Yom Kippur Grasshopper

I always feel a little guilty working on the Jewish high holidays - like I'm setting myself up for a bad year by not believing in or following the traditions of my ancestors. But while at home on my lunch break, I noticed this giant grasshopper in my lavender plant. For some reason, having one of these creatures adorn my garden makes me feel lucky. I think they're considered lucky in some cultures, though doubtfully in mine - I'm pretty sure they're one of the ten plagues... you know, from Passover?

simple pleasures

things I love

big difference...

I went to two very different neighborhood-festivals this weekend. The first was across the street from my apartment - a very family oriented affair with rides, food, a little beer garden and a petting zoo. Oddly enough, there was some kind of spam-truck too. But that was about the weirdest part in my quiet little LA suburb.

The second street fair was Hollywood(ish)'s Sunset Junction Street Festival. There were 3 stages for live music, tons of yummy street-food vendors; but in contrast to my local fair, there was the whole gamut of STD testing booths (AIDS, hepatitis, you name it...) plus more shirtless men than I have ever seen in my whole life - and not just ever at one time, but even when you add them all up... and I used to play water polo. See what I mean...?

what to do when you're blue...

Sometimes on the weekends, when I don't have any plans and I'm feeling kind of lonely, I go to the pet store to get supplies for my cat. They always have animal adoptions on the weekends and, while I know all the cute little critters with no homes should bring me down, it always cheers me up... I know, how selfish. Last weekend there was this:



I know SOMEONE must need a pile of kittens or a father-son pair of chihuahuas?

then one day...

i think espresso tried to tell me it loves me back...

lose yourself...

this summer... packages for every price range...

album of the week...

The History of the Real Billie Holiday, because a lady's gotta right to sing the blues...

Blapricot...

Sometimes I like to buy a whole package of a single kind of fruit at one of my (many) neighborhood Trader Joe's rather than picking out a variety of solo fruits because it's easier. This example is called a Black Apricot but I've renamed it the Blapricot because my sister had been combining words a lot recently - any that may form a slightly cohesive and, therefore, more efficient new word. Frankly, I find this practice to be hilarious.

I pondered for a moment the possibility that this was just a plum with another name, for either marketing or biological reasons, but after getting these babies out of the package, I realize they have a fuzzy apricot feel to them and none of the tartness of plums these days. Ladies and gentlemen, I give you (well, Trader Joe's does anyway...) the Blapricot...

you can take the girl out of the OC...

...but you can never take the Del Taco out of the girl.

The straight-edge vegan kids got one thing right... bean-fries. Their version was just beans on fries with guacamole but I always liked it with the works since I'm not a total wuss and only skip the chili concoction instead of also missing out on the wholesome goodness of Del Taco's dairy-related products like the sour cream that comes out of a tube. As far as I'm concerned, this is one of those guilty-pleasure/vegetarian-cult-food-faves that far surpasses In 'n' Out's "secret" grilled-cheese.

The cat's not-so-secret guilty pleasure? French fries.

OPP's!

You remember... other people's pets?!? This cat has no fur but is perfectly soft, nonetheless! Fascinating!

take me out to the ball game(s)

I somehow managed to go, not just to my first Dodger game of the season last weekend, but to my second also. That seems like a reasonable amount of time for me to decide that the Dodgers kind of suck this year, right? What a bummer. At least there's always the view, the nacho cheese (and nacho cheese footprints!), and the beer to rely on...

favorite things blogpost #3

They just opened one of these right near my work and I couldn't be happier! The only thing keeping me from eating every meal here in the past was driving to their Melrose location. The only thing stopping me now is my empty wallet and keen bugetary ethic... we'll see how long that lasts...

scary things in the dentist's garage:

I feel very lucky to have a 2-car garage, basically to myself in which I can either park my car, shoot up-n-coming bands, or spray-paint my latest domestic creations without the annoyance of someone else's car getting in the way; or worse, a lifetime's worth of their most important junk like my neighbors who share the other 2-car garage.

I share my garage with the dentist who occupies the commercial space at the front of my building, and she uses it mainly for storage of items which (I assume) she just doesn't know how to dispose of properly. Anyway, the dentist herself seems perfectly nice (as in, she doesn't mind/know if I use her miscellaneous items for photo shoots and generally leaves me alone), but lets just say I'm glad she's not my dentist...

the (I wish I was still on) vacation blog!

So for the first time ever in my life I took 2 whole weeks off of work and traveled to a far-away land... all by myself... with no work to do, no laptop or digital cameras (ok one, but just a point and shoot) and no responsibility to anyone other than myself. I've taken little trips before and I've been outside the country all alone, but until now it's mostly been for work. I won't waste time with my feelings here or elaborate too much - I have a myspace blog if anyone's interested in that nonsense, but here is a little photo story detailing the major happenings of my transcontinental 'holiday', shot almost entirely on film for a change:

The solo-travel trip begins with a 12 hour plane ride to the land of the long white cloud, New Zealand...

Followed by a sprint from the air-bus to the 4 hour coach to Rotorua where I make my date with the geo-thermal-lake-spa-adventure-town and my first pint in a local pub...

They really do eat a lot of kebab's here, just like the guys from Flight of the Conchords! Oh yeah, and I went bungy jumping...

...and took a couple luge rides down the mountain with a beautiful view of the lake...

When I went back to Auckland, I was happy to return to a big city with it's big landmarks and simple pleasures...

