Fast Fiction

This entry is my 203rd post. I probably should have put up sometime when I hit the more notable milestone post of 200, but in reality, 203 is more impressive because, well, it’s three more.

Take all of that for whatever it’s worth. Which ain’t much.

First of all, why isn’t there a cent sign on the standard keyboard? Was inflation so high when the computer came out that they just dumped it, leaving it in alt-shift nowhere land?

But I digress.

Robert Daeley at Celsius 1414 has a cool post. Go read it.

I’m a day late but I wasn’t feeling exactly inspired to answer this week’s LA Blog’s LA Insight. This weeks edition calls attention to the heat and what we do to escape it. Maybe the heat is making me cranky, but it seems that my answers are a bit contentious.

1. What is your favorite beach to cool off on? When do you go to beat the crowds?

I don’t go to the beach to cool off. Seems whenever it’s hot, that’s where people go. I think I’d prefer going up to the mountains, but I never have.

2. If not the beach, where is your favorite cooling-off spot outdoors? indoors?

I have no favorite cooling off spot. I find that not moving around much makes heat bearable.

3. Where is your favorite spot for ice cream/sorbet/gelato?

I like Mashti Malone’s over in Hollywood on La Brea.

4. What is your favorite flavor?

Sometimes they do a wonderful cardamom, but most of the time I get orange blossom with pistachios. I also like popsicles. I really miss pudding pops. I hated the commercials, but the pops were really good.

5. Stuck at home? What are you making in your blender?

I don’t make blender drinks. I drink water for the most part, I don’t care much for flavored drinks. Alcoholic drinks, on the other hand, are flavored and there I prefer things with gin in them. Gin and Tonic with lots of fresh lime. I like most things made with lime too, margaritas (on the rocks) and

6. Got any original concoctions you want to share?

I’ve tried making up drinks but they don’t turn out very well. I sometimes make a gin gimlet without the sugar. I’m not sure what that is, but it’s damn sassy. Is there a name for grapefruit juice, gran marnier and gin?

7. Favorite winter-themed video or book?

I like A Charlie Brown Christmas.

8. What was your favorite water-themed activity as a kid?

This one I can answer! Swimming. And tubing. I don’t see river or creek tubing too much here in California, I think because there just aren’t the right kinds of rivers. Sometimes we’d go tubing on the river, which is fun because you just drift downstream. But creek tubing is better because there are usually rapids.

The NY Times has published a look at those who have died. Photos of the first 1,000 American troops to die in Iraq.

Sadly, they won’t be the last.

“On average, the service members who died were about 26. The youngest was 18; the oldest, 59.”

It’s all names and photos, no ranks. Just the faces of men and women.

I got up this morning to watch the Genesis reentry on the Nasa Channel. Since it was only nine when I came downstairs, I went ahead and set the PVR to bring it in while I walked the dog.

Then I came back and started from the beginning. It was only because I was browsing the internet at the same time that I found out that Genesis had crashed. The chute failed to deploy.

That just sucks.

I hope that the samples it took (“recover science” as the Nasa fellows call it) are still viable.

I know, I usually don’t cross post. But I really wanted to spread the word about this. I haven’t seen much talk in the news (okay, I don’t actually watch the news, but I haven’t seen it in the online newspapers) about the Genesis mission.

The Genesis spacecraft, which went to the sun and collected samples is returning to Earth, will put on a show tomorrow. Any readers from Elko, Nevada to Bend, Oregon may be able to catch a glimpse of it starting at 8:53 AM. Here’s an even better map with freeways on it from Spaceweather.com.

Check this map to see if you’re on the path - you should be able to view it if you’re within 100 miles of the path of reentry, it will be between 10-100 times brighter than Venus.

Won’t someone go out tomorrow morning and take some photos of it?

Russ and I were visiting Forest Lawn again and found this tribute plaque. I lost interest in reading the text once it started quoting Bible verse, but Russ continued to find this as the bottom:

How many times do you think someone went over this text before committing it to the casting? Do you think the family realizes that they’ve confused “your” and “you’re”? Or were they paying by the letter?

