Elwood Bun Bun

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Easter

Easter weekend I was fortunate to have visitors! Laurel, Justin, Maddie & Ari were in town, so we spent Saturday at the new BCAM at LACMA. I really loved the streetlight installation, but my favorate thing in the whole musuem was a piece called Under The Table. It's a dining room table & four chairs so large they fill an entire room, and you can walk under the table and feel like a tiny mouse in a house. We had lunch outside at Manni's Bakery, and had a lovely art day. Sunday, Tiny came over and we dyed Easter Eggs, ate all of them in deviled form, ate a million cookies, roast a chicken, and watched Sex in the City until we were sick. It was a great weekend, but by the time it was over, I was sick as a dog with a bad nasty cold. I'm just now recovering, thus the belated post. Bleh, I hate you cold. My parents stayed over in the living room last night, on their way to San Diego to buy millions of plants. We had a nice Thai food dinner that I sniffled my way through, talked wedding, talked flowers, and played with Elwood. I was sad to see them go this morning.

Stop this madness!

If you've been paying attention to the news you may have heard of our govenor's drastic budget cut plans, slashing funding for education and state parks. Below is some info from the LA Times:

"Joggers, surfers, artists and other avid users of California's state parks and beaches expressed outrage and disbelief as they absorbed word of Schwarzenegger's proposal, which would shutter even famed San Simeon State Park near Hearst Castle. In addition to the 48 closures, the governor suggested cutting back lifeguards at 16 state beaches. Of the state's 278 parks, those slated for closure are the least used, produce the least revenue and are the easiest to secure, according to parks officials. If the budget takes effect as written, gates would be put up at the entrances to 43 of the parks, which would be patrolled and maintained but would not be open to the public."

Number One: A majority of my family works for the the Lompoc School District, and they are under the horrible stress of feeling that they may lose their jobs. There is talk of entirely shutting down VMS, the jr. high my sister is a counselor at. I'm really angry that education always suffers when it's one of the worst places to cut - by denying kids a decent education you create innumerable problems for them down the line, for all of us really, because you create less informed people who can't function in society.

Number Two: One of the parks slated to shut down is La Purisima, where I was planning on getting married in August, but could possibly now be closing - but no one will know until July 1 for sure. (This on top of the Rancho Miranda zoning dissapointment!) Besides that inconvienient fact, La Purisima is a very special place to me; I have so many memories of my grandparents taking me there as a child, making candles on historical days, visiting with friends I brought home to see my home.


I urge you to protest the closure of Ca. State parks wherever you can, here is one such easy link that you can use.

And here are a list of the parks we'll be losing:

Anderson Marsh SHP
Armstrong Redwoods SR
Austin Creek SRA
Benicia Capitol SHP
Benicia SRA
California Citrus SHP
California State Mining & Mineral Museum
Candlestick Point SRA
Clear Lake SP
Del Norte Coast Redwoods SP
Estero Bluffs SP
Fort Ord Dunes SP
Fremont Peak SHP
George Hatfield SRA
Governor's Mansion SHP
Great Valley Grasslands SP
Grizzly Creek Redwoods SP
Harmony Headlands SP
Henry W. Coe SP
La Purisima Mission SHP
Limeklin SP
Los Encinos SHP
Los Osos Oaks SR
Malakoff Diggins SHP
Manchester SB
McConnell SRA
Montana de Oro SP
Morro Strand SB
Mount San Jacinto SP
Petaluma Adobe SHP
Picacho SRA
Pio Pico SHP
Plumas-Eureka SP
Portola Redwoods SP
Providence Mountains SRA
Railtown 1897 SHP
Salton Sea SRA
San Simeon SP
Santa Susana Pass SHP
State Indian Museum
Sutter's Fort SHP
Tomales Bay SP
Topanga SP
Wassama Round House SHP
Will Rogers SHP
William B. Ide Adobe SP
William Randolph Hearst Memorial SB
Woodson Bridge SRA

Inner Landscape by Elsita!

