It was a busy morning and a rough night's sleep. Thanks, in part, to next-door neighbor's guests thinking it was a good idea to continue whatever went on inside out into the street at 3:30 a.m. I'm pretty sure excessive alcohol consumption was involved.* Be that as it may, I was doing stuff early in and around the house all morning, including ordering groceries for delivery. Ever since shortly before the COVID lockdown, I have felt that living a delivery-only lifestyle is a good idea. Once everything was put away (and Lucy got some dark meat roast chicken), I decided a brisk walk was in order before rain shows up. As it turns out, that's still a good 4 hours from now. While I was out, I had this silly idea...
I bought the Jack Skellington onesie my first winter alone here, when I decided it was okay for most of the house to be cold--2013. Framing a photo proved challenging.
That, by the way, is my new "zero-gravity" chair so I can hang out in the backyard during cooler climes and enjoy butterflies and hummingbirds. There's a very old chaise lounge in the yard that is mattress-less due to squirrels remodeling their homes. It was mostly for the feral boys anyway. This chair comes inside after use.
Happy Halloween, everybody!
Juni is finding the outfit very cozy.
A Halloween tradition here...
Frank Zappa 10/31/81 Live At The Palladium
EDIT: The first link I offered was FRANK ZAPPA - Live at Palladium - HALLOWEEN, 1977. That was "age restricted." This is the MTV broadcast from 1981 and there's a bunch of banter nonsense at the beginning. I know almost no one ever clicks my music links but, just in case... skip to about 7:17 here for the start of the music. This is a VHS rip and that's not my fault. Also, it takes about 10 seconds to start.
* Every Halloween I reflect back to Halloween, 2000. Tomorrow, November 1st, I will be 26 years sans alcohol. I find "sober" to be a tricky word but, yes, you can call it that.
Got out late. Only visited the local college arboretum. 70.3º to 74.5ºF, with very bright sunny skies. A bit blustery too. Tropical milkweed (Asclepias curassavica) should be cut back within a week, but it probably won't be. I spotted 7 monarch butterflies (Danaus plexippus). There were also two Gulf fritillary (Agraulis vanillae) butterflies. The Coreopsis 'Moonbeam' is still flowering! Roses are red (sometimes). The All Valley Band Tournament is today, campus stadium. There were a bazillion kids playing soccer. I only walked 1.4 miles. I can hear marching band drum cadences INSIDE MY HOUSE (0.84 miles away!) In general, people are annoying. The lovely Junimoon has been in my lap for about 98% of the prep and composition of this post.
Photos from today, October 24th.
Epitaph (including 'March for No Reason' and 'Tomorrow and Tomorrow')
Knowledge is a deadly friend If no one sets the rules The fate of all mankind, I see Is in the hands of fools
We got some rain here. Between yesterday around 12:30 p.m. and today, October 22nd, a total, so far, of 1.20". It's currently 3:30 p.m. and more rain is forecast for as soon as 4:00. Just after lunch I decided to take advantage of a lull and go for a brief yet exhilarating walk. I walked 1 km and back, so, 1.24 miles. The point was just to get out and enjoy some clean air.
When I got back home I wanted to see if I could get a nice "weather shot" from either my front or backyard without including too much urban visual clutter. I could not. So. this is a compromise. The top 5/6 of the image is real, taken from the front of my house, and the bottom 1/6 is AI generated. Yes. it would be nice. I'd only have to tear down five houses and this could be achievable. Is that too much to ask for?
Ah, watch out You might get what you're after Cool babies Strange but not a stranger I'm an ordinary guy Burning down the house
In the spirit of, It's the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown, my walk today. I got out late, partly due to finding my camera battery was low but mostly due to fragmented sleep and then being slow to get a.m. tasks accomplished. It was 73º out of my car, walking and 79.6º at the end. I only walked 1.57 miles, albeit quite briskly. This was my only pause while I checked the playlist on my phone.
I kept looking as I moved but nothing caught my eye for photos.
Keep moving, Charlie...
In the early to late-90s, I used to co-own a little restaurant (combo, deli and market) and wound up doing all of the deliveries, which was fine by me because I would simply end up hanging out with a wide variety of creative professionals, and that's where my head was at. From as early as 1983, I began working with creative folks inside of multiple digital disciplines. Our location on Larchmont Blvd., L.A., was central to the Hollywood Media District, which included but was not limited to Paramount Pictures, Raleigh Studios, Klasky Csupo, The Record Plant, Todd-AO, and of course, just a couple of blocks up the street, Bill Melendez Productions. That was three converted residential houses side-by-side right on Larchmont Blvd. Bill Melendez and company, of course, did all of the Charlie Brown TV specials. He was a lovely person, and he, like many others on the studio circuit, didn't mind my hanging out. In fact, several of the studio heads encouraged it, so that's what I did.
I think I redrew this image in 2010. My little tribute to Snoopy, Schroeder, and Frank Zappa. It's a completely redrawn frame grab (aside from the piano and shadows).
Vince Guaraldi - The Great Pumpkin Waltz (Official Animated Video)
I was so happy to see this butterfly out my office windows. I was about to tell a sad story about today's walk and taking pictures of this lovely butterfly rescued me. For anyone reading this, please take time to look at something beautiful today... and tomorrow... and the next day... And if you have children, give them a hug.
