Have a happy, delicious, chocolate dipped, sugar-dusted Valentine’s Day

Last year around this time, I was in Los Angeles photographing a cookbook.  Here’s a look behind the scenes. If it seems like there’s a lot going on, there is!

It’s weird when someone says, “hey you look just like (fill in the name of a famous person).”

In my case, it’s been Jeanine Garafalo (yeah…I can see the resemblance) and Robbie Benson. The guy from Ice Castles.  I dunno, I’m not really seeing the resemblance there. Is it because we both have blue eyes?  Um, us and half the planet.

It’s even weirder when you find out that you look like a Mexican cartoon character.

And that they’ve made a puppet of that character.

And that my friends Yvette and Fred felt compelled to buy said puppet and place it in their guest room so that I would have a heart attack when I opened the door and saw “me” waving back at me.

Now all I need to do is black out one of my teeth…

Back in 2004 I was skating in Santa Monica and came across this graffiti. 

I don’t know if I just happen to look at the ground a lot (because I’m short?  because I’m nearsighted?), but I document sidewalk graffiti often.  Which means it occurs often.  Which means that there are people who must express themselves and this is their medium.  Pretty intriguing!

From San Francisco, last year:

From Chicago, the year before:

from Austin, circa 2000:

And my personal favorite, seen in Los Angeles:

I’m amping up the cute factor here.  Oh my, what a doll and everyone at the coffee house was fawning over her.  Now I want a pot belly pig for a pet.  Noah is concerned….

This time of year I like to shuffle through old photos and get ideas.  Just found this self-portrait session from 2001.  I’m wearing Noah’s suit.  Kind of tomboy, but kind of girly too.

That’s Noah and me, our 16th year together.  Today is our 9th wedding anniversary. 

Noah rolls his eyes and says “Nine LONG years”.

Photo by Alina Prax of La Dolce Vita Photography

Turkeys, prepare yourselves!

This is what’s left of my inheritance from my maternal grandmother.  A chicken salt dispenser that I have had perched on a kitchen shelf for the last twenty years.

What’s even weirder?  What I actually received twenty years ago was a box in the mail.  The box was full of figurines, but no one packed them in bubblewrap, so all the figurines were broken.  Bambi with three legs, no-headed bunnies.  Etc.  It was truly a sad scene. 

The chicken survived the journey, only to do a swan dive onto my concrete floors last week.

Goodbye, Chicken. Go join your buddies in Figurine Heaven.

Happy Jack-o-Lantern Day!  Seen in Marengo, Illinois.