I really got the sense of being on the other side of the world...

I was happy to meet up with some old friends, to make some new ones and to bond over some tasty local beer...

But nothing even came close to that 'full circle' feeling I got when all the planning and excitement culminated in a morning of free food solely for the advancement of carbohydrates, sugar and friendship at the Auckland Viaduct...

After that it was off to the most romantic little B&B in the Bay of Islands...sigh...

'Unparalleled beauty' as far as the eye could see... like heaven on earth...

With beautiful beaches filled with purple shells, brown beach-glass and green-lipped muscles...

And after another amazing breakfast and a big hug from Kahn-the-dog, we raced to the airport with only highway repairs to slow us down... lots and lots of highway repairs...

Of course, even with very little time for pit-stops, I can never turn down the chance to shoot an interesting sign...


After my trip to the southern hemisphere where it's Autumn and a day ahead in time, all I really wanted was a reminder of my roots - nothing like a 100 degree (Fahrenheit for a change!) weekend in Palm Springs to slap the Southern Cali. back into my ivory skin-tone! That's right - imported Palm Trees, barbecue and an English bull dog named Louie... I've never felt so relaxed in all my life...

Plus there was Coachella and it's bountiful beer-gardens...

Then more Louie, more of the pool, more beer, and more of Louie in the pool... he was a real good sport that lil'English bloke...

And even though all good things eventually come to an end, they've only made me see how incredibly fortunate I am to have had these experiences in my short lifetime...


I've been trying my best to take my new found "vacation mentality" back to work with me and back to my non-vacation life. It took being upside down and backwards and a day into the future (in a place where the toilet water flushes the opposite way than I'm supposedly used to!) for me to realize that it had been nine months since I had taken any real amount of time off and that I had been working pretty constantly for over a year. The thing that became the most apparent to me from this experience was that I really needed a vacation because I take myself way too seriously. But it also made me realize just how good I have it - I have great friends who I can just be myself around, co-workers who I actually missed, fresh local food that puts the rest of the world to shame, the most fantastic garden-apartment and all the time in the world to enjoy it... hopefully...

There are more FTX photos on the way so stay tuned! XO!

april in paris

No I'm not delusional! No more than usual anyway, that's just the name of this rose variety which is currently in bloom in my backyard! It smells so sweet!

The Catching Up Blog!

It seems that when you have so many of these unhealthy obsessions/healthy addictions (cooking like 90% of the food you eat and growing some of it, talking to your cat, dogmatically debating between contact lenses and new glasses) well, you tend to stay pretty busy. Here's what I've been up to that I can take photos of - you'll just have to imagine the rest (swimming a lot to firm up my already-nice ass, mouthing off at work and planning my upcoming trip to the most geographically isolated country on earth!)




the cat gets pissed when my new laptop sits in her spot. she marks her territory during a recent movie night by leaving her chewed popcorn all over my couch.


music mission - biking to spaceland with georgia and megan, plus some new (for me) records... because a gal can never have too much Billie.


there's all kinds of things growing in my garden these days...




it all tastes better than it looks, I swear.


I sliced my thumb open while making yam chips a couple weeks back - the photo of my hand is after 2 and 1/2 weeks of healing! I thought it was an interesting coincidence that I hurt my hand the same week I had a very important hand to photograph at work - I was just totally stupid with hand-job jokes for like 3 weeks about it! The chips were delicious, by the way.


I think I may go with contacts if I can ever get the right fit...


This is a combo. of a blank sign and a word-bubble shape that was cast onto my floor one day by the light of my office window being partially obstructed by my desk. I have a couple of these word-bubble shapes in my collection but can never really find a good use for them.

for love not money...

So it seems that I've started volunteering to shoot food experiments for other people now too. It was either this or a pie cookbook this weekend, and the pies fell through. But honestly, I'd never miss a chance to photograph a food experiment and I even got into the "mood" of the day by sampling some of the local fare - no mc nugget's for me but I did have some of a shamrock shake and enough of a fillet-o-fish to realize I should never do that again! Here are some of my favorite compositions from the day:

playing hooky

Ok, so maybe I took a day off last week even though I already had Monday off as a holiday (president's day) but the weather was just too perfect to spend the whole week (ok, the 4-day work-week) in doors. So I burned a vacation day to go to one of my favorite places - I won't mention exactly where, but it's one of the few places I've always gone to when I need a break from city-life without having to drive for more than 45 minutes.

I used to hate this beach as a kid because during the summers, it was always too rocky and stick-y to walk around. In the winter though, the shoreline is scattered with all kinds of little shells, filled with little critters walking around in the little tide pools. There was this bird showing off for me, fluffing his feathers so of course I took a few photos of him and, as it turns out, he may very well be an albatross (according to my know-it-all boss) which I guess is a somewhat rare sighting around these parts - sort of like an LA native around here these days.

President's Day in Silver Lake with the sister:

I really like certain things about my sister's neighborhood that just don't exist on the west side. Despite the area's general trashiness there's so much good food, chatty people with friendly dogs, random guys just standing around on street corners for no apparent reason, and chickens foraging under cars for scraps of trash. We decided to hang out that day because we had both been sick earlier in the week (and therefore couldn't infect eachother) but also because she had recently broken her toe and had restricted her fast-paced-hipster-lifestyle for the weekend, thus making herself the perfect coffee-and-sandwich companion for her boring older sister who has also had a broken bone in the foot area for a few months now: