Ooh La La

 

My new truck! (I wish!)

Smubbles

Are those stars? 

Why no, these are super-cool (and weird) bubbles, which appear to be made of or filled with "smoke." They dissolve in midair or the moment they touch something.

(See the cool moon sliver there in the middle of the photo?)

And they were being generated by this contraption on top of a house. I've never seen anything like these before...and I'm glad I saw them!
 

Way Cool

 The Renwick Gallery (part of the Smithsonian but not on the Mall) is one of my must-see museums in Washington. We saw an amazing exhibition by Ginny Ruffner called Reforestation of the Imagination. She has created these lovely glass tree stumps and came up with imaginary flowers, which were then animated in augmented reality by Grant Fitzpatrick. You download an app and then point your camera at the tree stump--and these wonderful flowers pop up that are not physically there; there is also an information button that tells you "facts" about the flowers. So very cool!

 There is also a show on view by artist Michael Sherrill, who creates these plants from ceramic and glass.

And finally, the Grand Salon space was filled by this work, Temple by David Best. This is an enormous room filled floor to ceiling with intricately filigreed raw wood carvings and structures. Visitors are given the opportunity to write on wooden plaques and leave them in remembrance of loved ones. Lots of these plaques and also photos...it was lovely and very moving.

If you are in DC, be sure to visit the Renwick.

Motel-o-Rama

 I adore old motel signs...I have a whole series on film of the cool ones in Mesa, Arizona. I lived in Tucson for a year but never saw these beauties.

Swizzle Me This

The question is: why are there no longer cool swizzle sticks?

I Love L.A.: 2

 I have spent many an hour here at the Farmer's Market. Some of my fave places are gone, but many of the original businesses are still there, thank god. It survives, despite the hideousness of The Grove, a fakey shopping mall that was built on its parking lot. Ugh. Love the Farmer's Market--may it live forever! (It's been here since 1934...)

Neighborhood Whimsy

Time to check in with the marvelous neighborhood topiary garden...lookin' good!

And what's that in the bottom photo? A random heart!

Cooler Days

Dedicated to the proposition that everything used to be much cooler. They didn't HAVE to decorate this carbon paper, but they did, to marvelous effect...

Kiss Me

Look what Santa brought me: lovely luxurious cosmetics from Besame, whose products are made here in the U.S. and are patterned after vintage cosmetics. They are a special treat!

They're re-created a number of lipstick colors from various decades--this one is from 1946 (a lovely red!). And the powder, in that sweet compact!

(Besame [which is missing an accent] means "kiss me" in Spanish, in case you didn't know...)

Thanks, Santa (you know who you are!) ;)

Bee Still My Heart

 Last Saturday I got to do something I've always wanted to do: don a bee suit and get up close and personal with my bee girls. (Anyone who has read this blog for more than a minute knows that I'm obsessed with three things: Tallulah Mae, birds, and bees.) This was a "beehive tour" led by Hilary Kearny of Girl Next Door Honey. It totally lived up to its promise!

Warning: if you don't like up-close-and-personal pics of many many many bees, don't look!

 A bee box.

 Hilary lighting the smoker. Beekeepers smoke a hive to cause the bees to think there is a fire nearby; they then gorge themselves on honey and thus become more lethargic and less likely to attack.

 This girl is going back into the hive with her "pollen pants" loaded.

 The frames inside the bee box.

 Honeycomb! And honey capped off (the dark area).

 More honey.

 Busy busy busy!

 Some of the honeycomb cells have bee eggs/larvae...we watched one hatch. She immediately went to work after emerging from the cell.

 More pollen pants!

Amazing. In another life I think I was a beekeeper (and maybe in my next if all goes well!). I love them. The more you learn about them, the more obsessed you become. It was a fantastic experience!