Museums

Two friends shared about a museum website, Every Museum of Greater Los Angeles. In one weekend I went to two of them and then added one more the next weekend.

Up first was a museum inside the Redlands post office.

Makes me want to get a post box!

Do you miss these little boxes?

They are so uncommon that the postbox building in Denver is now called the cash register building! Or maybe it was the cash register building first, because who knows what those are, too.

I shared this photo with my mail carrier and she said she wished they still dressed like this!

The next day D and I went to a museum listed as one of LA's best new architecture projects. It was our first visit to Chapman University's Hilbert Museum of California Art so I can't say anything about the old space, but the new space was fabulous.

This picture was taken from the train depot, right across the parking lot.

A Millard Sheets mosaic was rescued from a bank.
He is the same artist featured on many buildings close to home.
See old posts here and here.

Not only were the buildings of interest, we liked a lot of the art inside, too.

Erin Hanson, Sunset Lace

Open Impressionism is a new style of painting developed by American artist Erin Hanson. The style is characterized by short, impasto brush strokes that are applied without layering, creating a mosaic or stained-glass appearance to the paintings. The paintings are created with a limited palette of colors, applied without blending or mixing upon the canvas, which adds a dimension of texture to each brush stroke. Inspired by classic impressionism, pointillism, and post-impressionism, Erin Hanson continues the tradition of impressionism into the modern day with her colorful and vivacious landscape paintings.

Ralph Hulett, People skating underneath the green bridge
This was part of a special exhibit of Christmas cards designed by Hulett.

I would definitely come back, and maybe even take the train.

I did not take a single picture of our last museum visit, a Phil Dike exhibit at the Claremont Lewis Museum of Art.

You could watch this video of Phil Dike's son talking about growing up in a fantasy land of artists.

I have a picture of the museum from a couple years ago.

This picture shows the banners on the floor before the opening of the show.

Regardless of the documentation, we enjoyed the art work tremendously and were surprised by the the variety. It was good to get there before the show ended.

October Leftovers

 

I felt obligated to cheer for the local team,
but my heart wasn't really in it.

I still love my job. We loved watching this huge truck in our residential neighborhood. It was driving onto the playground for a school event.

Someone once called the crows janitors. I am sure there is plenty for them to eat by the tables in the school courtyard.

October was a tough month.

No Turkey Trot this year.

The bright spot was the outpouring of support from friends and family. Thank you.

Art Openings

 Three openings in one week.

The first was in Pomona at the ceramics museum AMOCA. There was a juried exhibition and even though

this porcelain (!) pink sock did not win, I liked it.

What was amazing was that we could wander around the studio connected to the museum.

The only problem with the museum is that everything is a one-of-a-kind piece and there were little kids and people with big bags. I kept waiting for a big crash and I am happy to report nothing happened. My blood pressure has returned to normal levels.

A couple days later I was out walking with Baby C

and we stopped at the CGU art gallery

and we got a sneak preview of the show opening that night.

In the evening the curator spoke about the project, which is one of many. There was also an opening on the other side of the gallery, but I didn't make it there. We'll have to go back.

The last opening was also close to home. Our neighbor is the curator and it was fun to see what she does since I usually just wave as she walks to work.

image used on card mailed out for the show,
the 79th Scripps College Ceramic Annual

It was also fun to see Baby C and lots of other friends and neighbors. Being a few blocks of campus is something I love about where we live.

More Mail Issues

 

I had posted that our drive-through boxes were covered at night because people had been using double-sided tape to catch mail before it dropped into the box.

In August I saw that they had new boxes that have a tiny slot for mail, but a person can no longer use them from the driver's seat.

A week or two ago I saw someone fixing a mailbox. The local newspaper reported, "Someone pried open the public mailbox on the north side of the Claremont Post Office building at 140 Harvard Ave. at 1 p.m., then fled. Police don’t know if the suspect stole any mail, and they have no suspect information."

This mail carrier said that the box was removed because it could not be fixed on site. He said to take mail inside and not to mail it in a box that has already been emptied for the day.

Things I Acquired Today

 

I found a beautiful California Buckeye on the ground.
The early runner beats the squirrels!

Mail from Germany

Library books

A tissue pack - this might have made the happiest because seeing it transported me back to our town in Denmark, where I often saw them on the ground.

Fruit from two neighbors including a new-to-me fruit (in the upper part of the picture, the ones that look like tiny tangerines) called calamondin, which is a cousin of the kumquat

No Mail?

At the beginning of my run I stopped at the drive-thru mailboxes (called snorkel chutes by some) to mail some postcards and found the chute covered and locked. I went over to the traditional box, dropped them in, and went on my way. 

When I went back in the afternoon the chutes were still covered (or maybe covered again?). I tried to drop them in the regular boxes, but those were so full I couldn't open them. 

