Marie Javins's Blog, page 39

Winning Waffles

Remember the Great Grocery Tragedy of 2018, when I won frozen waffles in supermarket Monopoly and then my refrigerator stopped running?

You’ll be delighted to know I won frozen waffles as my grand prize once again this year. I was sorta hoping for the $1000 Vons gift card, but this is almost as good.

Scarcity=Value

Yesterday, I found rice and dried beans in the store, and now this. It’s almost normal...except I don’t think I’ve ever bought 8 rolls at once before. It’s all the supermarket had.

When we look back at this time, one of my first memories will be how happy I was when I found potatoes after days of all the potato shelves being bare everywhere in town.

Widening My World

Today was the day I expanded my world beyond the mile surrounding Warner Bros. and my condo.

I figure nothing is going to change in the near future--possibly not for more than a year. So the question is...what is it like out there? If California reopens on 5/15, how do we alter our behavior so our world is safer than it might have been otherwise?

I donned my homemade mask (two layers of quilting cotton and one thin interfacing between), stuffed latex gloves into my bag, and headed out.

I caught the #222 bus north to Pacific and Hollywood Way. All buses are free at the moment, and able-bodied passengers can only enter and exit through the rear door. There were only three passengers on the bus, all keeping their distance. All wore masks.

I used my bag to push the button when I wanted the driver to stop, and then walked a mile to Lowe's. I only saw one other person during that walk, a dog walker two blocks away.

Lowe's was...not empty. It wasn't crowded, and everyone had on masks, but the number of shoppers was disconcerting.

I headed on to Target, but the line to get in was kind of nutty, so I walked over to Walmart. There was a queue there too, but Walmarts have actual sewing sections, so I was interested in stopping there. The line went quickly...but apparently so did the fabric. I haven't seen shelves this empty since my last look at the toilet paper section in any major grocery store. I bought the last fat quarter of fabric--it has tacos on it. (Not sure who will want a taco mask, but someone will.)

I left Walmart, passing a tremendous queue of cars all waiting for their curbside pickups. The line to get into the store stretched around the block now.



This is the point where I started thinking about that choir, and how they were all social distancing but not in masks, and how I guess it is time I took buying a car seriously, because my dedication to public transit is strong enough that I've gone around the world twice on it and taken it all over LA, but I'm not really willing to die for the wonderful egalitarian stew of mass transit. And once the buses are crowded again, there's no way to control who else sits down close to you.

In downtown Burbank, I switched from the #94 to the #155, which is a mellow line with well-behaved passengers, not many of them, all in their masks. That took me back to Riverside and Hollywood Way, where I picked up a panini and iced latte, and had an itch on my eye that drove me nuts for at least 20 minutes until I got home, dropped everything on my doormat, and scrubbed my hands furiously with soap and water, by which time the itch had vanished.

I hand-washed my mask and put my carry-out food into my own dishes, scrubbed my hands again, and here we are.

What's the verdict?

I was feeling pretty good about the future up until I left Lowe's and went to Walmart. The square mile of Burbank I roam around feels so easy. Vons doesn't always have what I'm looking for, but then it will a few days later. I'm a few blocks from Vons, from CVS, from carry-out restaurants, from the post office, FedEx and UPS Store for printing, and if I want to punish myself, I can go wait in line at Trader Joe's.

But I feel like I just had a glimpse of how other people might be living.

Dream House No More

A lot can change in two weeks.

Here's the sad story of gentrification gone completely wrong in Burbank.

Fantasy Real Estate, the Bergen-Lafayette Edition

This is a cool-looking house with the original tin front, but I think it's worth $600-675k, not $799k. I think that because that's what my house is worth, a few doors down, and I have the end so more light. Bizarre that I was able to get my house for less than my one-bedroom condo in Burbank. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Still, if this house were in LA, it would be worth way more than this, so maybe someone with spare money will come along.

I hope they don't paint it.

I'm Supposed to be A Writer, so...

...I guess I wrote a poem.

Will a take-out sandwich be the death of me? I wonder if it’s worth it.
The baguette. The turkey. The gouda.
Death by gouda.
Two scraps of quilting fabric and a pipe cleanerwill protect me.
A pipe cleaner will save me. Gouda will kill me.
It’s Saturday. The radishes on the balcony need thinning. 
I saw a pack of Charmin in the wild.

Evening Stroll During Lockdown

As far as places to be locked down, Burbank is pretty good. Less crowded that the city over the hill, and the weather was perfect throughout March and April.

Getting a bit on the warm side now, but it's still lovely at dawn and dusk. More photos here.

But Only the British Kind with a U

So this happened. Click to see the larger version, or you can go to the site. 

I am not sure what it's specifically about. Maybe for trying to get out assignments to people, spreading them out when a lot of people were suddenly out of work? Or maybe the digital material I'm overseeing side-by-side with a big event comic and a young readers graphic novel.

Or maybe just a slow news day.

Big Box Full of Crap

In Jersey City news, apparently Liberty Storage wants to close and turn into an 8-story hotel. It was only a matter of time--it's located directly adjacent to Liberty State Park.

This makes me wistful for an earlier time when I'd drop off Henry the 1990 Ford Taurus at Liberty Storage for 2-3 months, and he'd live next to the sailboats and RVs in their parking lot, while I'd live in Australia, Spain, Mexico, Kuwait, Uganda, Egypt, wherever. My car lived in the storage lot as often as it lived in front of my apartment.

I kept all my stuff in Liberty Storage for about four years.

After the first year, I should've just thrown in a match.

Here's a photo, but it's low-res as it's the only scan I have of a physical photo, which is...wait for it...in a box at A-1 Storage in Jersey City.

Some people never learn.

Semi-Progess in Burbank

It took a global pandemic to get Burbank to automate its pedestrian walk signals. 

This is only temporary, of course, because this is car country.

I'm sure there will still be plenty of motorcycle cops out ticketing people jaywalking across alleys, though.

"Pedestrians in Burbank will no longer need to worry about pressing a button at traffic intersections to activate the walk signal as the city has automated the process in response to the coronavirus pandemic.The automated signaling will be in effect every day from 6:30 a.m. to 10 p.m.Prior to their implementation citywide, the only intersections with automated walk signals in Burbank were found in the downtown area.Simone McFarland, a spokeswoman for the city, said the automated walk signals will eventually be lifted after the crisis is over and traffic levels in Burbank return to normal.“The city anticipates pedestrian traffic to decrease once the Safer at Home health order is lifted and, therefore, the automatic walk signals will cause unnecessary delays to vehicles,” she said.McFarland added that the city may reautomate certain intersections depending on traffic and pedestrian flow.Automating walk signals is not a unique tactic in slowing the spread of the novel coronavirus. Los Angeles automated more than 400 intersections across the city around the same time Burbank made its own switch, McFarland said.In addition to the walk signals, other strategies Burbank has implemented to help slow the spread of the virus include issuing social-distancing guidelines for retailers and mandating masks be worn by employees and customers at essential businesses."