L.A. Pictures

.......aaaaand then life happened. But if you've ever had vertigo then you'll believe I had a good excuse for not getting these up before now. Anyway, here they are, the snaps from L.A. Nothing terribly thrilling, but proof that I was really there:

- The gluten free, dairy free bakery!


- The Hollywood sign as seen from my friend's neighborhood. (It's in there, I swear - on the hillside.)


- At a stoplight on Rodeo Drive (I couldn't resist).


- Much to my mother's chagrin, this was the only photographic evidence I produced that I myself was actually in L.A. Sorry, Mom.

Spring has truly sprung.

Happy April Fool's Day!

I gave up trying to play practical jokes before I was ten, because my big brother was always a million times better than me and it just didn't seem worth the effort. Fittingly, that same brother's birthday happens to be the first of April. Happy Birthday, big bro!

Instead of failing at pranking people, I spent today enjoying the extraordinarily (for NJ in early April) gorgeous weather. I drove the long way out into farm country and walked in a few different parks and gardens, just enjoying the fresh air and the warm sunshine. The blooming flowers didn't hurt, either.

I sometimes forget during the winter just how much of an outdoor person I am, but one of my favorite things in all of life is feeling the air and the sun on my skin. (Through some kind of SPF-ified lotion, of course, since I go from ghost to lobster in approximately twelve minutes.) Days like today, with its perfect weather, make it crystal clear to me why our religions and myths so frequently include rising-from-the-dead allegories for the return of spring.

Instead of attempting to describe just how glorious today was, I'm just going to show off some of my photos. I'm pretty pleased with how they turned out - I think they do a decent job of capturing the day's beauty. Maybe someday I'll even upgrade from my point-and-shoot....

That's Just Like a Vacation, Right?

Apologies for being MIA for more than a whole week! A dreadful sin in the blogosphere, I know. My excuse is that I was out of town, and too busy taking in a new city to sit back and reflect on much of anything. Now that I'm home I can share a few thoughts about (or inspired by) the trip:

• Southwest Airlines is lovely, but the way to "like where you sit" is NOT to "sit where you like." Give your sloganeers a pat on the back, and then find some other way of boarding people quickly without screwing us over. Thanks.
• Any city that has a coffee shop that serves a spicy vegan chocolate chocolate chip cookie (and a really good cup of coffee) is okay by me.
• Trees are nice. Grass is nice, too.
• A lake can be almost like an ocean, if you don't swallow any of it, and if you ignore the fact that you can see the other side.
• Long Island is REALLY big.
• I like nice people.
• I want a tiny house with its very own vegetation, within walking distance of civilization.
• Major corporations are the devil, but small-ish chains that make a strange city feel more like home might not be quite so bad.
• Motels are the most miserable places on earth. The free wireless access is necessary so the guests don't all drown themselves in the indefinably sketchy swimming pool.
  Time should be allowed, in life, for both varieties of vacations: the kind where you go somewhere new and run around like crazy trying to Maximize Your Time, and the kind where you go somewhere - probably somewhere familiar - and just become as much like a piece of furniture as possible for some amount of time. People call the first a vacation, but after trying to See And Do an entire city in 2.5 days, I'm really not sure it should count.

* photo(s) to be posted very soon *

Technically Spring

The vernal equinox was three days ago, and today almost felt like spring: it felt, really, like winter hasn't quite given up yet but spring is fighting to get in the door. It was warm in the sun. It seemed like a good day to get out the camera: