These are NOT all related.

What an interesting story if they were.

But no.

On learning a new skill:

I can now light a match from a matchbook with one hand. I feel so very accomplished in my new ability. This is what comes of socializing with people who smoke like chimneys.

Popping lecram’s cherry:

He popped his platinum cherry. I made him sign for it.

Ok, bartender-Katie did, but still. I was there. I helped.

The Ingrid Bergman:

The first flower I’ve been given in a long time. She’s lovely.

Pet peeve #144:

Because I’ve used #143 many times. It makes me think of my Diana. So… #144. And I think it’s quite the “gross” error, anyway.

The peeve - When people caption photos of themselves with another individual as “Jimmy-Joe-Bob and I”. No, No, NO! It’s “Jimmy-Joe-Bob and ME”. It would ONLY be “Jimmy-Joe-Bob and I…” IF it were followed by “…were in the tandem nose-picking contest” in the description. Otherwise, this is a photo of “Jimmy-Joe-Bob and ME”.

Damn it.

What I did over the weekend:

Friday -

A trip to the park with a podling and her kite. Not enough wind for flying her rather heavy dragon kite, so after a few attempts at keeping it aloft we settled for playing in the grass and wandering.

I have a podling. It is also part monkey. It climbs trees.

It wanted to climb this one as well.

I said no. I just took a picture of the pretty flowers instead.

A good day.

That evening we accompanied lecram to see Theatre Ventoux’s production of Lear. I enjoyed it, but I think it is telling when an extremely intelligent 13 year old says “I THINK I got the gist, but I’m not exactly sure what I just saw…” then has to read the notes in the program to really flesh out the story. It is, however, worth seeing, especially if you’re familiar with Shakespeare’s King Lear. It’s a refreshing take and an intimate, spare staging.

Saturday -

Being incredibly lazy with a podling, watching episode after episode of Penn and Teller’s Bullshit. (Because the podling has become quite fond of this series. I do have a pretty cool podling.)

The evening found us at L’s. Podling was quite adept at entertaining her ‘boyfriend’ (L’s young boy-child, who is eight years younger than podling. He has publicly claimed her and by his own admission, has 3 girlfriends. As it stands now. Of differing ages. He’s a gemini.) She kept him occupied while the adults played with fire. I managed to NOT hit myself in the head with a flaming staff. Even managed a few tricks and low tosses. Yay me?

Sunday - Up at 5 a.m. In the car by 6:30 a.m. on the way to So Cal for the first in a series of weekly burlesque classes. LJ and I have decided that we are glad we decided to do this insane thing. We like the teachers, both very talented and experienced burlesque dancers. It’s fun. We learned just a tiny bit of a choreography already, and it feels… well… right. For me, at least. Yay! I learn how to take my clothes off in front of people and be alluring while doing it!

Interestingly, the studio where the classes are held is literally a block or so away from the Hollywood Walk of Fame, the Chinese Theatre, the Kodak Theatre (where they do the Oscars) and all that other mess of touristy stuff. We wandered through briefly after class looking for food. On the way home we went to Lancaster and looked at the Poppy Reserve. Golden hillsides of wild poppies. I have pictures, but I’m too tired to find my camera and download the photos. (The earlier photos came off my phone which sits right next to me as I type. Maybe I’ll feel industrious tomorrow and add the poppy pics.) Future trips will probably involve sightseeing, finding interesting places to shop and maybe taking in a bit of culture.

Monday - (Yes, I know Monday isn’t weekend, but still…)

Spent the evening in the company of friends and acquaintances. How cool is it that I can sit around with REAL writers and talk about the difference between forcing theme and ‘the point’ of a story, and having the idea then letting the theme and ‘point’ take shape as it evolves.

May have a gig writing some copy for… a business… and I’m getting pointers and advice from one of these real writerly sorts!

I’m not sure why this puts such a smile on my face. I think it has something to do with the idea of getting paid to do something that I don’t think I’ll mind all that much. (But that may just be because it’s novel to me. After doing it a few times, I’ll probably be jaded and hate it as much as all the other things I’ve learned to do just well enough to get by.)

There we are.
Past bedtime.

Edit - Adding poppy pics. Yay.

It was FREAKING windy and cold, so all the little flowers were curled up.

And then this next flower, we learned at the Poppy Reserve Visitor Center, is called a “blue dick”. (Which is much better than the name that our mothers called it by when we were growing up. It’s a VERY non-pc name, so I won’t type it here. But “blue dick”, while it could be construed as slightly off-color by some, at least makes some sense. The other name didn’t even make any sense.)