Bethnal Green on a rainy morning

The Salmon & Ball pub on the corner of Cambridge Heath Road and Roman Road. Photo taken during a morning foray for breakfast supplies. Click to 'embiggen"

Traveling and arriving

I really do love to travel. I love the mental shift that takes place when you leave behind your routine world. I love how, especially when you go overseas, you are plunged into a world that's strange to you, but normal to everyone else. I love the effort of adapting to the "new normal."

Although sometimes travel can be a challenge or even a real ordeal. Still, I love to give myself over to it. You never know what you're going to get when you start out.

Our Topanga life is so familiar. On Tuesday, I started the day with my routine dog-walk in my Topanga neighborhood - although it was a bit abbreviated because of rain. Then home for breakfast, shower, dress and then I took Jack to the Topanga Pet Resort, which will be his home while we're gone. It's like dropping a kid off at summer camp - they never look back!

We're here

We've arrived in London, at our hotel.

It's a fascinating, quirky hotel - a mixture of old and new, of artsy-funky and sleek.

Awaitng us when we arrived.

 We're exhausted, but after we've had some rest, I'll show you more.

Thematic photographic - Industrial disease

Carmi at the blog Written, Inc. posts a weekly photo challenge. This week, the theme is "Industrial disease."
What is "industrial disease"? Get your take on it. And share it at Written, Inc.

Click to "embiggen"

Some call it art, others call it vandalism. Street art appears in industrialized areas, on the walls of buildings which are abandoned, or which might be occupied by industries that care little about appearances. This sense of neglect invites more grafitti, infecting the neighborhood with a kind of industrial disease.

Here, though, there's another story behind first impressions. On this stretch of Imperial Street, in the downtown Los Angeles neighborhood once called the Warehouse District, this mural is by the Belgian muralist known as ROA.  The artist explores the natural world, scavengers and urban vermin, and the circle of decay and natural death that is also the circle of life.

Far from being abandoned now, the nearby buildings house artist live/work lofts, trendy bars and clubs, microbreweries and high-end businesses like event planners.  Now called the Arts District, gentrification is spreading through this part of town like an epidemic.

It's your call. Is it art? Or industrial disease? Or....is it gentrification that's a disease?

Just read it

I have been unable to write anything about the killing of 27 people in Newtown, Connecticut. But I just read something so powerfully true about our nation's enthrallment with gun culture, that I want to direct you there. Go read "Our Moloch," by Garry Wills, at the New York Review of Books.

Tell me what you think.

Christmas shopping in Beverly Hills

Santa flies over Wilshire Boulevard at Beverly Blvd.

I've lived in Los Angeles for almost fifteen years now, and although I explore many parts of the city, the one place I seldom go is Beverly Hills.

But, today, [The Man I Love] had a business lunch meeting at Spago in Beverly Hills. I was feeling adventurous, so I invited myself to come along. While he was at his meeting, I would shop.

The shopping I do now is the window variety - I'm saving up my shopping money for London. But I get a lot of enjoyment from window shopping and taking in the ambiance and impressions of a place.

Strolling shoppers on Canon Drive

Spago is on Canon Drive just north of Wilshire Boulevard. We pulled up at the valet stand, and had one of those peculiar convivial encounters one frequently finds at the valet stand in LA. An older couple waiting for their car was curious about our Honda Fit. The man pressed his nose to the back window. "Does it have seats back there?" he asked. We assured him it did. [The Man I Love] testified to the Fit's ability to transport cargo like large dogs and upright string bass fiddles. Then their Mercedes was brought around, and we parted ways.

Specialty of the House

 Philippe the Original opened in Los Angeles in 1908. One day in 1918, its proprietor, Philippe Matthieu, was making a sandwich for a customer and by mistake dropped the bread into a roasting pan full of meat juice. The customer said he'd take the sandwich anyway, and this, according to legend, was the birth of the French Dip Sandwich.

Others might dispute this tale, but today, Philippe's on the corner of Alameda Boulevard and Ord Street in Los Angeles' Chinatown is regularly packed with customers demanding French Dip sandwiches.

Journeying far

 The manor house at Stokesay Castle, in the West of England

We are travelling for the holidays, and I'm starting to get excited about it.

We're going to visit our son in London for Christmas. I've never been to Britain in the winter, and I'm looking forward to some cozy Christmas scenes, some jolly wassailing, a bit of Dickensian charm - and the after-Christmas sale at Liberty!

Adventures in job-hunting - the irony

One irony of my job hunting situation is that I am actually in the process of recruiting, interviewing and hiring staff myself!

Because my colleague secured a transfer position and left our office, I have been involved with filling her vacant position with someone from the pool of temporary, or "as-needed" staff maintained by our organization.

I interviewed someone today who truly impressed me with her interview skills. She was everything the advice columnists tell you to be. Dressed above the position she sought - she wore a suit.  She spoke about her skill set, how it fit the job, and with each questions she managed to bring these points up and emphasize them again. She was calm and confident, and she took her time answering the questions.

What I am beginning to realize is that the pool of temporary staff spends a lot of time honing not only their work skills, but their skills at presenting themselves to potential employers - they have to do it so frequently.

We have a few more things to check out before we make a decision, but I started to think that if we hired this candidate and I began to train her, maybe I'd ask her to train me in the skill of interviewing for a job!