Neighborhood Experiment

I read about Peter Lovenheim's Won't you be my neighbor? experiment and felt grateful for my neighbors. I actually know about half the (~180) people on my block. We have had several over for BBQ and play dates, exchanged outgrown kids' stuff, shared tools and books, joined together in clean up or repair projects, etc.

When I was really sick, and Mark was away on work travel, and Iris was much younger, no fewer than three families on our block took care of Iris so I could get some much needed rest.

I am especially sad about the recent departure of a former coworker and his wife. An astronomer, he used to set up a telescope in his driveway for neighborhood kids. His wife, in addition to selling me Tupperware and tucking in recipes with my orders; enjoyed knitting, crocheting and sewing. And she could read Japanese. I bought a half dozen Japanese pattern books with the expectation that I could walk down the street with them for help.

Sigh. Her ivy-league MBA trumped his PhD in astrophysics (Caltech) in earning power. Plus, she found a great job in her hometown where her kids could spend unlimited time with their doting grandparents.

They sold their house to a family that can read Chinese. Are there interesting Chinese pattern books I should try?

Jacaranda Season 2008 at Chez BadMom

Yeah, my house has a white picket fence. You want to make something of it?

We are drunk with color.



Vandals. Remember Bad Neighbors? That girl and her grandmother no longer live in our neighborhood. Their apartment burned down. Rumor has it, a relative crashing at their place burned it down while free-basing something. This other vandal came well prepared. Notice that the stem is neatly sheared off, not torn.

I have noticed this thing (is it a car?) a few times during my morning commute. I ran into him near work and he said that they are building these prototypes in a nearby building. I didn't know he lived in my neighborhood as well. The neat thing about living in 'felony flats' (aside from the drug dealers), is the number of artists and inventors who live in the hood.

How did we get here?

Much ink and pixels have been spilled upon how the US became so dependent upon petroleum to move ourselves around. I've been looking around, thinking about my behavior and that of others. So far, the rising cost of gasoline has affected my family very little because of our housing choice, a townhouse close to a major employment center and a commercial district.

Why are there so few places like this in the US? Witold Rybczynski tried to explain in his book, City Life: Urban expectations in the new world. It's a very thought provoking book and I won't attempt to paraphrase it here.

I did want to mention that, once hostile natives were not a problem, American cities were laid out upon a much more spacious model than in the old world. In Europe, cities were compact because food production took place outside the city confines. In the new world of the gentleman farmer, even city dwellers grew some of their own food in their home gardens. (Not mentioned in the book is how these kitchen and flower gardens evolved into monocultures of Kentucky bluegrass from coast to coast.)

By the end of the book, I learned that Rybczynski and I both choose to live in former streetcar suburbs outside of major cities. It is a pleasant middle ground that is not readily available to other Americans, both because of their rarity in new metropolitan areas and because they are relatively expensive compared to newer suburbs. After investigation, he found no great conspiracies. People just preferred the independence of driving private automobiles over riding streetcars.

Links:

• City Life: Urban expectations in the new world
• The Red Cars of Los Angeles from the USC archives
• The Electric Railway Historical Association of Southern California
• Popular Culture in the Age of White Flight: Fear and Fantasy in Suburban Los Angeles (You can preview portions of the book that deal with streetcars to Redondo Beach and the other Beach Cities.)
• Edible Estates: Attack on the Front Lawn
• Food Not Lawns: How to Turn Your Yard into a Garden And Your Neighborhood into a Community

Aside:
People say we are lucky to live so close to work and to have such a convenient bus line. (It runs every 20-30 minutes and follows nearly the same route we would take if we drove ourselves.) Actually, luck had nothing to do with it. We made conscious choices with information that is available to everyone.

After earning my PhD, I landed two job offers. One was 30 miles inland from Mark's job. The other was at Mark's workplace. The farther job would have ensured a long commute for at least one of us.

