A Few of My Favorite Things

Random little things were my favorite parts.

Street sign

Bakers in uniform

Beautiful doorway

Tiles on the street - sometimes religious

or informative. 

Painted business gates, just like in Barcelona and other places.

Park benches

Dog walkers (more dogs in the background, just hanging out)

My very favorite part was time with family and a friend, walking together through the parks. Here they are walking on Avenida Ámsterdam in the Hipódromo area of Mexico City, named because horses used to race here!

Big Trip

I have written about license plates and written about going to new places. Here is post that combines both.

There is so much negative news about violence and danger in Mexico and I had never felt the pull to visit. At the same time it was odd to have visited places farther away and never visited a country so close to home. Friends described great trips or shared about where they grew up so when my sister and brother-in-law said they would be in Mexico for a couple months it seemed like the right time to take a trip.

Visiting them in the smaller cities of Oaxaca or San Miguel de Allende sounded nice but I did not want to spend my limited time traveling so I decided to visit them in Mexico City. A. and I had a long weekend so we planned a quick trip.

I was not able to photograph all the different plates I saw, but I enjoyed the variety.

This was my favorite.

Another place that I did not know was on my bucket list!

Yet Another

I really believed I did not have a bucket list but I keep going to places I have never been and realized I had really wanted to go to there.

I loved visiting Watts Towers! It is being renovated so the tower parts were not visible, but there were still plenty of parts to examine and search for shells, bottles, and carvings by Simon Rodia.

We were in South LA for CicLAvia, which does a great job of bringing out people who might not usually ride or might not usually go to South LA. Highlights included

the variety of bicycles,

the people, including this librarian and her mobile library (one free book per person),

photo credit @Sam-Omar Hall
and the dogs.

I couldn't resist a little souvenir.

Plates

I do love license plates. I love looking for recently issued plates, clever personalized plates,

and plates that are new to me.

I guess I was not distracted enough because now I have started looking at California tags, too.

Most plates look like this, with the month on the left and the year on the right. This one has last year's blue tag underneath, which is supposed to be removed, but is not so easy to do.

Recently I noticed that some tags do not have the full year written out but have a special logo instead. Maybe these were issued in person and not by mail? Or maybe they are replacement tags?

I have not seen 2021 tags with the logo.

And then there are the people who drive with expired tags.

If you like license plates there are all sorts of sites where you can waste time, like this California DMV site or The Automobile License Plate Collectors Association site.

Edited to add two tags I saw just after posting. I had never seen these tags before and now have something new to add to my collection of photos.

New Neighborhood

Not new, but new to me.

from SaveTheKales

Even though I had been buying in bulk in Boulder and at the cooperative grocery store in Ithaca since the mid-90s (bulk tofu, pasta, herbs, oils, etc.) the big thing in LA is a new store that sells health and beauty supplies in bulk.

I know it is silly to drive to LA to save the world by not buying another plastic bottle, but it was more to support the mission and to explore.

My friend wanted coffee so we walked along Figueroa and I'll have to go back because I only got a few pictures. Later I learned that there are fourteen different mosaics representing the past and the present.

We saw the real Chicken Boy but not the mosaic. 

After coffee we walked back on Monte Vista St. and I poked my nose in a couple places with open doors. This looked a little like a store, but when I researched it later I learned that, "Seth Bogart’s New Ceramics Shop Wiggles Is an Installation as Much as It’s a Store." 

What a great way to spend an afternoon!

Lucky Me!

view from inside
I had never been to the Mark Taper Forum 
(or Dorothy Chandler Pavilion or Ahmanson Theatre) and 

I had barely heard of What the Constitution Means to Me, 

so when a friend said she had an extra ticket I jumped at the chance to go.
There was no intermission, which made sense for a one-hour play, I thought.
Then I looked at my watch and realized it had been almost two hours!

I wish I could take the rest of the family to see the play! I wish I lived closer to the major LA theaters! I wish I had unlimited money for buying tickets! Those wishes aside, I am so glad I went.

College Sports

Supporting our local team involves cycling less than a mile and sauntering into whatever venue is hosting the event (pool, gym, track, etc.). Yesterday was a little different.

I drove to the end of the L Line (formerly known as the Gold Line), met up with a dear friend from grad school who got on in Pasadena, changed to the D Line (Purple), and then the E Line (Expo).

My map said it would let us off 0.1 miles from our destination, but I was still a little concerned since I had never been there. No problem since we could see the Galen Center from the stop. Just as exciting was seeing Felix right across the street.

I made it into the building with my clear bag. Serious fans had real bags with their team's logo but I just grabbed a newspaper bag. I was so tempted to walk around with a tube of hemorrhoid cream or tampons or other things that should not be in clear bags

but instead I just had my pocket-sized Constitution.

Tommy Trojan

I don't think my pictures can capture the difference between an unranked-Division lll team and the nation's third-best D1 team playing at USC. There were three sets of dancers plus people with flags, a live band, half-naked men with painted chests, a DJ, and a light show.

I don't know so many of today's players but I was happy
to see the names of people I followed in the '80's,

The best part was hanging out with my friend and watching great basketball players! I hope Oregon makes it to New Orleans for the Final Four!

Reading

 Over a month ago I posted about books I am reading and I am still reading them.

I am still reading this but will definitely finish
in the next few weeks because there is a
discussion of the book as part of the library program. 

Our social justice group started discussing this, but I can read only a bit at a time because it is such a difficult subject. An investigation of the rental market in the area by a local radio station pairs nicely with this book.

I am about halfway through this but will finish
soon since we have a discussion scheduled.

We went to hear this author and a friend let me borrow her book. It is very entertaining and I find myself turning to it even though I should be finishing my other books!

I hope next time I post about books I will have a whole new batch to write about.

Outing

The local bike trail is perfect for a social ride, just going along the path with all sorts of other people - lycra-clad cyclists, kids with training wheels, runners, walkers, and those just hanging out.

from Molly's Souper website

Today we cycled about 4.5 miles to Upland for breakfast in an old house that we had passed for many years but had never stopped. The food was fine but mostly it was nice to sit outside and enjoy a slow morning.

The bad news was that I got a flat (two thorns) in a tube that had been patched twice. The good news is that D. had an extra tube and a pump.

We wandered around the market while waiting for the bike shop to open so we could buy another tube for the emergency kit.

It was like a very short vacation!