I couldn't figure out what www.tumblr.com does or what it's for, so I opened an account. Then I posted a photoshop experiment I was working on and said it was the first of a thousand pictures of the same street corner. Then I began to wonder whether I could really find one thousand things to photograph there, and accepted it as my next challenge.

The story actually began a long time ago, in the 1980's. I was working in Bolye Heights and living in Silver Lake, and commuting by bicycle. One day I took my camera to work and took some pictures on the way home. A few of them turned up, and I got as far as scanning one of them before I went on to do other things. One day in the last few weeks I was making another attempt to sort out my old photographs, and I decided to DO SOMETHING with that one. The first thing I did was figure out where it had been. The second was to try to take the same picture a second time. I managed to create this "Then and Now" picture--



Then I took a whole lot more pictures and made a whole lot more then and now combined pictures. Sometimewhile this was going on, I made my reckless statement on Tumbr.com and here we are-- http://lavocado.tumblr.com/ I still haven't figured out Tumblr.com, but I like it better than Facebook.

So, I haven't been around here much lately, and it's not because I've yet managed the threatened / promised migration to a new URL. I'm just busy, is all. In fact, I don't really have time to post today, but the alternative is a less congenial task that I am trying to avoid doing, so here I am. Can't manage a whole Daybook, but I hope you'll accept this humble Daybook-esque update on all things camillofan (while I am still calling myself that):

( Click for it )

Here's a picture of one of the houses of Carroll Avenue as it looked in 1919 in its original location on 67th and Figueroa. It's posted on an informational pillar close to that location. It belonged to Samuel Calvert Foy and was built in 1872. Figueroa was the Western boundary of the Mexican Pueblo of Los Angeles and was called Grasshopper Street. The Yankees who took over turned it into a fancy residential street. Gradually the commercial district expanded, and all the houses were removed. This one was moved further west to 6th and Witmer, where it remained until 1992. It made way for a parking structure for Good Samaritan Hospital, and was moved to Carroll Avenue. The house is older than the street itself which was just a wild hillside when the Foy House was built.

Here it is today--


( Read more )

This house, at 1324 Carroll Ave. is described as a "plan book house," some early kind of prefabrication. About.com says this about plan books--

"Architectural planbooks and catalogs became popular during the Victorian age when industrialization made it possible to mass produce building parts. Pre-cut architectural details were shuttled across the country. Some builders followed the published plans faithfully. Some mixed ideas borrowed from several plans and added special flourishes of their own.
Several publishers have reprinted historic planbooks with original drawings. While historic house plans don't contain the detailed specifications required by modern builders, they are a valuable resource for anyone who wants to recreate Victorian styles."

It doesn't look like anyone had located the plan book for this, or how much of it was pre-fabricated. It's one of the smaller houses on the block. ( Here's the detail around the side entrance-- )

This is my favorite of the houses on Carroll Ave. It was designed by Joseph Cather Newsom, my favorite architect of that era. He and his brother Samuel were both architects. Samuel was most active in the San Fransisco Bay Area, while Joseph worked in Los Angeles. Together they designed the Carson Mansion in Eureka ( Read more )

So yesterday I did something that's always a little traumatic for a heavy woman: I bought a bathing suit. It's not that I've reached anything like a show-it-off size, let alone attained my goal weight and/or measurements, but I had the opportunity to sign up for an adult beginners swimming class at Number Three Son's swimming school (where he's been going once a week since January and has become quite the swimmer himself), and, well, swimming class requires a swimming costume.

You who have never been overweight will not appreciate how delighted I was to discover that, thanks to the 40 or so pounds I've managed to lose so far, I am now "only" a size 1X. In contrast to previous (unsuccessful) bathing-suit-buying trips over the past decade (when, from time to time, I'd toy with the idea of joining our community pool), I was actually not thoroughly disgusted with how I looked in the things on offer, and I even found myself with the luxury of choosing among several that I felt were not half-bad on me.

I nevertheless made sure to purchase one of those spare-the-rest-of-the-world "cover-up" caftans to wear over it when I'm out of the water.

As for the swimming itself, I was starting from scratch and by the end of the evening could float on my back, propel myself with kicking only, and even do a ragged sort of backstroke. I wasn't as good with any of the face-down things, though.

It's just a 5-week course, after which I can sign on again if I like, but we'll see. Maybe I am more suited to things like water aerobics (for which I am also signed up, starting Monday) than to serious swimming. It is a lot of work!

Arrrgh! This movie is stuck in my head! I thought that only happened with vintage cinema and/or quirky things like The Artist, but no; apparently I am quite capable of obsessing on blockbusters, as well.

Problem is, it is finals week at School #2, and I cannot afford to be wasting time reading awful Avengers fanfiction. Sadly, it seems to only come in the one flavor-- awful-- and yet I can't help looking at it. And since I don't go for slash (you may sue me, but please don't make any assumptions about my general attitudes or politics on the basis of that), I am pretty much stuck choosing between "Loki semi-reforms and works with the Avengers" stories and Hawkeye-Black Widow angstfests. Other popular themes include (highlight invisible text if you don't mind a spoiler) (1) Coulson is alive! and (2) all the heroes move in together college-dorm-style (hilarity/much bromance ensues).

Seven or eight years ago, I got very into Harry Potter fanfiction even though I hadn't actually read any Harry Potter books. Now, you'd think the experience of that period (from which I suddenly emerged one day, as if awaking from a dream) might have innoculated me, but it looks like not.