When we bought a house, we checked the bus schedules. They are not classified state secrets, they are published. We took the buses to see if the schedules were fact or fiction--a very real problem in many areas. We checked out bicycle commute routes. I nixed neighborhoods that Mark preferred because I wasn't willing to bike so many hills on the way to work every day. (We also looked at school districts but that's too long of an aside.)

When we found we could not afford a house that we liked in an area that we liked, we looked at townhouses. After bidding on 3, we finally won a bidding war (even though we were not the highest bidder).

Free Range Kids

Remember the mom that let her 9 year old take the NYC subway alone? Lenore Skenazy started a movement and a blog. Go visit the FreeRangeKids blog.

Today is the second let her walk to school by herself Tuesday. Last Tuesday, I was running behind and let her walk to school while I finished the dishes. I was going to catch up with her, but discovered she was doing just fine. I hung back to give her the satisfaction of making the whole 3 blocks to school on her own.

Today, I ate a bit slowly so I could use the same excuse. I caught up with her in front of her classroom. She was positively nonchalant about it today.

I watched with smug satisfaction as a neighbor struggled to strap 2 of her 3 kids up in her minivan, both older than Iris, to drive them to the same neighborhood school. We live on a one-way street, pointed away from the school. She lives a block closer to school, only 2 blocks to our 3. Yet, because of the one-way street, she has to drive farther to get the kids to school. I offered to walk her kids to school with me, but she declined.

One boy used to be driven every day by his mother while she was rushing off to work. It was silly because we departed and arrived at the school at the same time. We offered to walk him with us each day, but he declined. His mother said it was because he was too cool to be seen walking with such a little kid (Iris). I noticed that, now that he is in the 5th grade, he is allowed to ride his bike or scooter to school each day on his own.

Another boy on our block also gets driven every day, even though the father says he would be happy to walk his son to school. His said that his wife wouldn't allow them to walk for some reason. We leave at the same time, but we arrive before them. Again, they live closer but drive further because of the one way street.

We used to walk with another mother and child, but the mother had to stop due to health reasons. Hopefully, she will be walking again after her illness.

Now guess which family is Black, Chinese, Hispanic and Jewish.

Animal, Vegetable, Miracle

Virginia and I discussed how both of us have been attracted to the turquoise and brown color combination. How do certain colors and color combinations hit the collective consciousness? Can Pantone take all the credit? I will leave it to her because she writes about that for a living.

I just thought that the apple/persimmon cake I baked last evening looked nice. Unfortunately, I ran out of cooking oil and substituted low fat yogurt to mixed results. It really could use more fat. I used the Swedish Apple Cake recipe posted in Recipe Meme and used a combination of 1 chopped apple plus enough Hachiya persimmon pulp to make up 3 cups.

By the time I added enough flour to make a stiff batter, there was a huge amount. I also baked 3 mini-loafs not pictured above. They were all given to families that help us keep Iris occupied (along with fruit from the flats we bought at Costco yesterday).

With the help of Google, I discovered another recipe for Persimmon Cake that reads very similar to my cake. The ingredients are largely the same, save for small variations in spices. I used only cinnamon; she added nutmeg and cloves. Rachel has gone to cooking school while I have a BS in Chemistry. Maybe her cake will taste better. ;-)

I was on a cooking roll yesterday, also cooking black beans. 2 pints were frozen for another dish, and the rest went into Best Black Bean Soup from Learning to Cook with Marion Cunningham. I added 2 carrots to her recipe. Notice the cilantro garnish from our garden? The great part of being a messy gardener is all the "volunteers". Who wouldn't want fresh, young cilantro volunteers?


This was supposed to be a post about Animal, Vegetable, Miracle, the book I read for the Apartment Therapy Re-Nest Book Club. In the beginning, I didn't think I would want to read another book nagging me to eat locally and organic. As I wrote before, I thought I was too busy add more to my workload. I was even chastised by reader mmadden for saying that "Farmers' markets are great, but they are not convenient for a harried working mom." (Go read her criticism and my response.)