I went around to the other side of the locked boxes and found one that was not completely full and dropped in the mail. Many drivers pulled up and I added their mail to the boxes, too. Pick up was scheduled in about ten minutes so I was not worried about mail theft. I had not seen the articles from the summer saying that locked mailboxes were evidence of voter suppression, followed by articles saying the evidence showed that the boxes were locked to prevent mail theft.

I have been worried about mail theft in the past and written to the USPS Inspector General's office. "The U.S. Postal Inspection Service is responsible for ensuring Postal Service employees' safety and the security of the mail." Many, many mornings I have stopped by to drop off mail and there has been mail stuck to huge pieces of tape (like the kind in some rodent traps?).  I never thought anyone was stealing ballots but I guessed they were hoping for mail with gift cards or cash.

Will our boxes be unlocked after Christmas? Will they be removed like in a town to the east? Time will tell.

Mail

The other day A. received thirteen pieces of college mail.

All the mail we received today was either college or election mail.

I wonder if we will have any mail at this time next year.

Threes

I have been making slow progress on
this Charley Harper jigsaw puzzle.

On Wednesday I went to the library
and checked out this board book.

Today I received this card from my sister.

Mail

Good thing there are still three people at home or we would have received only one piece of junk mail.

A mountain bike magazine
College mail
Postcard from relatives in Chile

Most Excellent Thing of the Day

In 2008 we took a family cycling trip in the San Juan Islands. One of the stops included a small county fair. What made the biggest impression on me was one family's scrapbooks of envelopes sent to them by a friend who travelled a lot. It inspired me to do the same and even though I don't always remember, we do have a small collection of hand-decorated envelopes mailed to ourselves from our different trips.

As I packed for Iceland I proudly remembered to take a self-addressed envelope (no stamp since I would need to buy one there). During our northernmost stay we sat down with colored pencils and drew little memories. I did not think to take a picture of it.

My parents received the postcard I mailed the same day I mailed the envelope. My parents-in-law received the postcard I mailed the same day I mailed the envelope. I began to give up hope. Maybe I forgot to put on a stamp? Maybe I forgot to put the country? Maybe it got stuck in the mailbox? Maybe all the postal workers in Iceland loved my envelope so much they wanted to pass it around and not send it to me?

And then, miracle of miracles, my parents-in-law were coming to my house and someone driving down the street asked if they were going to that house. My in-laws were told that the envelope had been delivered to the wrong address and the driver was returning it to us. Yippee!

Love is in the Air

I had a bit of time before a meeting so I stopped by the library (which was closed or it would have taken me more than a bit of time) to return a book and the post office to buy some stamps. Lines have been short and I had exact change so I thought it would be quick.

There was a short line that moved quickly but the first slowdown was choosing which love stamp I wanted. In the end I decided I liked the top one, which is last year's design.

The next slowdown was when the postal worker told me the exact change I had was incorrect because the rates had gone up recently. I was shocked because I had not read about it in any newspaper (you would think they would publish it there since I would guess people who read the newspaper on paper are the kind of people who go to the post office to buy stamps). Also I was amazed because my mom had not mentioned it. Even more amazing was when I called my mom she said she did not know, either. I have to say that scooping my mom on any news is worth the penny more per stamp!

We chatted a bit more and I learned that my mom had given blood that day and is only a pint away from sixteen gallons! I had an appointment to donate that afternoon and had just been debating whether to buy liver and onions at a diner. I have been rejected for low iron so many times I have become desperate. Instead I had iron-fortified cereal, oranges, and an iron pill for breakfast and lunch. Ta da! Now I am five pints away from ten gallons. I wonder if I will get to sixteen before they invent an effective blood substitute.

Weekend events

I skipped the first weekend event, and A. probably enjoyed it more than D. (although D. appreciated the Elton John performance more).

Hurray for prepaid tickets

Next up we had two TEA fellows over for lunch, one from Argentina and one from Estonia. It was great to hear about life in their home country and to answer questions about ours ("Do people really wear their outdoor shoes inside the house?").

Our mail carrier was the kind of person who would wish you happy birthday if a lot of cards arrived or would ask about the trip if the mail had been on hold. I knew retirement would happen some day, but I was sad that it happened already. His wife was also a carrier and the retirement community on her route had a big party for them, which was written up in the local paper. Our neighborhood couldn't top that, but we did have a nice event this weekend.

Mail bin as balloon holder

I love the Mr. ZIP party favors, but I am not sure what I'll do with mine.
Not shown - garland made with airmail envelopes.

The big event today was a reunion of the international students and the families that hosted them before the dorms opened. Ours was doing homework (after visiting Joshua Tree on Friday and Hollywood yesterday), but I enjoyed talking to other students and families. I made D.'s favorite artichoke dip that is good for potlucks, but you might not want to have around the house. Good thing I didn't leave early because I won the drawing for Claremont Cash!

We had a neighbor over for leftover night (she shared hers and we shared ours - delicious), encouraged by this post about casual dinner parties.

Time for family reading and getting ready for the week ahead.