Marie Javins's Blog, page 79

Priceless Treasures

I was digging around my garage, seeking some tax documents the tax-y state of California wished to see, when I stumbled over these 1994 notes from Alex Toth. 
I didn't find the tax documents, but this was way better. 

Day of Dough

I was home, real home, not where I live.

And I got to spend time with friends. A random passerby took this photo.

Soup dumplings for lunch. Pierogi for dinner.

'Twas a day of dough.

The Day After

Back in September, when reviews of the new Smithsonian National Museum of African American History showed up, I jumped on the timed entry link.

True, I am living in Los Angeles at the moment, completely by accident, but I knew I'd be in northern Virginia around Christmas, so I booked two tickets for December 26.

The day after Christmas, my mother dropped me off at the metro stop nearest her. BBF had gotten on a Greyhound early in the morning, and was on his way from Port Authority.

The DC Greyhound station, once a new marvel hugely improved upon the decrepit one on New York Avenue, had been pronounced too big and itself decrepit, and had closed its doors sometime in the not-too-distant past, so Greyhounds now come into the bus plaza above Union Station, the same place the Bolt Bus arrives and departs from.

I vaguely remembered when I'd left from New York Avenue to go to check out NYU in my senior year of high school. When I'd gone to college from there, stopping at Breezewood the first time, and ending up in Springfield, Ohio, for my first quarter at Antioch. I'd probably headed to New York City a few times from the New York Avenue terminal. I'd no doubt arrived there from somewhere in Pennsylvania the time I hit a deer and had to leave my car at a repair shop for a week. Then, Greyhound had moved behind Union Station when it acquired Trailways. I remember a lot of red from that time. I'd left out of the "new" terminal more times than I could count, once I'd moved to the NYC-area. But now, the bus terminal was a parking structure over Union Station.

It's an improvement, to be honest. Union Station has restaurants, coffee shops, and the metro.

What Union Station doesn't have, and what nowhere in DC seems to have, is luggage storage. Or rather, it does, but it's $30 a day for one suitcase. Seriously. I'd already bought a Bolt Bus ticket to Newark for later the same day before I realized this, or I'd have just booked up a hotel room on Priceline. There was, at least, a sign indicating the luggage storage place is moving to a different location within Union Station, and supposedly introducing more sane prices.

BBF's Greyhound showed up just a little late, but that was enough time for me to pay the $30 and stash my bag. We had a bite to eat, then caught the metro over to the museum.

The timed entry system worked pretty well. If I hadn't read warnings about the line inside, I'd have missed the best part of the exhibits, deep inside the building. Once we went downstairs, we hit a massive line which we stood in for about 40 minutes before getting into the actual exhibit space. This will change in time, of course, and you'll be able to wander about freely, but for now, there was a lot of initial waiting involved.

That was the only complicated part, though. The rest was interesting and touching, and seeing it in the waning days of the first African-American president would have been unique on its own, but seeing it in the context of so many gains being imminently endangered gave me a feeling of dread. But of course, the march of history stops for no one, and while we can pretend things will be brought to a stop, that won't last. Evolution is upon us, and mere mortals attempts at controlling culture will be inevitably cast aside. The museum will not be a memory of a dying dream, but rather, will be a benchmark in progress.

Christmas in Virginia

I dragged myself out of bed at 4 in the morning on 12/23, so I could be on the first LAX Flyaway bus to leave from Hollywood.

This was no fun, but I've learned to be on the first flight out on holidays. Plus, the shuttle driver taught me something, so I'm glad to have been on this bus.

We headed straight to baggage claim, not to Departures. In doing so, we avoided that hour-long crawl around the LAX loop, which had driven me kind of batty at Thanksgiving.

Pro tip: Don't screw around with Departures at LAX on holidays.

The flight was straightforward enough, and I was at Dulles soon enough, where my mother picked me up. We spent a few days around Front Royal, but the highlight has to be when my mother's husband released a mouse from a live trap, and a second later, a feral cat had the mouse in its mouth.

Happy Christmas, kitty cat!

Puppy Day

Puppies came to the office today. Best holiday party ever!

Shopping for Fleas

After our walk in the woods, Tracy and I headed over to the Rose Bowl in Pasadena, which holds an enormous flea market once a month.

I'd been meaning to go for more than a year, but it's hard to find the exact right Sunday to commit to hauling myself out to Pasadena from Hollywood. But we were there already, in the mountains right above. Plus, it turned out to be cheaper to get in once it was late in the day.

We parked Tracy's rental car on the massive lawn and headed in. This is a BIG flea market. We could've been there for hours, but inevitably, shopping like this is wearying. I was ready to go after a few hours, and relieved we hadn't spent the entire day wandering through the aisles.

There were no fleas available at the flea market, but we did stumble over a guy selling doormats. I bought two, one little one for my Jersey City back door (that's a magnetic screen you see across the door), and one full-size for my Hollywood studio.

Walking in the Woods

Tracy came to town from JC, and we went hiking. Well, we went walking, really. It was fun.

UFOs

Here's proof I can sleep through anything.
An alien spacecraft landed on Hollywood Boulevard, and I didn't even notice until I had to get from the metro to the supermarket, then through all this to my apartment. 

New Hair Day

I headed up to Krimson Salon in Burbank today for my very occasional hair fixing up. I'm always amazed at how good other people can make it look...and how that lasts for about three minutes as I walk away from the salon.

Space Utilization

It doesn't take much to get me excited, does it?

I bought a new fruit basket off Etsy, and BBF took me to the Despot, where we found the right anchor and hung this on my last trip home.

I love it! But of course, I'm not there. I'm in a rental in Hollywood, and my bananas live in a bowl on the windowsill here.

What I need now is a small hanging pot rack to go over the gas burners.