I can say that I changed my mind (about the book, not about farmers' markets). Barbara Kingsolver has made some valid points about our nation's messed up relationship with food. Even if I don't have her real estate, I can still grow more of my own food. I can also eat more seasonally and locally, even within the time constraints of shopping only before and after work and childcare duties.

I used to think it horribly unfair that I was so heavily penalized in footprint calculators for not eating more locally. After all, I eat very little meat and that takes a lot of energy and water! My lifestyle is really green! I drink filtered tap water! I recycle! I re-use! I am on a stuff diet! Look how little trash I generate relative to my neighbors! How can my footprint be marginally better than average?

I forgot about the poop.

In modern life, we don't pay attention to what goes in and out of our bodies. We pretty much assume that there will be some food to eat when we are hungry and that our bodily waste will disappear with a flush. It is not so simple. Anyone who has ever backpacked understands how much they eat and poop. Barbara Kingsolver reminded me that, for most people, our greatest consumption, measured by mass, is in the food we put in our bodies. The greater the mass, the greater the amount of energy it takes energy to move it around. It is time to eat more local.

Kingsolver moved across the country to a place where with more land and water. I need to live close to work, in one of the densest regions of the US with some of the priciest real estate and very little water. Even so, with a little creativity, there is room to improve.

Our hostess in Christchurch threw together a light supper the evening we arrived. Amongst other things, she served a salad made with lettuce from her garden. How did she do that in a townhouse with a garden the size of ours? The next morning, she showed me her vegetables, interspersed with her flowers and other ornamentals. She only had 1-2 heads of lettuce in two varieties, but it was enough if she picked a few leaves each day from each head.

I already grow rosemary, thyme, bay and several varieties of chives and mint. Our Meyer lemon tree is groaning under the weight of this winter's crop. I already sowed some lettuce and pea seeds before I left home so I should have plenty of salad greens for a couple of months.

I started eyeing the insipid baby's tears ground cover in the shady areas. Wouldn't that be a good habitat for spinach, lettuce or watercress? Can I tuck some more herbs in other areas?

In the book, Barbara Kingsolver and her family spent a year eating local foods, most of it in season and organic. The first early spring of their experiment was bleak. They hadn't preserved food yet. They shopped farmers' markets, but the pickings were slim. In a few months, though, their garden started to reward them. My mouth watered as she described the arrival of each new food that came into season. Morels. Asparagus. Berries. Stone fruit. Tomatoes.

She reminds us that food tastes best when it is in season and has been freshly picked. You can't get fresher than your own garden. Lacking that, a farmers' market where the food was picked a that day is a good alternative. Unfortunately, I still find it difficult to go to a farmers' market for reasons I elaborated elsewhere. I explored alternatives.

At the recently remodeled supermarket 300 feet from my house, I spoke with the produce manager. He appears to be sansei (3rd generation Japanese american) with longtime ties to the community. He has been trying to convince the regional produce buyer to allow him to buy more Asian and Hispanic produce. He says they didn't believe him when he said he could sell those "specialty" items in his mass-market supermarket. Slowly, he is convincing them otherwise. The variety is increasing but quantity is still a problem. To my frustration, he can't keep enough white turnips (lobo in Mandarin) in stock. You can get beaver tail cactus there along with advice on how to cook it. I need to support his efforts by buying his produce.

Because of my commute route, it is easier for me to go to Whole Foods on my way to the office instead of on the way home. I started bringing in an extra bag for all the things that need to stay cold. I pop them into the fridge at the office while at work and bring them home later. Whole Foods doesn't necessarily have to be expensive. The bulk bins are a relative bargain. All their meats are guaranteed not to have antibiotics or added hormones. They even have a case near the front of the produce section of "in season and local" foods.

I also shop Trader Joe's on the route home. When we buy fresh food at Costco (a warehouse store with that sells food in bulk), we share them with other families. That way, we can have a greater variety.

