But it was getting ridiculous. John's tired of hearing about how slow the phone is, how bad the service is, how I can't download new apps because the operating system is too old. There's a tiny pocket of space in my office where I could make a phone call if I leaned sideways and didn't move my head, but mostly I've been going out to the median to make calls.

Yesterday, even that option was no longer available. When I stood by the road and tried to return my brother's call, my poor old iPhone decided not to be a phone anymore.

So I got a new one. And a new carrier (yahooey! that's a biggie). Then I called my brother. (The smiley face goes here.)

Zen Monday: #186

Let's face it: Zen Monday doesn't have anything to do with Zen, not really. Except maybe today.

Zen Monday is the day you tell us what the photo's about, rather than me telling you. Please share your insights in the comments.

Bungalow Court, 1

Pasadena is said to be the birthplace of the Bungalow Court. A lot of these babies were born here. And they're not only in Bungalow Heaven, or Orange Heights, or other historic neighborhoods. They're all over town.

Sweet, huh? You're packed in a little tight, but that's added incentive to be kind to your neighbors.

Tree Story House

We complained about losing thousands of trees when hurricane-force winds hit Pasadena November 30th, but we didn't lose every tree in town. In fact, most of them are still here. It's not that we exaggerated the loss. It's just that Pasadena had so many trees to begin with that although losing so many was painful, we still live in a blessed urban forest.

Boz and I passed this giant on our dog walk yesterday evening. The tree dwarfs its yard partner, making it look like a tiny tree house.

Sometimes when I'm walking--okay, always when I'm walking--I glance through gates into back yards and, if the curtains are open, I peer into windows. It's part nosiness, absolutely. But mostly it's like looking at the pictures while reading a fanciful storybook. I peek at a world I don't know. I imagine what it's like to live inside that story.

Boz doesn't fantasize. He's strictly a non-fiction dog. But I'm sure I'm not the only one who does this.

I couldn't see into this house. Like a treehouse, it's raised over the sidewalk on a yard of ferns, heightened above the everyday like fiction itself. But the golden light from the windows was enough.

Movie Star Home

Hell of a back yard, isn't it?

I'm not sure why I find this house compelling except it looks like something from a movie. A scary movie, maybe. Can't you picture it all lit up at night? Or maybe we'll keep the sun and have some naked hipsters dancing on the deck, like in a Blake Edwards film set in the swingin' seventies (wasn't there such a scene in "10"?).

That big window faces east. Could get pretty warm in there in the morning, which is perfect if you're a naked hipster. Not too scary for the neighbors, either, because it's isolated enough that nobody can see in unless they want to make the effort to climb the hill and peek. In that case, if they see anything scary, they asked for it.

Chapter 3, Stained Glass

Inside the big old house we've been visiting this week there's a big old stairway. Someone painted it once--or probably more than once.

The light likes the paint.

A close look at this glass makes me wonder if it's original to the house. Would these be 1896 colors? They look psychedelic to me.

This window is more convincing as an original, with rippled glass even in the stained parts. But it's all guesswork on my part. For all I know, the windows were all put in in 1986.

Except this. Here's the door to the sleeping porch. It's in a tiny hallway all its own, peeking north. Right now it's hard to reach because it's in a part of the house Jim hasn't gotten to yet, at least not entirely.

Jim and Cybele are a busy couple with careers, interests and a baby boy. They may or may not ever finish with all the plans they have for the place but it doesn't matter. The house will wait.

Much thanks to Jim and Cybele for this delightful visit.

One of the Oldest, chapter 2

Inside the house pictured yesterday, nearly every room is a work in progress. Yet a young couple and their baby live active lives here. It reminds me of one of my favorite words: palimpsest.

Wikipedia concisely describes a palimpsest as "a manuscript page from a scroll or book from which the text has been scraped off and which can be used again." An old home is like that--each room a chapter, erased when one family moves out, then scraped clean, then written on again when a new family moves in.

The husband bought the house ten years ago. It was a wreck and he got the place cheap. Cheap is relative, of course. He put on a new roof and a new foundation. He redid the plumbing and wiring. That was just to make it livable.

But there are treasures here. The original kitchen tiles. The fireplace. The archways. The tiny hallway connecting two upstairs rooms like a secret passage. Yesterday Pascal Jim spotted the sleeping porch with a view of the mountains. Tomorrow I'll show you the stained glass.

Tucked away in a dark corner, years peel away in layers to reveal an early chapter of the kitchen's palimpsest: a pattern of the linen that once graced the walls.

