You better watch out. You better not cry. You better not pout. I'm telling you why.

I called it the Santa Claus Comes to Town fireplace.

When we bought the house in 2002, the fireplace looked like this -

- actually, when we bought it, it didn't have that Ikea cabinet in front of it. I wish I had an unencumbered picture. They must be on film, in storage. Anyway, we just kept that cabinet there to keep the dirt in and the cat out. Ugh. Can you believe we lived with THAT as our living room for 5 years?

I cannot grasp why anyone would paint a brick fireplace bright red with white grout lines. And in super gloss, no less. If the choices had been anything else, it would have been better. If it had been glossy Moss Green paint or eggshell Battleship Gray paint, it would have been better. If it had been bright red, but matte, it would have been better. But nothing, nothing could have been worse than the combination we were given.

For years, I agonized over our options. Should I just paint over the brick? If so, what color should I choose? Should I use a matte finish or a semi-gloss?

Should we strip the paint off and expose the natural brick? We tried this with a single brick and revealed an ugly, unappealing old brick. But, I rationalized, it would be authentic - what would have been here when the house was first built.

Then I thought, should we tile over the brick? This was my preferred option, but the most expensive (of course).

Finally, when we were ready to tackle the fireplace, the decision was made for us. As we had never used the fireplace before and as we had no reason to believe it didn't need some work, K arranged for an inspection. Yep, it needed some work, alright.

The inspector sent a beam of light up the flue. Then, K and the inspector observed the results from the attic. It was like George H.W.'s Thousand Points of Light. Light burst from all the gaps and cracks in the mortar. And there was worse. Standing on the rooftop, the inspector poked at the chimney with his finger. The chimney wobbled. It actually swayed!

With the help of Mr. U and Mr. Blue, the fireplace was gone by the end of the month.

Mr. U

And that's how the old fireplace became this -

- and how we ended up with a new gas fireplace, which today, looks like this:

Keep in mind that the tile still needs to be applied and the mantel still needs to be made (from a redwood beam taken from the house).

We didn't know what to do with the stack of several hundred bricks. K had an idea to pave the side of the house or the driveway with it - when he was done with everything else. Yeah, right. Like I need a huge stack of bricks to navigate around until he gets "done with everything else." Besides, they needed cleaning - all the mortar and the paint. Another huge task in itself.

K thought (briefly) about just pitching them. In a landfill? But we decided to list them on Craigslist. Who knew there was such a demand for old bricks? There were several inquiries but the winner was a woman who promised to give them a good home in her 1902 Victorian in Pasadena. She was thrilled to find bricks that matched the age of her home for her restoration.

I'm writing this now, because I'm really grateful that last week's quake didn't happen 10 months ago when we still had a tower of delicately balanced bricks sitting in our dining room.

And speaking of Pasadena . . . our mahogany pocket doors came from a Craftsman in Pasadena. Hmm. Maybe Pasadena is a vortex of restoration?

Or maybe it's just Santa, bringing all the good girls and boys what they really need.

Don't mess with me, Mu$!

Ech! I had to do physical labor today. A woman and two helpers came by on Saturday morning and took away the last of the stack of hundreds of bricks that had once been our fireplace and chimney. She has a hundred-year old Victorian in Pasadena, so she was happy to have hundred-year old brick. I'm happy to have it out of my way.

But, they left behind a big bricky mess of chipped off mortar.

K said that he would clean it up. Like he doesn't have enough to do. The worst part is, he has a play opening next weekend, so this weekend he's deep into rehearsals, putting in 13+ hour days. So nothing is getting done on the house. And he's going to sweep up brick dust?

So I did it. No reason not to, other than my general prissiness. And my allergies. It did make me awfully sneezy but somehow I lived.

Once that job was done, I decided to sweep off the 17 steps that lead up to the house since the steps were also filthy with brick dust. With broom in hand, I decided I might as well sweep up the leaves the huge ficus tree dropped on the sidewalk. Then I decided to tear out some Bermuda grass that was taking over the parkway area. Nothing that I actually want will grow in that area but for some reason Bermuda grass always thrives. By then, it was like 2:00. I hadn't had breakfast and I was starving. I kept thinking I would be done very soon. I hadn't planned to spend all this time on this. I still had the back patio I wanted to sweep up and plants that needed to be watered.

And then I saw it . . .

I really didn't need this today. Some little punk had tagged my retaining wall with a Sharpie. It's hard to tell in the photo but in my best interpretation of Taggerglyph, it looked like it said Mu$ is Che.

I don't know anything about Mu$ and I suspect that Mu$ doesn't really know anything about Che. As far as Mu$ is concerned, Che is some guy on a T-shirt, but Mu$ wants to be him and I suppose that tagging a wall on somebody's home is his idea of a revolutionary act.

Hey, Mu$, why don't you go tag a house in Beverly Hills? I dare you. You could even take the bus. Get on the 304 right at the corner. It'll take you right into the residential district of Beverly Hills. You wouldn't even have to transfer. Use your Sharpie on the houses of the rich, why don't you? You're such a brave little revolutionary, why are you wasting your time preaching to the choir in Red Hill?

I finished my sweeping, found the paint for the wall, painted out the tag and then made myself some lunch.

I know - it's only rock and roll, but I don't like it.

We had a bit of shaking and quaking today. There I was, sitting in my office, minding my own business, and then it all started moving. And kept moving. And kept moving.