I am planning meals more and using the food we buy more efficiently. I cook in large batches, freeze some and share some. Yesterday, my next door neighbor came over to help herself to snips from my rosemary bush (there is no way we will ever run out). I brought her over some mangoes and oranges from Costco. She sent her daughter over with some rosemary focaccia bread and challah and I sent her home with some apple persimmon cake. Another day, I sent over some cream of mushroom soup and scored some home-made pasta sauce.

It is time to send over some of our Meyer lemons. I remember fondly a few months ago when the neighbor on the corner gave away his excess avocados.

Accidental Haul

Iris said that our skirts would not be mommy and me unless we had the exact same waistband elastic. Because I bought the ruffled elastic 20 years ago, I can't get more of the same. I stopped by SAS fabrics on the way home from work.

SAS sells odd lots of fabrics and trims left over from the fashion industry at generally low prices. I took a picture of the trims in the window.

I also took a picture of the zippers (mostly YKK w/ some Talon) before the manager told me that photography is not allowed in the store. Too bad, because the trim aisle is incredible, and incredibly cheap.

I found some elastic for 10 cents a yard, but I came home with a bit more than on my shopping list. Look at the cute penguin crepe de chine. At 99 cents/yard, I expected it to be polyester. The manager says that the piece was sold to them as silk. I thought it had to be very good quality polyester because it felt so much like real silk. At any rate, it would make a good lining. When I got it home and did a flame test, it really was silk. If you want some silk for 99 cents, they have a few other prints in the same barrel, to the right of the door. Maybe the one with basketballs swooshing through a hoop against a black background?

I bought some trims. The entire roll of cotton/rayon grosgrain (so soft) was $4.

I was also on the lookout for more of the snakeskin vinyl that we used as a tablecloth for the last 2 years. (See Stencils Before Dinner for a picture of the tablecloth.) It had finally worn through and ripped in several places. SAS had sold out of the natural/black color. They had purple/black and green/black for $2.99/yd, but they didn't look appetizing. Then I found the entire missing roll of natural/black at the Cotton Shop for $7.99/yd. Actually, I suspect that the Cotton Shop gets some of their fabrics and trims from SAS. I know some people feel too nervous to go to Lawndale to shop at SAS. But, then other people might feel nervous about coming to "felony flats".

I also bought some stuff at Artfibers during my San Francisco trip. The retail prices at the store are significantly higher than on their website. It occurred to me too late, that it would be cheaper and easier to order on-line. Pay the shipping and stop worrying about cramming stuff in my suitcase. But, if I ordered on-line, I wouldn't have seen the tweedy black color, which is so new, it isn't on-line yet. I am going to make Connie's Henley Perfected with the black Alfabeto (silk/superkid mohair/wool).

What's your application?

Have you ever been to a big box hardware store and been greeted by a Caltech grad asking, "What's your application?" I didn't think so. That's why we like Kurt True Value Hardware in Redondo Beach. When I first started work and moved here, I was introduced to the store by a neighbor/coworker/MIT alum. Hey, we are a diverse and tolerant neighborhood where Caltech, MIT and IIT alum live alongside one another and all get along.

Friday, I dropped Iris off at Mr B's Bricks for her weekly Lego motorized simple machines class. Then I crossed the street to go pick up a couple of things at Kurt Hardware. I was greeted by the proprietor, Dick Hyde. He has an engineering degree from Caltech and worked as an engineer/inventor or many years before buying the hardware store. (When I met Dick, I asked if he was Kurt. He said that Kurt retired and sold the store to him.)

Anyway, going there is such a pleasure compared to a big box store. You don't wander the aisles looking for stuff or help. Someone, usually Dick, actually comes up to me to ask what I need. And they don't act impatient if you don't know what you need or what to call it. They ask, "What's your application?". Then they listen and make recommendations. He didn't even bat an eye one day when I said I wanted to hang pictures up. He just asked the weight of the picture and frame and what kind of substrate would it would hang on. He handed me a bunch of stuff that cost $2.50 total and told me those are the ones I want for supporting that amount of weight on drywall. Another time, he sold me an assortment of plastic leveling shims for $1 because that was all I needed. Always nice, always helpful.