LA Blogs is at it again, like clockwork. Or maybe it’s calendarwork. Los Angeles Insight - Fire Up the BBQ

I’m alone this weekend and not invited anywhere, so this is an exercise in well, exercising. But hey, it keeps my entry total up!

Labor Day is upon us, thanks to those who put out the effort for last week?s Los Angeles Insight, terrific ideas to fill out this holiday weekend.

Since this is one of the standard BBQ holidays, let?s get to it. The drill is, copy these questions to your blog, complete your answers on your own site and post a link here in the comments so that we can find them.

1. When you do fire up the grill, what do you put on it?
Chicken. Marinated, boneless chicken breasts.

2. Where do you buy your goods (any secret meat markets)?

Usually Whole Foods or Trader Joe’s. We go for the hormone free ones, because we know what too many hormones do to me. Sometimes we do turkey sausages, Bristol Farms has a really good selection of turkey and chicken sausages that are wonderfully spicy.

3. Besides your house, where do you/would you BBQ around your area?

No. I like grilling at home.

4. Gas or charcoal?

Gas. Better for the environment. Compact and certainly less cleanup. I like the taste of charcoal (as long as the fire starter has burned off).

5. What is your favorite drink to accompany the grill?

I like water. And gin and tonics.

6. When you bring a side dish, what is it?

Salad is nice. I also like this grill dish that we do where you skewer the baby mozzarella balls on bamboo skewers and alternate it with tomatoes and basil leaves. Then baste it in olive oil with a little salt, pressed garlic and pepper in it. Put on the grill just until the cheese starts getting gooey and pull off and eat immediately. Yummers!

7. If the host burns the main dish, where do you go out to eat instead?

We’d call for delivery I think. Probably Hard Times Pizza.

8. Post BBQ games: dominoes, croquet, bocci or badminton?

Um, we’ve played croquet a few times, though I think usually before. I just got a bocci set that I’m itching to use. Maybe after the next time the lawn is mowed.

Here’s a little question I have for other bloggers.

Do you live your life so that you can blog about it?

In your everyday life, do things happen and the first thing that comes to your mind is, “Oh, I’ve got to blog about that!”

I’m recovering from my surgery and have had romantic ideas about what a recovery would be like. And some of my notions of activities revolve around things that I would like to tell people I did while recovering.

Witness: Russ has been coming over to keep me company. He reads to me. Our primary book at the moment is The Loved One by Evelyn Waugh. It’s a satiric novel about the Los Angeles funeral industry (Forest Lawn) that includes a few biting indictments of the entertainment industry and perhaps how we regard our pets. Anyway, not satisfied with just reading this novel, I’ve decided he should read to me on the grounds of Forest Lawn in Glendale.

Do I do that because I actually enjoy it, or because I want you to read that I did it and have you think something in particular about me and what kind of person would engage in such an activity?

I think I do it because I enjoy it. I’m not one for doing things I regard as a chore. I guess I blog about it to try to create that sort of persona that I’d like you think I actually am. Part of creating the essential things to know about Cybele.

According to a study published in the journal Tobacco Control (okay, with a name like that, you’d expect this from them), cigarette smoke is more polluting than diesel exhuast. Not just more polluting, ten times worse.

I guess my big question is, could we slow global warming if we got rid of smoking? ... hmm, I think not.

Found via syaffolee.

For the record, I have been watching some of the Olympics. Just the stuff in the evenings and rarely a team sport.

I have no idea where the medal counts by country stand. Nor do I care.

I saw a report about a new study that just came out linking the lack of a key protein to the formation of keloid scars and fibroid tumors.

It was a study conducted by Uniformed Services University of the Health Sciences (USUHS) and the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development of the National Institutes of Health and published in July 2004 in the journal Genes, Chromosomes and Cancer. You can read an article about it here at the National Institutes of Health. (The actual study bears the name “Involvement of fumarate hydratase in nonsyndromic uterine leiomyomas.”)

Anyway, it basically states that in women with fibroids they found that they were missing a key protein that helps to bind tissues. This protein controls the way that collagen arranges itself. In normal people collagen arranges itself in structured, regular strands that help form a lattice and support for the rest of the tissue. In women lacking the protein the collagen is disorganized in disjointed and irregular strings that don’t had discrete patterns of growth. So in a this uterine tissue, something starts growing wrong and it just doesn’t know where or when to stop. In a scar, the tissue tries to bind back together but just ends up making a puddle of tissue that goes out of the bounds of the original wound.

