Awkwardly Social

This list was hard! I hope you guys had an easier time of it than I did. If you want to check out the flickr group - it’s here. If you want to add suggestions for the October Scavenger Hunt that post is here.

So far I’ve only seen one other participant’s post (I’ll add to this list as I see them)

- Yet Another Librarian

- Biker Candy

- Blog Pressure

- Davah

September 2007

1. Antique car, running or not (must be older than 1940) This was actually tougher than I thought, but I lucked upon an auto body shop on one of my lunch time walks and was pleasantly surprised to see this little jem. I’m not entirely sure it’s older than 1940, maybe someone can let me know?

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2. A fountain, preferably with people sitting near or children playing in I have a fountain right down the block from me, there is always a wedding party or quinceañera getting photos taken around it. In the summer there are always kids swimming in there, even though the rules prohibit it. I love that.

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3. Mode of transportation I made a special trip downtown to get this very standard subway photo. I meant to catch the Gold Line in Chinatown, but I was too annoyed to deal with parking down there. Oh well..

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4. Sign with a cool font This was my favorite of the choice (partly because it was my suggestion) mostly because I’m obsessed with typography now. I think it started when I was looking for a font for the header on this very website and now it’s spiraled into me wanting to pull my car over every five minutes to take a picture of a cool sign. As you’ll see from my flickr stream I took several photos of signs with cool fonts, but this one is my favorite.

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5. Christmas tree - I got nothing. This one was the only one I couldn’t find. Granted I actually didn’t look that hard..

6. Someone in red shoes I had sort of resigned myself to thinking I wasn’t going to be able to get this. I missed snapping the bride of the San Francisco wedding, it was so awesome her red shoes peeking out from under her white dress. Then I saw the twins out riding their tricycles and Zoe was wearing her red shoes, but I didn’t have my camera. A half hour later I heard them outside my house so I ran out and snapped this photo.

7. Nature’s wrath This one was probably the hardest for me because LA doesn’t really have much in the way of wrath, unless you count the wilting basil and sunflowers on my balcony… We had one really good rain storm that I slept through, and in the morning as I was walking around I saw a pot that had been knocked over and a palm frond that had been dislodged. It was very anti-climatic. Here’s the sad little pot.

8. Ceiling Since I was down at Union Station already, I decided to take a photo of the ceiling in the waiting area there. I’m still really shy about taking photos in public. I have no idea why.

9. Still life with fruit Oh ho! Olives aren’t fruit you say? Well, I looked it up and they most definitely are. Now I can tell you I get at least one serving of fruit a night in the form of a dirty martini. (I don’t really have a dirty martini every night but I would if I could afford to keep myself stocked in Grey Goose. What am I made of money?)

10. Ridiculous lawn ornament Beverly Hills is such an easy target for this. I think the combination of too much money, bad taste and children off to college makes for a perfect storm of ridiculous lawn ornamentage. I drive by this house every day and marvel at the amount of money they must have spent on these bronzed animal sculptures. It’s stunning.

Her parents were going through a divorce and over compensating. She had amazing clothes, the best grandparents in all the world, a day bed that had a hideaway bed for guests to sleep on, and a collection of Steiff teddy bears that came to life as soon as you left the room.

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This post is part of the x365 project.

I totally forgot that I needed to solicit your October Scavenger Hunt suggestions. Please put them in the comments below and they’ll be added to the list that didn’t get picked from last month.

My two are

• Something old
• Something British

If you have no idea what I’m talking about - go here and read all about it.

Those Paypal tricksters almost got me! I am a grown woman! How is this possible? I do not have 20 cats, nor do I knit sweaters for any animal and still I’m clicking things and getting close to giving information to people who are not who they say they are.

It’s really quite lucky I have 2 college degrees. I feel like navigating the pitfalls of the internet should be my third course of study. That or law, because if I keep stumbling around like this I’m going to need some legal advice.

Rhonda was my first college roommate. She loved prince even more than Adna did. She only watched taped shows that Prince had appeared on or movies that he was in. The only posters on her wall were Prince posters. She only read magazines that Prince graced. Prince was the only artist whose tape you’d find in her walkman. She worked at the Prince Kiosk at the Mall of America. Her sheets were mustard yellow. She ate turkey pot pies, Totino’s pizza or Beef and Cheese burritos in her bed. She said maybe 100 words to me in the 6 months we lived together.

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This post is part of the x365 project.

His last name really was Stoner, but even better was that his first name was Rollin. He was my first 4th grade teacher. He wore blue jeans and sunglasses and played “Cats in the Cradle” on his guitar. He was the teacher to get if you were going to get a teacher in 4th grade. He left mid year under mysterious circumstances.

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This post is part of the x365 project.

On Monday a woman in an SUV on a cell phone swerved into my lane, I honked and swerved out of the way. She sort of got out of my lane, which was good because now I was staring down the barrel of opposing traffic, and I looked over at her and saw that she was STILL talking on the cell phone. When she finally meandered back out of my lane so I could swerve back into it avoiding a head on collision, murder was in my blood, but I managed to keep it together and not pull out my imaginary automatic weapon and blaze her down. I did honk again for good measure. I don’t think she even heard me.

On the way home on Monday, I almost rear ended someone. I was itching to get through this section of Los Angeles that kills me every time I’m stuck in it. Two malls two miles apart make the traffic so painful, add to that the CBS lot during American Idol season and you have a recipe for rear ending someone. Thankfully one of the things that works on my car is the brakes.

Tuesday, fate caught up to me and I got rear ended. The guy just wasn’t paying attention. He wasn’t going very fast when he hit me and I waved him to pull over onto the next side street. I got out and looked at the damage and saw nothing. His hair was wet like mine. He immediately apologized and asked if I was OK. I looked at my sad little car and thought, “No, no it’s not,” but I told him I was fine and that it looked like the car was fine so we had no reason to exchange information. He looked so freaked out that I asked him if his car was OK, even though I could see that there was only a little scrape on the bumper. He held out his hand and introduced himself. It was one of those forgettable boy names, like John or Jason. I shook it and told him my name. He asked me again if I was OK. I said it was no biggie. I had no idea why I was being so nice, but it just felt right. He said, “I mean, I have insurance, let me give you - ” and I interrupted him and told him it was fine.

I turned around and walked to my car thinking how lucky I was, how fate couldn’t let me off the hook completely, but she gave me a little pass.

She lived with her parents and little sister in a group of tents down by the river. She loved Prince before I even knew who he was. We sat in her tent on a gigantic pile of sleeping bags and she played a tape of his songs for me. I blushed, they were so dirty.

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This post is part of the x365 project.

She told me that she was sorry I never got to meet her brother, we would have been soul mates. She was so sure of it, it made me sure of it. I mourned the loss of that idea like I had known him. Her brother committed suicide three years earlier.

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This post is part of the x365 project.

I cooked a meat loaf last night.  I had the Mark Bittman recipe as my guide, but very few of the spices he had listed made it into the loaf.  I was nervous winging it because I’m not that experienced with cooking, and have no idea which spices go with what.  I remembered that I had fresh rosemary growing on the balcony and I knew I had two full bottles of basil leaves in the pantry, so I skipped the sage and parsley.  I forgot the garlic.  It still tasted delicious.  I think it was the bacon on top.  And never underestimate the tastiness of lamb.  It is an amazing meat that I only feel slightly less guilty about eating than I would about eating veal.

On the way to work this morning, my tupperware container of left over meat loaf and I got rear ended.  I don’t think there is a relationship between the two things.