I had hoped to be invited to light the tree at Rockefeller Center this year, but the call never came.
Although I had been told that Aretha Franklin was going to condition her involvement upon me being included, apparently she forgot. Perhaps her handlers talked her out of it.
In the midst of my disappointment, I was mollified to at least receive a local tree-lighting invitation. "Lambie," I said to myself, "Remember that there's no place like home for the holidays."
There were five city trucks at the bluffs this morning, and a bunch of men digging.
They were there at the behest of the Los Angeles Parks Foundation , which will install three! new benches there by the end of the year, as well as some at the Via de las Olas bluff.
I had been wondering since November about a chalk rectangle that appeared on the ground roughly halfway between the Calamaro and Berman benches.
It turns out that that spot, which is where the men were working this morning, will be the site of the first bench to be installed. I think it will be up by the end of the day.
It seems wonderfully appropriate that the bench will memorialize a longtime neighborhood resident who rescued dogs and loved animals in general: Melodie Mooz, who passed away last year, way too soon. Melodie understood dogs and was devoted to them; they reciprocated her devotion.
Not all of the other benches will be memorials. As Rudy, the gentleman in charge of the bench installation, told me,"People shouldn't have to die for you to get benches to enjoy."
I liked Rudy, who seems like a warm and wise man. I also liked Judith Kieffer, Executive Director of the L.A. Parks Foundation, who was at the bluff as well. Below is a photo of the three of us at the site of the second bench that will be installed.
And here is a photo of Rudy and Judith walking over to check on the Robbins bench, which is going to be repaired. (That's my friend Raymundo you see parked to their right on Asilomar, trying to get his truck to start.)
All in all, it's a great time to be at the bluffs.
It's raining and the rain is supposed to continue for at least another day. Making hay while the sun shines, as it were, I have decided to apply myself to self-improvement.
It has troubled me for some time now that I do not know any foreign languages. We Americans tend to be so insular. So I have decided to take advantage of this down-time to begin learning Japanese.
I have acquired a textbook and am applying myself to recognizing the hiragana. Sadly, I do not have a live teacher to assist me with pronunciation concerns.
The work is slow,and as is so often the case with textbooks, sometimes sleep-inducing. But I continue in my effort, knowing that it is good for my mind and also good for international understanding. Also, I have to admit that I'm looking forward to impressing Pookie by greeting him in Japanese.
So the chair is gone.
Saturday morning someone had moved it into the street.
By Saturday afternoon it was gone, perhaps to its final resting place.
Good riddance to bad trash.
The people have spoken.
I hope that the individuals who created this situation will have the strength of character to recognize and rectify their error by removing the chair before local government gets involved.
When I went to the bluff yesterday morning I got involved in an upsetting altercation with a dog by the name of Rambo. It was so upsetting that once I had completed my morning evacuation I left the bluff posthaste to run home, ignoring my friend Pookie who had just pulled up and was getting out of his car.
Here's a photo of Pookie looking for me in vain and being washed over with disappointment as he realizes that we will not have a play date:
The Michael Jackson events of the past two weeks have led me to muse about the consequences of being a public figure. Yes, Mr. Jackson was odd in the extreme, but as a public figure myself I have empathy for him.
