In the wind

 Street art seen in downtown LA's Arts District.

All shapes and sizes

From the British Museum. Click to "embiggen"

These figurines were made of bone and ivory, between 4000 and 3600 BC, in Naqada, a town on the west bank of the Nile River in Egypt.

We really do come in all shapes and sizes, don't we?

Matsutake hot pot

My junior year in college, I left the dormitory to share an apartment a couple of blocks off campus with three other girls.  My father, by that time an enthusiastic connoisseur of Asian food, taught me a dish to cook in my new kitchen.

Sukiyaki is the perfect dish for a young cook. It is both easy and exotic. Although it has a lot of ingredients, the method is simple. It's fast, too, providing almost instant gratification.

Sukiyaki is one of many Japanese dishes called nabemono, or hot-pot. A dish for wintertime, they are usually cooked at the table-top on a portable stove, or as my father taught me, in an electric skillet.

On to 2013

First flowers of the year

Before looking ahead to 2013, I'm taking a quick look back into 2012.

It was a pretty good year for me, personally. I studied French again. I saw some wonderful art exhibits. I ate some delicious meals. I met my Secret Boyfriend in the flesh!  I had some interesting and challenging assignments at work. I attended a writing workshop. I saw some old friends again, renewing our acquaintance - and I met some internet friends in person. I visited our son, and proudly noted his accomplishments and maturity.

After a highly charged political year, our country had an election that, in my opinion, turned out as it should.

I traveled, to Seattle, to Venice and Paris, to London - twice!

There were setbacks. We had to repair some damage to our house. I learned I'm losing my job.

And sadness - I lost a dear friend.

What to do in 2013?

• I hope to take another French class.
• I want to try to sell my writing.
• Put the books back on my bookshelves!
• Clean the basement
• Start swimming again, or walk farther
• I hope to travel, even modestly, and take pleasure in seeing new places.
• I hope to find an occupation that will make me fulfilled - whether it's a new job or self-employment
• I hope to keep my friendships strong; reconnect with those I've lost; and make new friends.

And help [The Man I Love] make his 2013 wishes happen, too.

How about you? How did 2012 treat you, and what do you hope for 2013?

OK, this is really scary

Me and Max, December 2012

[The Man I Love] posted a photo he took of our son and me on his Facebook page. We were sitting in a Bethnal Green pub, browsing a map of London on an I-phone

It made me remember a photo I posted in this blog a couple of years ago, of my mother and her oldest son - my brother S - doing a crossword puzzle together.

S and Mom, 2007

 Life repeats, there are human patterns that recur from generation to generation. Moms instruct their children, no matter how mature they are.

Of course, this usually doesn't take place in a pub........!

The beauty of a barter economy

Our neighbor, Sean, is an expert mushroom forager, and we've benefited from his generosity before, when he showed us how to forage for chanterelles in an undisclosed Topanga location. But how to pay him back?

When I read Sean's blog post about a bumper crop of wild mushrooms he gathered in Northern California, I made what I hoped would be an offer he couldn't refuse - trade some wild mushrooms for an assortment of weird British snack food and candy. Irresistible!

For your inner faun

Here's a pair of cloven-hooved booties seen in London's Brick Lane. Wear them for your Dionysian New Years' Eve revels!

Back home again

 We're back home again. It's nice to have a few more days to adjust our body clocks before going back to work.

One of the more unexpected adjustments we're dealing with is the climate. We bundled up for our trip to London, with boots and coats and warm mufflers; sweaters and wooly socks. But as it turns out, we feel colder in our Los Angeles home than we did in London.

In fact, the temperature is about the same - in LA it's been in the 40's, dipping into the 30s at night. London temperatures are actually a little warmer than Topanga is right now.

The English tend to overheat their homes and buildings - we were always shedding coats and scarves and layers to keep from sweating indoors. By contrast, our California houses are not built to keep out the cold, with our big windows, our uninsulated walls, our flat and beamed roofs. We're keeping warm as best we can with a wood fire.

Jack is back with us, and settling in happily. The kennel - more like a combination doggy spa and play camp - sent him home with a holiday bandana round his neck.

He seems happy to be back with the hairless pink monkeys that control his food supply.

At least it looks that way to me.

From the fire

The word "mangal" in Turkish means grill, and it refers to the kind of open charcoal grill used for the kebabs that are much loved in Turkish cuisine. The word has spread all over the regions of the world that love grilled skewered meats, from Afghanistan to Russia.

The other night our son took us to Mangal 1 Ocakbasi, a Turkish restaurant in Dalston, northeast London, a place that some in the press have dubbed one of the best places in London for kebabs.