KatysBlog

October 31, 2010 · 3:55 pm

Smart Car Wrap

Since I bought my Smart car, I have been accessorizing it. So far, I have added

A dealer-installed iPhone 3 holder, charger, and microphone – resulting in much better sound quality for both phone calls and audio books
Smart’s “Smart Drive US v1.01” iPhone application – almost a complete waste of $9.99 – this software is in need of serious work by a competent usability engineer
Rubber floor mats
A red plastic crate to hold small stuff so that it does not slide around behind the seats
The “Kite Flight” design car wrap

I very much enjoy driving this car. The negatives are that it does not have much power and going over speed bumps or uneven pavement in a tiny car is rough. But my Smart Car is fun to drive – especially with the top down. It parks in tiny spots (like the half parking space otherwise taken up by someone’s trailer, and in the corners of lots with diagonal parking), and drives about 35 miles per gallon. There is enough room behind the two seats for the amount of stuff I usually carry to work (or two large bags of dog food). My 6′ 3″ tall husband (who bought me the wrap for my birthday) fits into the Smart Car comfortably. My teenage son Paul says my car embarrasses him.

Here are pictures of my car being wrapped this week:

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Tagged as John, Paul

October 30, 2010 · 12:18 pm

Trick-or-Treat Trail Crossing Guard

Yesterday, I was one of the Willow Glen Lions who were volunteer crossing guards for the Trick-or-Treat Trail put on by the Willow Glen Business Association. This is our Lions Club’s second year serving our community through this school-day-before-Halloween safety project. It was fun but I have much increased respect for the difficult job of a crossing guard. I was last a crossing guard when I was in 6th grade. As John Plocher wrote:

What’s scarier than vampires, ghosts and dragons? Drivers on cell phones making left turns and jockeying for parking spots as thousands of kids and their parents descend on downtown Willow Glen for the WGBA’s annual Halloween trick-or-treat event!

The children and families and school groups paraded around Lincoln Avenue in two two-hour shifts (10 am – 12 pm for little kids, 2 pm – 4 pm for bigger kids), collecting candy from businesses. There were clear categories of costumes:

Super heroes (Iron Man, Buzz Lightyear, Spider Man, Superman and Supergirl, Wonder Woman, Mario Brothers, Batman, ninjas, Star Wars)
Fantasy characters (Dragons, fairies, elves, wizards or sorceresses, Mickey and Minnie Mouse, Tigger, jack-o-lanterns, clowns, cowboys and cowgirls, pirates, knights and medieval ladies, Roman soldiers and ladies, aliens, robots, devils, Disney princesses)
Storybook characters (Dorothy and the Witch from Oz, Snow White, Cinderella, Beauty, Thomas the Tank Engine, The Cat in the Hat with Thing One and Thing Two, kings and queens and princesses, Alice in Wonderland with the Queen of Hearts and Mad Hatter)
TV characters (Sponge Bob, Rust-eze Cars, Power Rangers, Sesame Street)
Animals (Cats, Dogs, Dinosaurs, Tigers, Zebras, Giraffes, Lions, Bugs, Cows, Skunks, Monkeys, Rabbits, and one small elephant)
Food and plants (pumpkins, grapes, bananas, hot dogs, flowers)
Horror (ghosts, witches, vampires, murderers, zombies, skeletons, werewolves, Munch’s Scream, Death)
Unique costumes (a marionette puppet, outfits on real dogs, hippies, a Lego block, Mustard, a mime)
Sports costumes (Giants, Raiders, Sharks)
Work costumes (police, firefighters, army and navy, ballerinas, prisoners)

Some costumes were store-bought, some were home-made, many were a combination. My favorite pair costume was a big sister with ghastly bloody-looking makeup on her neck and face walking with a smaller boy all in black. When I asked what they were, she pointed and said: “He murdered me!” at which he smiled happily.

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Tagged as John, San Jose, Willow Glen

October 30, 2010 · 10:50 am

Our Own Personal Flood

After my several blogs about not wanting flood insurance, it would be ironic if my home were flooded now that I finally don’t have to buy it. Our “flood” was only in the back yard, fortunately, and resulted from a cracked garden pipe. This was not the flood of Gilgamesh…

Like pieces of a broken pot lay the pieces of land among the spreading water.
So high did the water go that even the gods scrambled for mountain so high
And cringed like rain whipped dogs in the storm.