Every once in a while, amid all the creative clever art and handmade craft out there, I come across something that really takes my breath away. Today it was Elsita who I'd seen on Etsy before for these awesome tiny paper sculptures she makes of bees. I stumbled across her blog this evening and was stunned by this piece called Inner Landscape. It's so beautiful, I love it. It reminds me of the Frida self portraits a little bit with so much raw emotion and inner exquisite pain/beauty. Very inspirational!!!

Wonderful

This weekend I got to go see Tiny's new charming apartment and have dinner with her! She now lives in the valley off Ventura Blvd, and right next door to a puppy store! We went in and almost kidnapped a poofypoofypalmaranian for her. Saturday we enjoyed late brunch at the Coffee Co (Y-U-M) and then attacked a much put-off task: my wedding registry at Target. The helpful Tiny got me through it, us and a scanner, adding bazillions of things to my list. I am prone to not wating to add anything because it's just so much stuff that won't fit in our apartment, but I know it will be nice when we have a house. By the end of the day, a lovely infected blister on my heel felt like I'd need to amputate the whole foot, and I felt all kinds of rage at the millions of crazy parents and children swarming the store, but Tiny got me out.

Today the weather is rediculously beautiful.
Last night was a great dancing time at the ShortStop and I woke up with the worst monster headache hangover, and I took some tylenol PM to go back to sleep. I needed all the drinks so numb the evil infected blister (which suprisingly feels better today) I made it until noon when the auction started and I knew there was no use trying to sleep through it. So I peeled my self up and went to Trader Joes and Marina Farms, and was so glad I took myself outside. Summer is HERE! I was blissful driving with the windows down listening to New Order with all the sun and warm breeze flowing in. My grocery totes filled with freash food to make meals with for the coming week and tons of licorice for Run DMC, I was so happy. Oh weekend, I love you I love you I love you. I still have a headache, but i guess it's worth it because of what a blast of fun last night was. Twirly swirly dancing with good friends and good music, so much laughing and screaming to be heard. David is working constantly and was really tired, but took me out anyway, and I am stupid happy in love :) I am looking forward to so much coming up, a warm fun summer with hopefully some beach trips this year, finally getting to work on the fun parts of the wedding stuff (the letter pressing and decoration making!), a tropical vacation!!! I'm looking online at the yellow cabana we'll be spending the week in periodically, just to daydream about it.

play a song

I woke up this morning and sat down to work at my coffee table on my ceremony readings research and planning, and decided I could use some new music. I went on itunes and bough We Walked in Song by The Innocence Mission. I used to love listening to their albums when I first moved away from home, they brought me a lot of peace and calm when I was so homesick for my little town and nature and the friends and family that used to surround me. They've put out a couple new albums since that I didnt' know about, and I am so glad I bought it. I opened up the big front window and sunlight is streaming in, summer is going to finally be here. My tea, and my music and the early sun and all these sweet love poems verses phrases prose propelling me gently into this mild lovely day. The Innocence Mission is like a balm, it's soft but not sleepy, it unfolds and celebrates so secretly without needing to show off. I absolutely love it.

Onesie

Oh my gosh! David & Heather's baby is trying to come out! All day I waited but still, no baby. Don't be bad, Baby, making your mom suffer the horrible horrible contractions all day and night and then not showing up! If you come out, you can wear these onesies I have crafted with felt just for you.

MOLAA

Today David and I went to Molaa (Museum of Latin American Arts) to meet our photographer for the wedding. I picked it as an inbetween meeting place as I've been curious about it for a while. It was a nice day, we walked to yummy Super Mex for lunch, and then took in the collections at the Museum. There were some good pieces, and I enjoyed it. We both noticed though, that there wan't much information avaliable in the echibits. A lot of the pieces I was curious to learn about the subject of the painting or the artist, only to find no info on the nameplates. What I did read was interesting, I only wish there was more. One artist I noticed was born in Fance, died in Hawaii, but lived and worked in Mexico. What an interesting blend of cultures. We really liked the photographer, and it made for a nice sunday.