Of course this is of particular interest to me because I had fibroids and make keloid scars. This missing protein also explains the genetic component to both of these problems - keloids and fibroids have been shown statistically to run in families and in certain racial groups (three times more likely to occur in African-Americans). I hope since they’re able to isolate this protein deficiency that someday they’ll be able to easily treat these conditions with injections. (Keloids can be especially difficult in burn patients, as if a burn victim doesn’t have enough to worry about with the painful burns, it’s the scars that cause the disfigurement. It’d be very comforting to know that this could be the step to curing that.)

LA Blog’s LA Insight for week three is the Labor Day Itinerary, this one is about how to show a visitor a good time. Pick up these mythical guests on Friday night at LAX and return them on Monday evening.

Friday Night - since I’m picking them up at the airport, I figure we’ll catch the sunset over in Santa Monica. We’ll park by the Promenade and then take a little walk along the beach. They’l snap some photos and the waning sunshine will help them adjust to the time difference. Then a little walk up to the pier and we’ll play some skee ball and head over to the Broadway Deli for some comfort food for dinner.

Saturday Morning - a lazy morning as they adjust to the time difference. I set up the coffee maker the night before to make a fresh pot at 6:30 AM and left my laptop out for them to browse the Internet (since I don’t get a paper). There’s a bowl of fruit and some cereal there too. Help yourself. Go sit in the yard with the dog while you’re at it and have some fresh figs.

Saturday Day - well, since there’s still a little morning left we head downtown for some shopping. We go to the flower mart first and pick up some amazing bouquets for next to nothing. Then head over either to the jewelry mart for some cheap silver goods as gifts or the fabric stores in the fashion district. We’ll pick up some lunch over at Senor Fish downtown or get adventerous and just some roach coach or hole in the wall.

Saturday Night - a relaxing evening with a few drinks up on the deck with a view of Downtown (because we were just there!) and then off for dinner at either Cafe Beaujolais in Eagle Rock or Edendale Grill.

Sunday Morning - a walk down to Sunset Blvd. for breakfast somewhere, maybe Millies or Eat Well or Cafe Mattise.

Sunday Day - back at the house we don our hiking outfits and head out - either to the Devil’s Punchbowl or Point Dume. We’ll stop at Trader Joe’s for some munchies for the trip and of course take plenty of water and memory chips for the digital cameras.

Sunday Night - Maybe a little shower or at least a change of clothes and off to the Long Beach Blues Festival (we might swap Saturday and Sunday, depending on what the guests want to see at the Fest).

Monday Morning - it’s supposed to be a vacation for my guests, so they sleep in and we hang out on the deck or in the back yard for a while. Maybe we look at the photos they’ve taken so far on the computer or ones they’ve brought of their house & family.

Monday Day/Afternoon - they’re all packed up and we take a little tour through the deader parts of Los Angeles. Using an out of print book I have as a guide, Permanent Californians, that lists resting places of people of note in LA. We start in Glendale at the Forest Lawn there, zip over to the Forest Lawn in Burbank, over the hill to Hollywood Forever and then down to Angelus Rosedale. Maybe head a little out of our way for a late/light bite at Rita Flora before heading to the airport.

Yay! The new Buzznet launched!

What’s super cool is that you can go there and read this blog and I can post photos from there here!

Here’s an example of one of my fab photos found there!

I haven’t finished playing there to see all the other new stuff, but I really enjoy the fact that I can cross post the photos without having to host them twice.

Congrats to Marc Brown and the Buzznet team. They’ve added lots of features to the free service and it looks like the premium service could make for a very richly-featured, no-ad, image-heavy blog at a kick-ass price ($36/year). Probably one of the best deals out there!

Makes me wanna go out and take some photos now.

Of course I’ll have to shower and dress first. Ah, the life of a girl in recovery mode.

