Same Plaidsneakers, New Location

Plaidsneakers has relocated and is now coming from Downtown Silver Spring, Maryland, 1 block from the DC border. Spoilers Ahoy!, but expect a series of transplant-y observation posts.

Like...why no love for the right turn on red. It is very chicken or egg for the newbie. No right on red, because of the crazy agressive pedestrian styles or crazy agressive pedestrian styles require no right on red.

We've had a Mini Cooper for the week, waiting for our car to arrive from SoCal. It is awesome and I will miss it, but the mid-Atlantic speed limits are killing our West Coast driving mojo. This is motoring (only sort of).

Bucket List Update

So we're off to a movie and Cantor's Deli to knock another item off the list today, but we've been fairly successful in the last six months.

Jewish Deli Canter's or Langer's 11/27/10
Walt Disney Hall
Olvera Street
Philippe's 6/19/10
See a movie at Graumann's Chinese Theatre (again...but the kid never has)
LACMA
LAX Restaurant
Randy's Doughnuts 6/19/10
Watts Tower
Studio Tour (but not in Universal)
Watch the taping of a sitcom (hmmm when does Big Bang Theory start taping again won't take under 18 grr) almost 1/27-ish/11 we went to watch The Late Late Show with Craig Fergeson.
Tea at the Huntington Gardens
Doo Dah and/or Rose Parade
Malibu (we tend to do our beach thing farther up the coast) not just Malibu, but the kid surfed Malibu. Yay Surfer's Healing! 6/5/10
Strawberry Festival
Solvang 11/14/10
Catalina Island
Monterey (which wouldn't be a first, we lived and met and dated there, but we've never gotten the kid there)

Not bad...maybe we can get some of the museums in over winter break.

The Boy Has No Pants.

It is one of those moments that make you feel like the bad mom. My child had no pants. We had an unusual burst of spring weather, by which I mean cloudy and actual rain. It was enough morning rain to justify long pants. Accordingly the kid gets and prepares himself for school this morning with jeans and a t-shirt, but after breakfast, confesses the jeans are a little tight and he's going to change. This is not an area that he is very observant about, so they must have been miserable. The cargos he was willing to work with, it was a recipe for disaster. This weather is not a normal May occurrence. We had purchased nearly a weeks worth in January in the next size up, thinking that would get us over the hump and through all shorts all the time or November as it is called locally.

However just a few weeks before we had started replacing shorts in the next next size. All of this is compounded by the fact that we are going into the murky waters of juniors. So each purchase requires visiting three different departments; men's (how small are their smalls), young men's (the y chromosone version of juniors, so skinny adult sizes), and boys (because they say they go all the way to 18 or 20 and my kid isn't even a teenager). Does a 16 equal 28" x 28" or 28"x 30" or 30" x 30"? I hate boy sizes. It doesn't help that Y is in denial. He has had much fun, giggling about my being passed height wise any second now, but Y and the kid shopping in the same department has not be quite so amusing.

This hasn't happened in three years, we start checking fit, and somehow nothing does, and he's gone through 2 or 3 sizes that school year. This time we knew it was coming, we even changed some meds to help him get ready for it. It was a perfect storm of El Nino and tween growth spurt. It has dropped 20-30 degrees since the weekend, it is raining and the boy has no pants. Bad, bad mommy.

L.A. Bucket List

I find myself considering geographical bucket lists. I suspect they should be made when you are first approaching a move, before new and shiny is overwhelmed by the jaded boredom of a local, unwilling to accommodate the crowds and the cheesiness of local attractions. At the moment, it is both too late for that and something remember for next time. So we have that moving itch at the moment, not sure if it is more running away from or running to...something. It may amount to nothing and work itself out and here we will remain, or perhaps this is the beginning of an adventure, marvelous or otherwise.

So note to self: If and when moving, make a bucket list; local, day trip and weekend trip bucket list. It will get you out of the house, when you are new and haven't met anybody. There certainly won't be new people to meet at home. Maybe the move works out and maybe it doesn't, but you will have made the most of the opportunity in a low simmer tourism way. Well that is more than enough navel gazing, what is on the L.A. bucket list?

