Green Shells on Treetops and Vaccinations

That's a Manus Green Papuina, a rare snail from high tree tops on Manus Island, off the coast of Papua New Guinea. No I did not find it lying in the sand next to the Pacific Ocean. I peered at its outrageous green through plate glass in a rare shell exhibit at the Museum of Natural History today. Oliver and I had a field trip -- mainly to do an evolution/adaptation project in the Dinosaur exhibit, but we also paid a visit to the shell collection and the gem and mineral exhibit in hopes of finding some pearls which would round out our reading of Steinbeck's The Pearl. There were no pearls. But that green! Outrageous! The universe is abundant!

I also baked two loaves of banana-coconut-chocolate-chip bread and made one big pot of Mulligatawny soup and some jasmine rice. I responded to someone's Facebook post about the recent outbreak of measles at Disneyland, not because I wanted to get into an argument but because this person asked the question why people don't vaccinate which then provoked the usual nasty and sarcastic replies about how stupid and immoral they are, that then provoked my indignation and real desire to let people know that not everyone who refrains from vaccinating their children is an immoral idiot. Sigh. I wrote my last post on this issue here, so if you want to read it, you can. Since I wrote that post, as planned I've begun vaccinating Henry slowly and judiciously, so if you're new to the blog and generally restrict your reading to mainstream media, are getting all freaked out that this is some crazy person writing, you can rest assured that he isn't a danger to the larger community.

Anyhoo.

To tell you the truth, I feel like wolfing down both loaves of bread which would probably be considered emotional eating, no? Instead, I am going to contemplate that beautiful shade of green and the creature that lived inside a shell, high on a treetop on a tropical island, slow to respond and basking unaware in its own beauty.

Spreading the LA Love In a Messy Way

Obviously I didn't take the above photo of Los Angeles, but there have been plenty of days that I've looked east and seen that exact view and subsequently marveled over this piece of crowded land that I call home. I'll be honest and say that I almost never agree with my friends who really don't like living here. The complaints are always about the traffic, about the nasty entertainment industry, about the crowds and the many ugly neighborhoods, about the tackiness, about the culture and the plastic surgery and the bad schools and the excessive privilege. I'm moving back to the midwest, eventually, one friend always tells me. I would never want to grow old here. Friends who have also lived in New York say that there's no comparison, that they miss the grit and the darkness and the chic and effortlessly cool people, the walking and the honesty of that city. I, too, adore New York and feel as if the almost nine years that I lived there were among the greatest of my life. I don't think a day went by that I didn't think God, I love this place! and less so, but still frequently, God, I hate it here! I see my fair share of the grotesque here in Los Angeles -- even at my son's benign high school in the San Fernando Valley, you might rub elbows with Larry King and his eighth wife, Sylvester Stallone picking up his kid in a gold Bentley, and a veritable freak show of eighty year old men with trophy wives and teenage kids. But you'll also see the California boys and girls of your imagination, golden skinned water polo players with tousled, stiff chlorine-tinted blonde hair, towels around their waists, jumping into jeeps with surfboards on the top. I won't go into Los Angeles' weather, because you might up and leave, if you haven't already, but what might surprise you is that the culture here -- the sheer size of the city and the incredible diversity -- rivals that of any other city in the world, I think, and you only have to drive

a

bit

to take advantage of it.

Last night, I had the pleasure of listening to my great friend, Tanya Ward Goodman, read from her new memoir, Leaving Tinkertown. She read a bit and then her brother, a tattoo artist and incredible musician with a gorgeous voice, sang songs that he'd written to accompany her. The performance was at a Masonic Lodge in the famous Hollywood Cemetery -- yes, a famous cemetery -- and it was filled with old people, hipsters, artists, attorneys, NPR folks, screen and television writers.  I met an attorney who works with families of kids with disabilities, and it turned out that she reads my blog daily and also knows of the organization that helps kids in the foster care system that I also work for!

Today, I finished a cake for a young girl's sixteenth birthday, and now I'm off to type for an hour at a performance art thingamajig going on at USC. I'll be pecking away at John Steinbeck's Grapes of Wrath, part of a typing pool, and as soon as I find the announcement about it, I'll post it. Maybe I'll even get a photo.

Here's the cake in process:

I don't mind getting old in Los Angeles, by the way, as long as I have these things to do, the sun still shines year round, and I'm able to make a living doing the things I love.