My dear friend Russ gave me some phone wire. Not just some. 20 yards. Yes, 60 feet of 25 pair phone wire. That’s 50 pieces of wire 60 feet long - 3,000 feet of multi-colored plastic sheathed copper wire. Have you ever had a more wonderful gift?

Baffled?

Are you wondering what I’m going to do with 3,000 feet of wire? I’m wondering that too, but I know I’m gonna have a good time. Hell, I’ve got little else I’m allowed to do since surgery, so maybe I’m going to go into business selling wire bracelets. Expect photos in the coming weeks!

For those of you not currently in the know, 1.4 pounds of “junk” was removed from my abdomen two weeks ago. Weren’t we all surprised that it was that much? Makes me sorry that we didn’t have a pool going on how much it would weigh or how many tumors there would be.

For the record, there were twelve uterine fibroid tumors and one polyp. (Yes, the polyp would have been a tiebreaker.) The entire mass with the uterus weighed 630 grams and the largest tumor was the size of a Japanese eggplant (seven or eight inches long and three or four around). A normal uterus weighs 60-80 grams. Here’s a short list compiled with the help of Google of things that weigh approximately 630 grams.

A pregnant hedgehog
All of a bald eagle’s feathers
A pair of Vittoria Bike Shoes
A Video Camera
A Red Billed Whistling Duck
The Question of God by Heinz Zahrnt in hardback
A Lafuma Daypack
A twin sized down comforter

For those of you not metrically inclined, 630 grams is about 22.25 ounces (1.4 pounds).

LA Blogs has their LA Insight questions for the week (eight is always enough). This time it’s about geography.

1. What city or part of Los Angeles do you live in now?

Silverlake. Yes, I prefer to spell it as one word.

2. If you have lived somewhere else in the area, where was it?

We used to live across the hill, but still in Silverlake. Here for six years, there for four and for eighteen months in Sherman Oaks on Moorpark.

3. Besides where you live now, where else would you want to live in the area?

I really like where I live and don’t want to live anywhere else in the area.

4. Where would you not want to live?

I don’t think I’d like Santa Clarita on account of it being so hot and so far away from stuff. I’m not sure if I could live in the flats anymore. Any flats - I think I would feel exposed and claustrophobic (yes, I can have both those feelings at once).

5. How often do you venture out of your area?

All the time. I work in Hollywood. We go out to eat downtown a couple of times a month. We go to Orange County to visit relatives twice a month. Sometimes out hiking (when I’m feeling better we’ll do that again). Pasadena sometimes once a week. Burbank, Glendale, Los Feliz, Century City, Sherman Oaks, Beverly Hills for shopping. I’m lucky though, all my friends seem to be moving closer to me!

6. Where do you usually go when you get out?

Mostly down to Sunset and I really prefer walking if I can since it means everyone can drink! We usually stick to Silverlake and Eagle Rock for restaurants. But sometimes downtown.

7. How far do you work/school from where you live?

Exactly four miles. I’d like to start walking it again. I used to do that once or twice a week.

8. Money is no object; Beach, the Hills, the City or Leave?

If money were truly no object, the Beach. But if I still had to commute, I guess it’d be the Hills with a killer view and a pool.

I’m on an email list called WIST (Wish I Said That).

Today’s quote was about religion. But I reckon it’d work pretty well for homosexuality, too.

It does me no injury for my neighbor to say there are twenty gods or no God.  It neither picks my pocket nor breaks my leg.
  —Thomas Jefferson (1743-1826)

So I woke this morning and remembered my dream.

I thought I’d recount it for you.

I was leaving work and instead of carrying my large shoulderbag, I was carrying just my wallet and iPod. There were a few other people in front of me, including the dreadlocked fellow who works as our messenger, and he docked his iPod to a little spot next to the place where they scan our ID cards and then the guard fellow waved him on and he undocked and left.

The guard then directed me to dock my iPod, which I had a little trouble doing. (The connector was like the one for the remote and earphones, not the long one that you usually use for the docking/synching thing - but hey, it’s dreamworld.) Once it was on there it threw up an alert and I was told that they’d have to scan my iPod as it held questionable files.

Okay.