Jewish Deli Canter's or Langer's
Walt Disney Hall
Olvera Street
Philippe's
See a movie at Graumann's Chinese Theatre (again...but the kid never has)
LACMA
LAX Restaurant
Randy's Doughnuts
Watts Tower
Studio Tour (but not in Universal)
Watch the taping of a sitcom (hmmm when does Big Bang Theory start taping again)
Tea at the Huntington Gardens
Doo Dah and/or Rose Parade
Malibu (we tend to do our beach thing farther up the coast)
Strawberry Festival
Solvang
Catalina Island
Monterey (which wouldn't be a first, we lived and met and dated there, but we've never gotten the kid there)


to be continued or make a suggestion

Garden Bug has bitten

So we had a whole week, well, 5 days, of honest to god real rain. This gave us the most glorious weekend with cool, fresh, damp air and snow covered mountains under clear blue skies. Despite the lengthy lists of projects and chores that are underway or waiting to start, I decided to take advantage of the lovely weather to pull the dandelions out of the planter of succulents in the back yard. It is our only spot of green in the cement and rock wasteland of our backyard. Pools are fun, but a little hard looking. Also, the previous owners seemed to hate all plant life.

The dirt is all loose, damp and inspiring. The jade plants are weed free in no time, so I just keep going. There are yards more of weeds, going along the abandoned built in planter with the saddest, sandiest, debris filled soil. There are ten feet of planter before it drops down a level. I think I'm just clearing out the weeds, but the digging is so easy and that is so rare, I just keep going. The top six inches of the whole upper level is gone. The first four feet, I actually dug a whole foot down and pulled the dirt out of the planter.

If I can get the other 6 feet removed before it all dries and hardens, or more rain comes and I discover I have built a water feature, I could have started my often dreamed of vegetable garden in a timely manner. I already had potting soil in the garage, so I picked up compost and a soaker hose. Next stop, reading up on vertical gardening and planting schedules.

The kid has been making vegetable garden noises. The timing seems good,but maybe we'll put his cauliflower in the earthbox and save the planter for peas and cucumbers.

Yay Winter!

So the rain has begun and it is supposed to go for the next 5 day. Hee! The natives will be cra-zy by the end of the week. I, the exile from the land of weather, will be as happy as can be. January, this is what I'm talking about!

Series 2 Season Pass List and solutions

So we have 3 TiVos and 2 TVs. This is the Season Pass list for our older TiVo, it lives in the bedroom. It has the shows Y was vaguely interested in, so he could watch while he gamed, like How I Met Your Mother or The Big Bang Theory, or shows with more adult content in order for them to be viewed more discretely when the kid is around, like Graham Norton or SNL. It also was the third option for network choke points, Mondays last year come to mind, and I tend to let the BBCAmerica shows linger, because I rarely know when a new series (in the season sense) is going to pop up. MI-5 I'm looking at you.

How I Met Your Mother - cbs.com & iTunes
The Big Bang Theory - netflix...eventually
The Office - hulu & iTunes
30 Rock - hulu & iTunes
Eureka - hulu
The Graham Norton Show - still looking
Gossip Girl - cw.com & iTunes
House - hulu
Waking the Dead - still looking
Cycling on Versus
Endurance - cancelled
Mad Men - iTunes
Torchwood - still looking
Law & Order Criminal Intent - usanetwork.com, but everyone except Goldblum is leaving so it may be time to let it go
Friday Night Lights - hulu or maybe just wait for netflix
Law & Order (original flavor) - iTunes or wait
The Daily Show - hulu, comedycentral.com & iTunes
The Colbert Report - hulu, comedycentral.com & iTunes
Saturday Night Live - hulu
Wire in the Blood - cancelled & netflix
College GameDay - doesn't matter 'til next fall/college football season
Countdown with Keith Olbermann - iTunes
The Rachel Maddow Show - iTunes
Leverage - tnt.tv
Burn Notice - hulu
Sports Reporters - more habit than anything else
The Rachel Zoe Project - probably bravotv.com but we are in between seasons

Other than my British TV habit most of it is available online