Okay, the title should really read, “The Fountain of My Youth”, but that didn’t sound as alluring.  The real fountain of youth is in St. Augustine, Florida, Ponce De Leon discovered it, remember him?  But as usual I digress.  Where I live there are supposedly 23 major fountains and innumerable non-major fountains (meaning in residents homes).  I have always dreamed of having a large Spanish style fountain, with aqua tiles, sparkling water and fuchsia Bougainvillea growing wild around it.  In fact, I always dreamed of a Spanish style house, my very favorite. I love the curved archways, tiled floors or dark, large plank wood floors, beamed ceilings, wrought iron staircases and light–lot’s of light.  I don’t think I will be finding a Spanish style house in North Carolina. I know I will have to forgo the architectural style I covet, but I am already scheming of ways to bring some of my favorite parts of the City of Angels into my new home. I have been researching my ‘zone’ for gardening and have made insane demands on which way this future house is to face in order to get the best light.  I noticed in the area we were looking that the lawns were green and overgrown. I have plans for our future home to grow large walls of shrub so we won’t need a lawn, bring in Bocce ball gravel with a tinkling fountain of course.  This is all just dreaming out loud, the place we end up may not even allow any of this crazy talk, but a girl can dream right?

P.S. We just started watching Arrested Development on Netflix.  I don’t think I have ever continuously laughed out loud at a TV show in my life.  I have a major crush on Jason Bateman now, I am a sucker for gapped teeth. If you need a laugh, I highly recommend it.

Yesterday I made it to the beach, no it was not a pupil free day.  I had a doctor’s appointment in Santa Monica (a mere 15 blocks from the ocean). I knew it would take forever, it always takes forever. I discovered that my self diagnosis of vertigo is not vertigo at all but extremely low blood pressure. That made me chuckle, because I am so stressed out all the time I would think that my blood pressure would be off the charts high. It was so low the nurse took it a few times just to make sure the machine hadn’t malfunctioned and that I wasn’t dead. One of the side effects of low pressure is extreme dizziness and sometimes fainting, how very Victorian of me. They drew a bunch of blood as well, just in case I wasn’t feeling dizzy enough. To make up for my being tortured my husband took me to the beach as planned so I could try to get some ocean diamond photographs for our walls (my favorite, when the sun makes the water sparkle). When I finished processing the first photo above I announced to Ace that I was going to blow that one up, his response? “That one? It’s not even in focus.” Sigh, so much for artistic license.

 Okay, now here’s an iconic image. I mean the Hollywood sign is as L.A. as it gets, no?  Even though we had an amazing unobstructed view to get this shot, I was still able to ruin it.  I’m good like that.  We have plans to go down to the ocean tomorrow, so hopefully I won’t mess those shots up as well. I am neck deep in boxes at home, I didn’t even think we owned that much.  Our apartment is postage stamp small, so where is all this excess coming from? It’s beyond me. It has become the clown car of apartments, no matter how many boxes I fill there’s more stuff to pack; it’s never ending. I am exhausted + irritated, a winning combo. See you tomorrow!

I am still on my photo scavenger hunt of finding iconic images of the City of Angels to take with me to my new hometown.  My vision is to have one or two of the photographs blown up super size so I won’t feel too homesick. I asked my husband to take me to Lake Hollywood on Sunday.  It’s not really a lake, but a reservoir and I could have sworn that you were once allowed to get a lot closer to it. There were fences all around and it was miles down to the water.  “Terrorists,” my husband muttered, “that’s why we can’t get any  closer”.  I actually think my husband was lost and that was why we couldn’t get closer but I don’t like to mention the ‘L’ word (lost) in front of him because he goes a bit bananas.  I tried to make the most of the situation and pointed to the ‘lemon’ trees.  I have been wanting a lemon tree + sky image.  “Hon, those are oranges.  Do you still want to pull over?” he asked.  I of course didn’t want to be wrong anymore than he wanted to be lost, “Of course I want you to pull over!”.  We drove around some more and found a bevy of tourists. I have lived in L.A. pretty much my entire life and had never been to that spot, it had a view of the ‘lake’ and an unobstructed view of the Hollywood sign.  “You wanna photo for your blog?” my husband asked (he is really always so thoughtful), but of course I didn’t want a photo for my blog. I am like Greta Garbo, no photos, ever, but I think I mentioned I had a garage sale lens on my camera that was a little on the soft side? I decided it would work for a great photo-op, plus there was sun behind me so I figured it would help make for a little  lot less detail (which to me equals more flattering).   For those that are interested I was wearing this mascara and this foundation (this stuff is like taking an eraser to your face and is so light). Onward an upward, my iconic image search will continue.

P.S.  I am at the half way mark, only 15 more days, eek! 

P.P.S. Last photo was taken by Ace (formerly my fancy), now my husband, so I should give him credit in case he reads this and gets all flummoxed.

P.P.P.S. My husband hates when I wear red lipstick, how about yours?

I have already established that Bella, my naughty Frenchie is not allowed on the bed.  I should concede that she is allowed but only on a small portion which includes a blanket for her to lay on and only in the late evening when we are watching bad television. She’s a really smart dog, so for those that are thinking she doesn’t know better, well, that’s not going to fly. Bella has now taught herself how to open the bedroom door (who needs opposable thumbs?) When her Mom walked in on her she froze and stopped breathing as if that would work and I wouldn’t notice she was on the bed (see Exhibit A. top photo of Frenchie trying to blend in by not breathing). I picked her up and put her on the floor, which by the expression on her face wasn’t what she wanted.  Her sister George, my pure white, 3lb dog was successfully camouflaged and had jumped off the bed trying to act like nothing was amiss. Note the messed up hair and the shallow breathing gave her up.  I was not budging even when Bella was giving me the ol’ stink eye, she finally gave in like a sullen teenager and accepted her place on the rug.  Not happy mind you. If she was an actual human teenager she would have rolled her eyes and slammed her bedroom door, I’m sure. This takes me to one of my biggest fears, I worry that if I ever procreate my kids won’t be better than my dogs (behavior wise). Sure, my dogs are cute, charming, intelligent and really affectionate, but on the flip side they are insubordinate, stubborn and kind of a@!holes sometimes. If I can’t get the dog thing right, how am I ever going to raise a child? I don’t think my worry is unfounded, I think I should be really worried about this.  My mom likes to tell me that you can’t really help it if your kid is an a@!hole, even if you do everything right, they could still turn out less than you expected.  I hope this was not directed at me, because I like to think I was a pretty great kid and am not that bad of an adult. The kind of daughter you would be proud to have. I mean that’s what I would like to think.

P.S. These were taken with that yard sale lens I bought for a couple bucks the 28-70 Tokina, it’s definitely a better lens to play with when shooting dreamy scenery than shooting naughty dogs with!