Woman in the Middle

I like where I live, which is probably a good thing, since I don’t think I will be moving any place else soon. One of the things I like are the hills. I can’t imagine living someplace flat, without brown and green hills dominating the sky line.  Recently I was in the San Fernando Valley, the infamous place in Los Angeles County where “valley speak” originated. That is one big valley and the hills that surround it are so far away, you can hardly see them from the middle of the valley. It seemed very odd that all I could see were houses and businesses and no hills.

Here are a couple of photos of my hills. They were taken from the top of the hill closest to my house. We had a good clear view the day I took the photos, just what we like here in So Cal. So, in addition to my other requirements for where I live (no snow, low humidity, within driving distance of the ocean) I want to add “must have hills.”

This photo, from the Los Angeles Times, shows what the 340 ton rock looks like when it isn’t wrapped up in Egyptian cotton sheets and  white plastic and while it was still sitting at Stone Valley Quarry in Jurupa Valley CA. I realized that I have never shown a photo of the rock in its natural state and thought some of you might like to see it.

Of course, now that they have the rock at the Los Angeles Museum of Art, they have to move it from the trailer to the site of the art installation.  So what does it take to move a 340 ton rock? A 700 ton crane, which is being built right on the site. Below I have included a link to the LA Times site where you can see a photo of the rock and the crane going up next to it. No matter how many people contact them, we can’t seem to get through to the LA Times that the rock did NOT come from Riverside, our neighbor next door. Sigh! One more time, I am going to say it, the famous rock came from Jurupa Valley, California’s newest city!

http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/lanow/2012/03/lacma-rock-at-rest.html 

To all the men out there who may be reading this, I apologize. Just as I will never get the agony of wearing a tie or shaving my face every day, you will never understand the agony of pantyhose. Well, most of you won’t, but I am not going to go there right now.

Last night the city council of my four month old city picked our very first planning commission.  I was one of fifteen people who applied for the five positions. I thought I should look nice and professional for this event so I went out recently and bought a new dress with a matching jacket (in black – good for so many occasions!).  I even made the effort to put on PANTYHOSE. Yep, my arch nemesis, pantyhose. You know I am serious if I pull on the hose! When I told my friends to come to the meeting for support and to see my new dress (come on, we women know what is important!) you should have heard them laugh when I said “I am even putting on pantyhose.” Women know what that means! Big guns, pulling out all the stops, totally serious, etc…

Maybe those Occupy kids should put on the pantyhose. Then we would all know to take them seriously!

By the way, yes I did get selected for the very first planning commission of my fair city. General plan, land use and zoning, here I come!