Afraid of Bugs – Tales from the Homestead of Casa Chihuahua

Just Arrived.

I landed in Berlin this afternoon – via Frankfurt. The flight was pretty much uneventful – however when we landed in Frankfurt we sat on the runway for 30 minutes and we had to run through the impossibly long airport to try and catch our connecting flight. Out of breath, we got to the gate to find that they had just moved the departure time out 30 minutes….

The weather in Berlin right now is perfect, warm with a cool breeze – after dropping our bags in our rooms we headed out to check out a few stores and ended the night having a very decadent dinner at chef Thomas Kammeiers Hugos here in the hotel.

Here are just a few random shots from the end of today.

An amazing video created by Matthew Harding.

Where the Hell is Matt? (2008) from Matthew Harding on Vimeo.

Rob, maybe you need to start working on one of these of your own??

This is the kind of blog I wish I had thought of doing…

Abandoned Couches

Here Kitty…Kitty….?

Some of you know about the run in I had 3 weeks ago with a feral kitten – Well, from the looks of it, someone else found him too…

: )

Biscuits the size of Dallas and other amazing baked goods.

Okay….so you guessed it….we had barely had coffee and we we’re both showered and dressed so we could be one of the first in the door for breakfast at Auntie Em’s. We got there just before the family rush (it was Father’s Day so there were alot of big groups that showed up after us). We had a hard time choosing – each day has a long list of specials in addition to the regular goodies. I went for a grilled tomato and avocado breakfast sandwich and jesse had the biscuits and gravy (like we’ve never seen them before). The coffee was excellent (from intelligentsia) and everything we tasted was incredible. Since they’re famous for their baked goodies, we had to get some of the cupcakes and the coffee cake to go. I think this will quickly become a regular spot for us.

Here’s a bit of food porn for you…

my breakkie.

jesse’s biscuit “soup”

happy boy!

The famous cupcakes from Auntie Em’s – this is from their website, because i ate all 4 of the cupcakes i got before i got a decent photo of them…

For more gorgeous photos of what they make click here.

We did a little bit more driving around after eating – particularly in an area called Adams Hill which is butted right up against the back of Forest Lawn. It’s quiet, cute and the houses are really affordable, but Jesse reminded me that living right up against a cemetery isn’t the best spot for someone who believes in Zombies (that would be me)….so we moved on…

The only other “thing” was I moved all the little succulents that Lisa gave me a while back into other containers. They all had nice roots and were more than ready to graduate to bigger pots. Here’s a visual overview….

my climbing aloe…and friends.

Overhead shot of the new transplants…

Reginald (the tall spikey plant/tree) and his pals

Our Sago Palm grew its new set of leaves while were were in Anguilla. They’re fully opened now and are going from the soft baby leaves to the painful spiky adult leaves – but it was still nice to see that I haven’t managed to kill it. Apparently the Sago’s only grow about 1″ a year, so i feel lucky to get to watch my Sago make it’s new leaves.

Whew, okay – i think that’s it, from last weekend. This weekend was another super fun weekend so i’ll do my best to not delay too long before sharing…but as a sneak preview, we spent most of Saturday gallery hopping (and art shopping).

Peeps.

There is just too much LA to see…

Our previous Saturday was spent exploring east of us. We drove around alot of different areas, including Elysian Heights – where we parked and went for a walk about. There’s a little house up here that we have a not so secret crush on (but it could never work out between us) and we wanted to get to know the neighborhood a bit better on foot. We walked just up the block and discovered this.

An opening right into Elysian Park!

We hiked in and around the park for about an hour – and got to see this great tree line that runs just along the edge of Dodger Stadium.

From the park and along the road up here, this was your view of downtown.

After working up a good sweat, we drove towards Eagle Rock to check out some more house. On the way a sign caught our eye – it was for Auntie Em’s. Jess and I had both heard/read about this incredible little place before we had moved but it had completely fallen off our radars. Since we hadn’t eaten all day, we grabbed this first parking spot we saw and ran for the door. Sadly , it was closed – it was 4:30 and they were only open from 8am to 4 each day. Hungry and sad, we decided to return for breakfast the next morning.

Rather than settle for McDonalds or worse, we went home, got cleaned up, and had a quick bite at The Kitchen, just off Sunset. It was on a recommended restaurant list, but was just okay – there are too many good places and way too little time to just have “okay”. Afterwards we caught a late showing of Zohan at the Americana at Brand.

Inside the ticket area of the Americana Movie Theater.

The Americana is so much like Vegas, with this water and light shows and shopping until 11pm ( i don’t care that it’s almost midnight, i NEED to get a new juicy couture jumpsuit right now!!) and it’s mediocre food – but the movie theater is nice and not overly crowded….

(BTW – Zohan was pretty funny, even though i didn’t want to laugh at AS’s dumb character)

Exploring New Corners of L.A.

Last weekend started off early, with an afternoon walk around the Rancho Equestrian Area of Burbank.