It wasn't violent but it was definitely a good shaking. I couldn't decide whether it was better to crawl under my massive Mission-style desk or to crouch beside it. If the roof caved in, I might not be found if I were under the desk. But if I were beside it, I wouldn't have the protection of the desk.

I chose to crouch beside the desk. But at the same time, I reached my inordinately tiny hands up and onto my keyboard to IM my boss "we're having a hyuge quake." "I might get out of here."

She was simultaneously IMing me, asking me if I could feel it (actually testing to see if she was at the epicenter. She wasn't. Far from it.)

I hate sending typos, even in IMs.

At 5.2, the quake wasn't as huge as I'd interpreted. In the end, I didn't get out of there.

Cell phone service was dead. I didn't reach K for hours. But he was able to get to the house and confirm that all was well, including the kitten. Thank you. I'm so glad the brick fireplace and chimney are gone. More about that in a later post.

While looking through the news stories later, I found the following of interest. All were taken from Yahoo News Photos.

These are bricks from an unoccupied building in Pomona. This could have been the result of our former fireplace. Ouch!

Yahoo describes this as - Traffic flows through downtown Los Angeles after a 5.4 magnitude earthquake struck

Traffic flows? Really? Well, if it takes a quake, it takes quake . . .

The text that accompanied this photo was - A dog walks through a coned-off portion of the street as a leaking water main is worked on at the intersection of City Terrace Drive and Eastern Avenue in East Los Angeles.

Now here's one thing of many that I love about Los Angeles, more chihuahuas per square inch than any other city in the U.S. So, if you love chihuahuas, this is the place for you. But why is this little dog wandering around alone? That part disturbs me.

Yahoo News described this photo as -
People have lunch in a plaza in downtown Los Angeles after a 5.4 magnitude earthquake struck at 11:42 am local time, July 29, 2008.

OK, here's another thing I love about LA - when there's a picture to be taken, nothing seems to faze us. Unless of course rain is in the forecast. In that case, to hear the news pros tell it, all hell is about to break loose.

With this photo, we're told - A customer is turned away from a Macy's store in the Canoga Park area of Los Angeles which had to be closed when broken water pipes caused flooding July 29, 2008, following a magnitude 5.4 earthquake in Southern California centered in the Chino Hills area

I'm sorry, but the fact that there is a HUGE PILE OF RUBBLE beside the store is not enough to deter her compulsive shopping?

I love LA.

Top 5 Totally Uncool Things About My 'hood - #3 in a series

Who was stealing our papers?

Was it this guy?



I say “was” because we finally decided to just cancel our weekend delivery. I was fed up with the thievery and tired of waiting the 30 to 60 minutes it took to get a replacement. Plus I simply didn’t care to support that loser’s Sunday reading.

K and I relished weekend mornings on our front porch, reading the paper and keeping an eye on the parade of pedestrian traffic from atop our hilly perch – procrastinating work on the house.

Why didn’t the thief just steal a paper from Starbucks? There are always a couple of papers lying around there. He wouldn’t even have to buy a cup of coffee. The Starbucks is inside a Laundromat. He could just pretend he was waiting for his laundry.

When I canceled our home delivery, I theorized that I would just walk around the corner and buy a paper; but that plan never happened. Instead, we just live in ignorance. And maybe get more done on the house.

Just Say "No!" to Granite

In case you haven't yet seen this story, read this: http://www.nytimes.com/2008/07/24/garden/24granite.html?no_interstitial

Anybody thinking about installing granite counter tops should think again.

Someday, I might just cook something

I've been a bit tardy in reporting on this past weekend's accomplishments. For one thing, the new refrigerator was delivered. Delivery was promised two weeks ago and postponed two weeks in a row. Apparently, there's been a nationwide shortage of left-hinge refrigerators. And though I'd feared a Laurel and Hardy's Music Box* calamity coming up our 17 steps, all went well. Two nice (and strong) young men hauled our new Whirlpool without incident.

What a beauty! - all black and shiny and the glass shelves untouched by the gooey bottoms of ketchup bottles.

Bye bye old almond colored fridge. You performed admirably for 16 years,

. . . unlike your predecessor who gave us only about 4 years of service. Stupid loser former fridge. Just because we kept you in storage for 2 years while we went off to live in Germany, that was no reason to conk out on us when we needed you most.

But before you shed a tear for our faithful old refrigerator, let me tell you that she is NOT going to a landfill or a used appliance reseller. Oh no! She is destined for a glamorous life in the theatre. She will live out her remaining days in The Arts District where K and his crew work hard bringing arts to the people. Brava, Almond! Brava!

And, in other kitchen news, K has been installing the first of the kitchen cabinets. Some uppers -

Some lowers -

And very, very soon, I'll no longer need to keep my few "kept out" dishes in the oven -

More appliances to come next weekend.

* This scene from The Music Box is well worth watching.



This Oscar-winning 1932 classic short was filmed only a few blocks from our house. In fact, on an evening stroll just this last weekend, K and I stopped at the the bottom of these steps for the first time and saw the plaque commemorating the site.

I'm just glad this wasn't the fate of the new fridge.

Bye bye old trash can

You have served us well. We'll no longer be needing your services.

Now that the major construction is complete, at $72 per billing cycle for two waste containers, we've decided that we can get by with just one container.

So the City of Los Angeles will pick you up tomorrow morning and take you away from our little home.

I asked K which of the two would be relinquished. He said, "the older one, of course. It's old and tired; it's done it's job. Why wouldn't we keep the newer one?"

Did I mention I have a birthday coming up?