They called a tech guy, who came down, but took about twenty minutes to get there. Meanwhile the sun is going down and it’s getting late and the guards have changed shift and are getting ready to go for the day. So the tech guy gets there and he’s probably 22 years old and could have ridden a skateboard there. He take the iPod and docks it to his little laptop and shakes his head and says, “yeah, there are questionable files on here.”

I explained that there were non-mp3 files. That I was using the iPod for additional storage and if he simply opened one of those jpgs he’d find that they were all pictures of me. 7 gigs of pictures of me.

They said they were going to have to scan the entire iPod to verify that nothing of Paramount’s was on there. I rolled my eyes and said I’d wait. They said it could take all night. I wanted a receipt if they were going to hold my iPod.

Anyway, that was the dream. Not a bad dream. I wasn’t frustrated or anything, it was just another hassle.

When I woke up I realized that what they were searching for were non-MP3 files and when they found JPGs on there, that’s what threw up the red flag. I also figured if this happened in my dreamworld again, I should just temporarily change the file extensions for my JPGs to MP3 and they’d be none the wiser.

I’m not sure why I’m trying to solve my dream problems in my waking life. I think I should be solving my waking problems in my dreams.

I’d like to count myself among the first people to recommend you go out and buy this book when it comes out next month: No Plot? No Problem! by Chris Baty.

There is a rumor going around that I’m quoted in this book and I’d like to believe it’s true. (Okay, yeah, it’s true and I think I get mentioned in the acknowledgements as well. Or I hope I do. Not that it matters to me. I enjoy the whole process of writing bad novels quickly and enjoy talking about it even more.)

Though that’s not why I’m asking you to buy it. Well, actually, don’t buy it if you know me well enough, I’ll probably give it to you for Christmas. Aw, crap, I just spoiled the surprise, didn’t I?

LABlogs.com is doing a thing: LA Insight.

Here are my answers. Who know’s if I’ll keep up the weekly pace. (You know how I am lately.)

1. Where is the last place you ate out?

Rambutan Thai the night before I went into the hospital.

2. How often do you eat out?

Out? Probably once a week. Order from some of the same places that I go to? Sometimes twice.

3. Where is the place you eat most?

We order a lot from Rambutan, and go there just about as often. Cirxa on Sunset. Cafe Beaujolais in Eagle Rock. For special occasions we go to Edendale Grill or Blair’s.

4. Where do you tell your friends that they “have to try”?

I like Rambutan. It depends on what they’re in the mood for. Quick bite: Senor Fish. Decent meal: Rambutan. Long lingering meal with friends: Cafe Beaujolais. Special: Edendale.

5. What dish do they have to order when they get there?

Ba Mee at Rambutan. Start with the Thai rolls. Drink a Soju Praying Mantis hold the marachino cherry.

6. Where do you eat when money is not a concern?

Edendale.

7. Where do you eat when money is tight?

Leela Thai for lunch. (Cash only.)

8. What restaurant have you wanted to try but haven’t been to yet?

Gingergrass over on Glendale Blvd.

I saw this article this evening.

It’s about a study that shows a statistical link between birth month and likelihood of brain cancer. And then it goes on to state that left-handedness and ambidextrous people are also at higher risk. Those born in the winter have the highest risk.

Great.

LA Blogs just posted LA Insight. Maybe I’ll give this a try. I’m not even sure if you’re interested in these things, but hey, maybe asking questions will get me blogging again.

1. How long have you lived in Los Angeles?

Twelve years as of July 29.

2. Were you born here?

No. Pennsylvania.

3. How long did you plan on staying here originally?

I’m not sure what my plans were. But I believe it involved my entire adult life.

4. How long do you plan on staying here now?

Pretty much the same. Unless we get the comma. The Man and I have a joke. That if the value of our house goes up so dramatically that we actually gain another digit on the price of our house, we might just cash out.

5. What keeps you here?

I like the climate. I like the people. I like my house, my neighborhood. My job. The Man’s job. It used to be pretty affordable for a large city, not so much anymore. We just redid the kitchen (gotta stick around and enjoy that!).

6. What makes you want to leave?

How housing prices have skyrocketed. The air pollution.