What makes this area unique is the fact that the neighborhood zoning allows residents to keep horses in their backyards and many of the homes have stables and stalls. Considering there are approx. 250 horses just in this little neighborhood, it make sense. It’s yet another amazing little corner of L.A., that before moving down here, I never knew existed. We wandered around the neighborhood for about an hour, spotting several people on horses just strolling down the streets.

After our walk we dashed home to get cleaned up, as we were meeting our friends Lisa and Chris for dinner at Blair’s. Dinner was delicious (I had the Mac&Cheese, as always) and we had a mini celebrity spotting – Chris Parnell, also known a Dr. Spaceman, was at the table behind us – he’s a mini clip from 30 Rock with him.

After dinner, we decided to explore the famed Pickwick Gardens. Any place that can boast Ice Skating, Bowling and Banquet Dining had to be good. It was an older bowling alley, exactly what you’d expect on a Saturday Friday night – black lights, booming disco mixed with heavy rap. Jess found this review (which partially compelled us to go).

“I like my bowling like I like my women… cheap, old, and stinky. Thats why I love Pickwick. I like a bowling alley to be a bowling alley.. with a creepy bar that has cheap beer, an arcade with games that have “insert coin” burnt onto the screen and nachos that look right out of a google image search.

This is not me dissing, this is me applauding AMERICANA!

In all seriousness, they have cheap bowling, its never too crowded, and its perfect old school bowling. There are better lanes out there, but when you want to escape the Los Angeles crowd, and be transported to the Midwest, I recommend this little Burbank gem.”

How could we not go?!! To top things off, Jesse started off the second game by bowling 4 strikes in a row!

If only we had a helicopter – oh, and a winning lotto ticket.

Jess and I keep looking at the Med.Monster on the hill whenever we go out walking. From many angles it’s a great looking house. There are lots of things that would make this a neat place to live, despite the lack of yard, etc – but the walking up 50 stairs just to get to the front door, really, really sucks….and it’s still waaaayyyy out of our price range.

It’s been on the Market for 375 days – and here’s how the numbers are running to date:

Price Reduced: 07/17/07 -$1,175,000 to $1,124,900
Price Reduced: 08/19/07 -$1,124,900 to $999,999
Price Reduced: 09/06/07 -$999,999 to $999,969
Price Reduced: 02/06/08 -$995,000 to $989,000
Price Increased: 03/30/08 -$989,000 to $994,000
Price Reduced: 05/25/08 -$994,000 to $869,000
Price Reduced: 06/02/08 -$869,000 to $849,000

Check out the “savings” on 9/6 and not really sure why back in March they thought an increase was in order…

If they drop it another 200K I think i’ll consider becoming a professional stair climber….

: )

More on-foot adventures.

This past week was a really good one.  80% of my office was out of town so I had an unbelievable amount of time to actually get my work done!! I didn’t want the week to end.  Since I got to sneak out of work a tiny bit early I was able to join Jesse 4 of the 5 nights to walk around our neighborhood.  Like Monday night, we had started out around 6:30pm and planned on only walking for 1 hour…but Monday, Wednesday and Thursday all turned into 2+ hour walks, getting us home well after dark.  There are just too many neat little streets and houses to discover in Silver Lake  – and hidden staircases everywhere.

These photos were from Wednesday night…when we walked down to the reservoir and up around the top of the hill on the west side of the lake and down to Hyperion…lets just say, there were a LOT of hills.

A view from the top of our hill – looking out towards the Reservoir.  This was taken from the side of a newly built ultra modern home – it was pretty swanky.

This is at the bottom corner of the reservoir – this might be an LA thing? or a crazy thing? or…i dunno – but this was one of a couple of houses we’ve seen on our walks that have trees in the yard completely decorated with ornaments.  This one was particularly great – as the ornaments were huge!

A view towards downtown from the top of the hill on the west side of the reservoir.  It was a smoggy week, so you only really see a ghost outline of the buildings.

The view of downtown was taken here – in front of this massive house.  We didn’t get the entire house in the photo  – but if you can see them, check out the front doors.  They were probably 18 feet tall and completely carved.

On Thursday night, we hiked up around some previously  unexplored streets.  Its incredible how many little dead-end streets there are and the architectural beauties hidden on these blocks.  If you don’t live on these streets, you’d never have a reason to drive around here – so it’s nice to be out on foot getting a chance to see what the area has to offer.

The Big Kitty.

“that little dog of yours looks mighty tasty!”

So, after a bit of research – it seems that our feline spotting yesterday was probably a Bobcat.

Here is a description from the LA County Wildlife page.

“Bobcats coats tend to be tawny in color with obvious to faint black spots on its sides, flanks and legs. The face of a bobcat is round with pointed ears, which are black and have distinctive white spots on each ear tip. Their tails are short (bobbed), 4-6 inches in length. Bobcats are two to three times larger than a domestic cat, and are fuller and more muscular in body. Bobcats can live in a variety of environments, from high altitude, snowy mountains to desert scrub, and live quite comfortably in city suburbs. Many suburban homes have quiet, secluded yards containing ample vegetation and trees to hide and ambush prey. Bobcats are usually no threat to people, choosing to flee when seen or approached.”

It seems that a Bobcat was spotted on Silver Ridge Ave previously.