This Oldest House

About a year ago I posted a picture of the front porch of this house. I did so because I loved the scruffy old door.

Scruffy no more. Same door, shined up nicely, with new old hardware from one of my favorite stores, Gayle's Pasadena Architectural Salvage.

The whole place looks a bit more dapper, doesn't it? What a difference a year makes.

I met the homeowners and they gave me a tour. They may not realize how much progress they've made in a year, but I hope they can see it here. There's much work still to be done yet much worth to be had in this house. It's one of Pasadena's oldest homes, circa 1896, though no one's exactly sure what year it was built.

Over the next few days I'll tell you more, with pictures.

Victorian Pile

Someone once asked me for a photo of a Victorian mansion, as opposed to the usual Pasadena Craftsman. A "Victorian pile," I think she said. Pasadena has them, but the fanciest ones are behind fences and foliage, hard to photograph without trespassing or at least being downright rude.

But wait. How many times have I driven by this place on Marengo? Not fancy but huge, and gorgeous in the way a tattered, vintage nightgown might be. It's got "former glory" written all over it. Nathaniel Hawthorne himself would have drooled.

At first I thought no one lived in it.

I was wrong.

Pic of a Twit

When I was a kid, my nickname was Tweeter.

Please don't laugh, but yesterday I finally figured out how to upload a photo to Twitter using Twitpic. The first time I looked at Twitpic I must have been distracted or upside-down or sleep-walking, because it's about as easy as an application can be. Yesterday I cleared my desk and sat down with a cup of coffee, determined to figure it out, and it was like figuring out how to open an envelope.

This is the photo I posted. I hope you don't mind me posting it again here. I don't know if most of you follow me on Twitter. (There's a little birdie button over there on the upper left if you should choose to do so.) Even if you follow me, the chances that you were on at the moment I posted the picture are so slim that I don't mind posting it again.

I took the shot from my antique iPhone. My thought when I saw this was, I hope I never have to choose between natural light and bookshelves.

You know, when I was a kid, besides the fact that we
had no windows
or bookshelves,
walked to school ten miles in the snow,
made our own toys,
slaughtered our own chickens,
churned our own butter
and
made our own clothes out of burlap bags,
"twit" was something you called someone you thought very little of.

But I was Tweeter which, as I remember it, was quite another thing.

Zen Monday: #133

Some Mondays are more Zen than others.

Please experience the photo and tell us, in the comments, what you've learned.

(Your first Zen Monday? Tell us what the photo makes you think of. There's no right or wrong, no prizes. Just have fun.)

Zen Monday: #132

Students of Zen are taught through experience. Or so I'm told.

Please experience the photo and tell us, in the comments, what you have learned.

(Your first Zen Monday? Just have fun.)

Sugar Water

I love the pergola and whatever's growing on it. It's a nice way to shade a porch. I didn't think I'd like the lion but he grows on me. Not crazy about the other statue, but that's a personal choice. The bougainvillea is gorgeous. I have two of them that look like weeds. Occasionally they pop off a sallow bloom.

I don't know if the feeders are working. I did not see bird one.

Home Shopping: To the Rescue

John saw an article in the Pasadena Star-News about an unincorporated area of Pasadena called Michillinda Park. A group of neighbors there is trying to save a vintage Craftsman house. We decided to drive over and have a look.

Michillinda Park is a lovely, historic neighborhood where peacocks graze on the median. Too bad it's unincorporated because that means there's no historic preservation ordinance and anyone who has the money can buy one of these...

...and tear it down to put in one of these.

To better illustrate my point, here's a panorama John made of these two houses:

I recommend you click the panorama to enlarge it. It looks like the two houses aren't next to each other, but they are. The reason the McMansion on the right is so much brighter than the Craftsman on the left is that there are no trees in the McMansion front yard. I wonder why, when all the old houses on the block have mature trees in their yards.

Click on the photos in the Star-News article. The house the neighbors are trying to save is a beauty. And the only way to save it is to find a buyer within a week.

Plus I sure hope someone finds that rodwiller.

Update 2/25/11:
According to the Pasadena Star-News, the house will be moved instead of demolished. Not great. A McMansion will be built in its place.

Fantasy Office

When you wander aimlessly, you find the prettiest surprises.

One gray day a couple of weeks ago when I was snooping killing time, I found this pergola right smack dab in the front yard of a house near Caltech. I'd like to have a pergola just like it in my back yard, with wisteria trailing over it and chaise lounges lazing underneath. I imagined wifi, but making the back yard into an office is the opposite of my fantasy. Then again, it would be a hell of a nice office.

What's your fantasy workspace?