The common buckeye (Junonia coenia) is a widely recognized brush-footed butterfly in the family Nymphalidae, famous for the prominent, predator-deterring eyespots on its wings. To the common person who gave it the name "common," what is your problem? I like Junonia though.
Joining me off on the sidelines was the handsome Vit. Even though he's feral, Vit will tolerate me getting pretty close. He has also just recently started to meow at me. Vit's a little dirty. He's been rolling around in the yard. I think it might be due to the current prevalence of ankle biter mosquitos (Aedes aegypti). They've been driving me nuts too. Vit's plumping up for colder climes. He's already eaten three times today.
Willow Farm is a song that was incorporated into the masterpiece, Supper's Ready, from the album Foxtrot, 1972, by the band, Genesis. The entire piece is 22 minutes and 54 seconds long and I highly recommend listening to the whole thing. I've probably listened to various recordings of Supper's Ready more than any other song in my life.
If you go down to Willow Farm To look for butterflies or flutter-byes or gutter-flies Open your eyes, it's full of surprise Everyone lies like the fox on the rocks And the musical box Oh, there's mum and dad and good and bad (Ah-ah-ahh, ah-ahh) And everyone's happy to be here
It was a crazy night for sleep. Among other events, I was awoken at 12:45 a.m. I heard the Los Angeles Police Department over a loudspeaker yelling something. I'm not sure what it was, but I was certain it wasn't instructions for me to come out with my hands up. I picked up my iPad off the side of the bed and checked the front of the house camera. Nothing there. Then I heard the LAPD helicopter circling. I got up, did a shortcut through the bathroom to the front door, looked outside, and nothing again. Junimoon joined me in the front hallway, and we proceeded through the living room, heading for the kitchen. Out the gable clerestory windows looking east from the living room and kitchen, I could see the wide ellipse the helicopter was taking. It was between two blocks and almost one mile south of me. They had the Nightsun spotlight lighting everything below by a couple of blocks. It was mostly the noise that was irritating. I went back to bed. Lucy barely glanced at me with a "what's up?" look, and I decided not to close the window because the room was just starting to cool down, and I didn’t think it would matter a whole lot for the noise. Whatever the story, it fortunately ended at 1:04, and I went into a heavy dream cycle.
The Lucy alarm went off at 2:30 and again at 4:30. Her snooze button is located somewhere between her stomach and the hypothalamus at the base of her little kitty brain. I was in a disoriented, confused, slow-to-respond state of operation but somehow managed to direct Lucy's attention to a small pile of Blue Buffalo, Chicken and Liver, Bursts--treats on her gray hoodie at her corner of the mattress. A few minutes later, I heard the crunching sound of success. This is not an endorsement of the Blue Buffalo product line, however. General Mills, if you're listening, let's talk.
"Stock photo" of Lucy on her hoodie, her 19th B-day, April, 2025.
Each step of the way last night, I went deep into my REM Cinematic Universe. I have always had wildly vivid dreams, but lately they have been off the charts. I was up shortly before 6:00, on autopilot, heading through the kitchen and into my office with a mug of Java to take my morning meds. I've learned it's best to navigate the house and take pills in my office as opposed to having them conveniently bedside, where five minutes later the question might arise... did you take your pills? You didn't take the blue one, did you?
I entered my morning reboot sequence while caffeine and acetaminophen did their thing and started making decisions about preparing for a morning walk. Ultimately, I drove the 1/2 mile to my launch pad and was out of the car walking, camera at my hip, at 8:26. Finally, a day where there was no rush to get out early, with a cruising temperature of 66º.
Here are a few pictures taken along the way.
One of two weather panos, this one taken at the campus arboretum
Angel's trumpets (Brugmansia). I thought about rearranging a flower or two but the extreme toxicity of these plants had me deciding otherwise.
I know, don't say anything. I keep taking pictures of this Coreopsis verticillata plant but I'm amazed that it ALWAYS has flowers and nobody is deadheading it.
The second weather pano, taken inside the botanical garden.
I'm officially calling this red-tailed hawk (Buteo jamaicensis) my first hawk of autumn. Red-tailed hawks in this Valley split into two distinct groups during the summer. The adults stay exactly where they are as permanent residents, while the juveniles and young adults engage in a "reverse migration," heading hundreds of miles north. The young red-tailed will do this until they are about four years old, when they are mature enough to claim a permanent mate and territory back home. They do this because of fewer summertime resources, and so they don't have to compete with older, more aggressive adults. Once autumn arrives, they return to Southern California. During extreme heat waves here, the permanent adult population practically vanishes from sight because they go into a behavioral "lockdown" to survive the heat, compressing all of their activity into the coolest parts of the day.
I believe that blur of a bird passing nearby is a Cliff Swallow (Petrochelidon pyrrhonota).
Yes, I spent a few minutes with the hawk.
The walk was about 2.6 miles. It was 73º toward the end. The only issue with getting out later on a Saturday was the high number of students choosing to go to school and cramping my style. On Saturday! The nerve! Currently, it's almost 1:30, and there's a 41% chance of showers at 2:00. Early this morning, when I checked hourly weather for tomorrow morning, most of the a.m. was showing showers and scattered showers; that's now "few showers" from 3-5 a.m. So I'll play it by precipitation tomorrow morning on another photo walk. Monday, October 12th, is showing the greatest probability of showers from midnight to past noon. We shall see.
Is it any wonder I'm not crazy? Is it any wonder I'm sane at all?
Is it any wonder? I've got too much time on my hands It's tickin' away with my sanity