7. What is your biggest suprise about living here?

How much nature there is around. I guess when I was coming out here (sight unseen for the most part), I just thought it’d be more urban. I didn’t expect coyotes, lizards, the profusion of birds and wonderful plantlife. The accessibility of natural recreation areas is a huge plus.

8. What is your biggest disappointment about living here?

I few disappointments about the city itself. Sometimes I’m disappointed by the intolerance of people, but I consider LA a much more liberal city than some that I’ve lived in.

I didn’t actually do any blogging in July. But when I looked at my archives list on October 6, 2004, I noticed that there was no archive for July 2004. I just couldn’t have a hole like that.

So this post isn’t real. I didn’t make it in July 2004. I made it in October 2004 and dated it for July.

My apologies for the deception. Or the appearance of deception, as the case may be.

I know everyone’s offering them, but I’ve got them, too.

I have two Gmail invites at the moment and I’m happy to share if someone wants them. Just pop me a note on any of the known methods of getting a hold of me (email or comment).

As a reaction to Gmail, SBC’s Yahoo email that I use most has upped their pitiful 10 megs to 100 megs without me so much as asking. And they removed the annoying animated banner ads. I appreciate that. Because I am, after all, actually paying for the SBC service and deserve that little perk.

I have trouble with Gmail, mostly because I have to check it. I have a great little client on my computers called eprompter that tells me when any of my email addresses gets a new message. And I can actually preview the message as text, too. Gmail doesn’t let me do that. So I’ve been hesitant to use it.

And I like my SBC, actually. It’s functional. Which is all I really wanted anyway. So, that’s where I’ll stay for the moment.

I never truly abandon any email address anyway. I still use my AOL address from time to time, even though we left AOL five years ago. Call me old fashioned, but you never forget your first email account.

I feel like I’ve let you down. I was posting so vigorously there for a while and now it’s been almost ten days. And the thing I left you with, well, some of you aren’t so happy with the roach.

The things I have to blog about are not things I’d put in my blog, so things will be sporadic here for a while. I may get inspired and inventive and want to keep in touch. Or not.

It’s nothing personal, of course.

In the mean time, I don’t think I’m going to give up on the photos, so if you want a little Cybele goodness, just pop on buzznet and you can at least see what’s in my back yard at any given moment or maybe on my drive home.

I won’t say where I found this fellow (not in my house!) but those of you who know me well will know where he came from.

Though I’m not the type to take photos at the site of an accident, I did huge photo shoot with this guy and used the “burst” mode on my camera where it takes three shots in quick sequence.

Once I saw those, I just had to make them into an animation.

Because I like to learn new things.

Okay, I really should be using these skills for good, not evil.

Every once in a while I get a song in your head. It’s been happening to me a lot.

And last night when a few folks were over and the topic was pretty much TV, it’s easy to get TV main title theme songs stuck in your head. Right now I’m having trouble with the theme to Night Rider. I have no idea how it got in there, but there it is. Lodged next to the damn Fanta song.

Thanks to Nathaniel I found this link to a great site that has gobs of ‘80s main titles themes in all their video and audio glory.

Great, now I can get Airwolf stuck in there, too.

I saw this link on 20/20 Hindsight and wanted to make sure everyone go to see it.

It’s a photo of the sunrise in Manhattan looking down one of the streets towards the east and it lines up perfectly.

See, as it’s explained at the site Astronomy Picture of the Day, Manhattan streets are not perfectly aligned to east/west and north/south, so the regular equinoxes don’t line up there. But on May 28 and July 12, they do and you can catch it coming and going (sunrise and sunset).

The photo there was taken in 2001, but stunning nonetheless.

I got this advice second hand from the coffee guy who was on the Paramount lot for the week doing the premium coffees for LA Screenings. (As we would have to explain to our clients - we offer plain old brewed American style coffee and his European style coffees.)

He also works his little coffee stand on movie sets and other big Hollywood parties and gets to know a lot of folks.

Turns out he was talking to one of those big young, up-and-coming action stars about how too much caffeine can give you the shakes. He had a great cure for that. He’d noticed when he was in auditions and was a little amped either because he was nervous or had too much coffee, if he wiggled his toes, his hands wouldn’t shake.