On my way home, I passed the post office to mail some letters and dropped in at Soul Performance, a surf shop, next door to ask (still in a whisper from laryngitis) if they could recommend a skateboard for Iris. The proprietor, Mark Brog, can build you a custom surfboard to suit your body and your surfing style. That's how he met his wife; he built her a surfboard. The boards are made at a workshop a couple of blocks away, near Kurt Hardware.

Anyway, he came through and had a selection of skateboards suitable for a neophyte Iris' size, at a very reasonable price. Later, when I picked Iris up from Mr. B's Bricks, we stopped by Soul Performance so that Iris could pick her design. After all, the skateboard has to fit her style, too. You can't see the back side, but it is a flame design.

Since it was nearly closing time, Iris had to go back the following morning for her skate lesson at the store. (That's another service that big box stores don't provide.) To help Iris tell which end is which, Mark drew a flower on the front. :-)

Iris' upper front teeth have been loose for so long, yet have been clinging surprisingly tenaciously. She wrote a note to the tooth fairy to please hurry it up.

Refashioned Refashioned Skirt

Remember the Refashioned Skirt made from a thrifted pair of jeans? I wasn't happy with the way it hung so I cut the lower part off and remade it. The moderately heavyweight rayon brocade has the necessary heft to hold the yoke in place. It is a vast improvement over the lightweight challis.









The backview.

I bought the fabric intending to make a pantsuit out of it. After this project, I will be lucky to eke out a short jacket and a slim knee-length skirt out of the remainder. Good thing that slim skirts are back in fashion this fall. (Am I the only one who has fashion whiplash? It is a good thing I hung on to all those high-waisted mommy pants.)








The lightweight rayon challis from Refashioned Skirt #1 was itself refashioned this afternoon. Iris wore it on our outing to the Cotton Shop. What led us to stroll over to the Cotton Shop? Iris wanted to make pink ballet slippers for Purrfect Kitty.

She saved up 5 weeks' allowance so that she could go to Build a Bear. She had only enough to buy Purrfect Kitty and one dress. She wanted the back to school backpack set but decided she would have to come back later when she had the money. She also wanted shoes but thought they were overpriced. She asked if we could make some.

The two felt squares set us back 30 cents each plus tax. Iris embellished the slipper with "bows" drawn on with a pink felt tip marker. How I love having such a wonderful independent fabric shop so close to home!

Half of the trim section. Iris is telling me to quit taking pictures and go home already.

A small glimpse of the fashion fabric area.

Part of the home dec area.

Look, another customer also likes the aqua and chocolate brown color combination! She was ahead of me in line but let me go first because she wasn't done making her selection yet.

The view leaving the Cotton Shop.

See this piece of blue sky with the mountains behind it? Click on it to blow it up larger. On a clear day, you can see the Hollywood sign. Take a good look because this view will disappear shortly. Watt Communities is building 6000 sf of retail on the ground floor with three stories of condominiums (48 senior units) above and two levels of parking below. If you do the math, that is six stories. Note the one story surrounding buildings.

Take a look at their sketch. Just half a million dollars and you can own one of these 1-bedroom condominiums on a busy thoroughfare. Note that their website extols the virtues of Redondo Beach and it's picturesque harbor area. It doesn't mention that this corner is 2 miles from the ocean and 4 miles from the harbor in question. The developers also talked the city into zoning the lot to allow for more housing units by arguing that greater density would make the units more affordable.

See how the street drops off a cliff there? That lot backs up to condominiums, a parkette and a storm overflow catchment basin in the valley below. Those condominiums below are three stories tall, but their roofs will be level with the parking garage. The new development will be their neighbor to the south so they may never see sun again.

See the rainbow flag on the bar next to the new condos? It is the only gay bar in the South Bay. Our realtor tried to discourage us from buying in this area. He showed us homes in 'Beryl Heights', 'Alta Vista', 'Golden Hills' and 'the Hollywood Riviera'. He couldn't understand why we kept bidding in 'Felony Flats'. Historically, this is the low rent part of the Beach Cities. It is also the only place where the rents are low enough for cool businesses to thrive.

