Day 98 from France: Do I Want The Job?

Shaboom sends us her update from Paris SoCal...

The interviews went surprisingly well. One job is a position that I could have if I wanted but isn't necessarily something I'm interested in doing. The other job is interesting with room to move up but I think it's going to take them a while and a lot of corporate red tape before they're ready to hire. You can read more about it HERE.

Karen from Burbank - AKA Caution Girl.

Ernie Bucket

I'm up.

Coffee. (Check!)

40 flights of stairs. (Check!)

Walk home to find Hubby taking 4 and Ernie Bucket to the Donut Prince.

I decide to tag along for the walk. It's nice to have someone to walk with.

Confession: I don't like donuts. They make me queasy. Shaboom said this is very unamerican of me but I can't help it.

4 was very quiet while we were walking but then blurted out "Mommy if you were a superhero your name would be Caution Girl because you are full of caution."

Caution Girl? I'm thinking, yeah if you only knew me in the 80's..........but that's another story.

Okay, sure. I'm Caution Girl.

They order their sticky sweet donuts and I take off.

45 minutes later I get a call that I have to go to an appointment.....in 3 hours. I turn my sweaty ass around, go home, get ready, eat a half an artichoke and head out.

It's in Santa Monica so I park on top of the 10 story car park. If nothing else I get 10 more flights of stairs in today.

By the time I get home I'm starving.

These are some tomatoes from Grandma Dee's garden. So delicious.

After dinner 4 does a few paintings.

Boogerman 2010

I know. Unfortunate name.

-----------------------------------------------------------------

My new favorite blog is The Common Sensualist. She makes things like pumpkin ravioli and has introduced me to Quark. I'm hooked. You should be too.

Day 97 from France: Possible Change In Plans

Shaboom sends us her update from Paris SoCal...

Sometimes you just have to go with the flow.

I felt stressed about having to leave to go back to Paris today with still so much left to do that I changed my flights to leave a week from today.

A few of my nearest and dearest don't want me to go back to Paris. They want me to stay in LA indefinitely. One of them called me today telling me she had lined up interviews for me the rest of this week. If I get a good offer, I suppose the only smart thing would be to accept the position and return to my life in Los Angeles. You can read more about that HERE.

But if I stay, will I gain weight again? Will I have to deal with the SwimSwim situation in my face day in and day out? Will I miss France in a way that will make me leave again?

Time will tell...

The Zoo and Secrets

Karen sends her posts from Burbank, CA

A happy croissant to start the morning.

Then it was off to the zoo with Hubby and 4.

Every time we come here I have a new "favorite" animal. Today it is the Snow Leopard.

Until we get to these guys. I could watch them for hours.

The guys had zoo food for lunch and I brought a yogurt with honey. I may have swiped a fry from Hubby's lunch.

Dinner includes artichokes. More and more and more artichokes. I'm planning on going to the Artichoke Festival next year. Oops! I forgot to tell Hubby about "our" plans for next year.

"Honey? I want us to go to The Artichoke Festival next year."

"Where is it?"

"Northern California."

"That's a long way to go for a plant."

Has he ever met me?

-------------------------------------------------------------

That was going to be the end of my post for this day.

But I wanted to share this with you.

I don't know who she is.

I don't know anything about her.

But I think she is brave and smart and I relate.

I just want to hug her.

Day 96 from France: Don't Mess With Me

Shaboom sends us her update from Paris SoCal...

Today I handed in my keys and completely vacated my home. I have gotten rid of 90% of my earthly belongings and have for all intents and purposes walked away from my old life. And to top it off, I had a freak-out when a crazy lady crossed my path and made me look like a psychopath which you can read about HERE.

Joyeux Dimanche - Bubble Magic

The Bubble Series by Melvin Sokolsky for Harper's Bazaar Magazine 1963.

More Bubble Magic at voyonvoir.

Happy Sunday

The Tortoises

With an animal lover for a father, I was lucky enough to grow up with desert tortoises in our backyard. Many years ago my brother, The Sgt. Major, found a desert tortoise on the freeway. (We didn't live near the desert) He brought it home and after some research my Dad found out that you can't take tortoises back to the desert once they leave because they get a cold and that could spread to the others. So we had ourselves a tortoise.

Then a neighbor found another tortoise on the freeway and brought it to our house because she knew we already had one and wouldn't it be nice for them to have each other. You see where I'm going here. A few years later one more arrived. It became obvious by the tortoise porn going on in the backyard that there was one male and two females.

Pretty soon both females were laying eggs. The eggs didn't hatch because they were laying them in moist dirt. So Dad borrowed an incubator, did more research and voila! Baby tortoises!

Interesting fact: The sex of the tortoise depends on the temperature of incubation. So all of these baby tortoises were female.

Then Dad gave the incubator back and just filled in one of the female's favorite spots to lay eggs with sand instead of dirt. And voila! Baby tortoises were crawling out of the sand. The rest of the baby tortoises from this point on were males.

28 tortoises later and a look from Mom, he filled in the favorite spot with dirt again.

Dad would bring the tortoises out to graze on the grass in the morning. Give them romaine, rose petals, water and moist wheat bread. Mom wouldn't give them rose petals until they ate their romaine lettuce. But Dad would sneak it to them when she wasn't looking. True story.

When Dad passed away 5 years ago my Mom was unable to care for them. We found wonderful homes for them all. The Sgt Major and Rosalie have one. Rosalie named her Frida.

My friend, Jennifer, took 2 brothers. She named them Siegfried and Roy.

4 and I got to visit with Siegfried and Roy today.

4 and his buddy fed them rose petals from Jen's garden.

We didn't make them eat their romaine first.