He pointed out the gay bar and how close it is to our home. Mark and I looked at each other. We had just read Richard Florida's article about The Rise of the Creative Class. His research shows that property values rise faster in neighborhoods that are gay-friendly. Why? Because the creative class prefers diverse neighborhoods. We can walk to many ethnic eateries, food shops, thrift stores and independent art and craft shops (representing 20 different nationalities). There is even an independent hardware store where where one can be waited on by a guy with an engineering degree from Caltech. But that store deserves its own post.

On Vacation

I forgot, Iris and I started our one week vacation at home today. We began by sleeping in, reading and gardening in the morning. After a lunch of cold soba noodles over salad, we strolled to Mr B's Bricks to rent two Lego education kits for the week. (Although they rent many kits at the store, the education kits are for rent only to their students. They charge only a nominal fee.)

Mr B threw in two copies of the first 10 lesson booklets. Iris had done 8 of them during the spring session, but she only got through the basic portion of each lesson. We wanted her to be able to do the challenge parts as well.

The fall session starts October 1, 2007. Although their students are mostly boys, they have another six year old girl student that really "gets" Lego. The two Mr B's (both partners have last names starting with B) want to form a semi-private class for the two girls. Kids these days have such busy schedules. I hope we can swing it.

Aside:
I used Gmaps Pedometer to discover that we live ~500 meters from Mr B's Bricks. Next, we will visit The Cotton shop, ~500 meters in the other direction, for mommy and me dress fabric. Iris prefers the one second from the left.

We will use the car to drive to Getty Center to see the Überorgan that Sitting Knitting blogged about, perhaps on Monday or Tuesday. Wednesday and Thursday, I am taking a class from Mickey Lawler to learn how to paint Landscape Fabrics.

Mark wants to take Iris to the Museum of Natural History one of those two days. We also want to hang out at the beach one day. One week vacation at home is too short.

Time to bring in the specialists

Part of growing older and wiser is knowing when to call in the professionals. I came home yesterday at 2:39 after the usual round of medical appointments and errands that make up my "day off".

There was a trickle of water moving across the garage floor. It was coming from the drip pan of the hot water heater. I called Mark right away and left voicemail telling him about the water and that he needed to call the plumber right away. I proceeded to bring in the shopping and hang up the laundry that was still in the washer when I left that morning.

Mark called back to say he was coming right home to investigate. Turn off the water main on the side of the house and wait for him. I did not think this was a problem that he could fix. I had discovered cracked water heaters before and the inevitable response from landlords were that they were coming over to investigate. I did a little investigation of my own and decided my first instinct was right.

It was then 3 pm on a Friday afternoon. Something had to be done quickly if I wanted to have hot water this weekend.

I walked 2 blocks to the plumbing supply store. The owner was out but J, a senior plumber was there. I told him about the puddle, the slow trickle coming out the bottom of the water heater, and that the top of the tank and top fittings were all dry. I told him it was most likely a cracked water heater because it was at least a decade old. He said that it could be the water heater or the fittings.

J looked across the store at a junior plumber, C, and asked if he was done for the day. C said it was ok, grabbed several different kinds of fittings, and walked out the back door. (C and J had both been to our house on other plumbing matters in the past year.) J wrote out a work order and told me to walk home. C would probably be waiting for me there. I beat C back to my house by a minute. Mark had already arrived home and was inspecting the water heater. C took off the water heater jacket and, voila, we saw the crack in the side of the water heater.

C called his partner to go pick us up a 50 gallon hot water heater. He asked us for a garden house and proceeded to flush and drain the old water heater. We went inside . C's partner delivered the new tank. The two of them lifted out the old tank and put the new one in. C's partner hauled our old heater away while C finished fitting it and cleaned up that corner of our garage floor. Luckily, the mops and brooms are stored in that corner.

By 6pm, we had a new heater, hot water and C had a nice big check.