This was not the flood of Noah…

The waters prevailed and increased greatly upon the earth; and the ark floated on the face of the waters.
And the waters prevailed so mightily upon the earth that all the high mountains under the whole heaven were covered;
the waters prevailed above the mountains, covering them fifteen cubits deep.

But it did make a big mess and cost us $500 to fix. What you see in the photo at the left above are the roots and pipe that caused the problem. We think a root from one of our big ash trees cracked the PVC pipe which connects to the hose bib or water spigot. I noticed that there was mud for several days in the walkway near WP 668, our backyard caboose where I have my office. My husband looked at it, dug a hole from which shot up a spout of water, found he could not turn it off, then called Polo’s Landscaping (408-597-5214) to come help.

It turns out that a previous owner of our Willow Glen house had put in a garden water line upstream of the house and garden water shut off valves. So, the only way we could turn off that particular pipe was to turn off the water service to the whole property. We ended up with two large muddy holes – one near the caboose, and the other near the valves in the front yard. After much digging around in my (former) iris bed, Polo found the pipe that should have had the shut off valve on it, buried two feet down. He and his team did a good job. By the end of the day, we had a new shut off valve and a fixed water pipe. The brick walkway sank a little but once the ground dries out some, I will lift the bricks and add some more sand.

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Tagged as garden, San Jose, Willow Glen, WP668

October 27, 2010 · 8:45 pm

Willow Glen Lions Visit San Jose City Hall

Five officers of the Willow Glen Lions Club went to visit Council Member for District 6, Pierluigi Oliverio, this afternoon at City Hall. Willow Glen’s representative was a judge in our High School Speakers’ Contest last year and has sometimes visited our booth at the Farmer’s Market. Club President Rick Loek, with Sami Asfour, Robert Cortez, Katy Dickinson, and Myra Talavera wanted to ask Pierluigi’s advice on what more our new club could do for our community.

The Mayor and City Council offices are on the 18th floor at the top of the impressive City Hall tower. Our conference room had distractingly interesting wrap around views of the Silicon Valley. Pierluigi said how much he appreciated the community work done by San Jose’s service clubs. We had a good meeting and hope that Pierluigi will again be a judge in next year’s Willow Glen Lions speaking contest.

In the lobby on the way out, I saw the controversial Christopher Columbus statue which was smashed in 2001 by a Native American activist. Despite all of the discussion, the 1958 statue has been repaired and seems to be generally ignored.

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Tagged as San Jose, Willow Glen

October 26, 2010 · 5:37 pm

Birthday at Eliza’s, San Francisco

On Sunday, John and Paul and I took my parents to Eliza’s Chinese Restaurant to celebrate my father’s 84th birthday. (Eliza’s is his favorite.) I am not sure if he likes the modern art glass displays or the food better. Eliza’s food is very good and fresh (but not traditional-Chinese style). Be sure to check out the glass fish swimming up the walls of the bathroom when you visit.

Eliza’s
2877 California Street
(between Broderick St & Divisadero Streets)
San Francisco, CA

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Tagged as John, Paul, San Francisco

October 24, 2010 · 4:22 pm

Camp Clay

One of our annual August activities at the Lair of the Golden Bear family camp is playing with clay. Most of the family ends up in the Lair’s Art Grove sooner or later, either to keep my mother (Eleanor Dickinson) company while she is drawing and painting, or to do art of our own. This year, I bought four bisqueware plates at the camp store. (Bisqueware is once-fired clay.) Recruiting Jessica, Matt, Paul, and John, I traced one of each of our hands on a plate. I painted in between the lines in colored glaze, then covered the whole with clear glaze.* I fired the plates once at camp and then painted over the hands for deeper color and fired them again after vacation at Clay Planet (Santa Clara, California).

My mother mostly painted tiles and sketched in her traveling journal. This year, she painted a special bowl in honor of my son Paul’s 18th birthday. It features images of rock crystals and a large beetle.

* actually, John painted on the clear glaze for me because he smudges less than I do

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Tagged as Eleanor, Jessica, John, Lair of the Bear, Matthew, Paul, University of California

October 24, 2010 · 2:53 pm

Dead Elvis Stolen

Halloween is a big celebration here in Willow Glen, California. A month in advance, otherwise stylish houses start growing nasty encrustations of orange and purple lights, plastic bats, black birds, and hairy spiders. Formerly well-kept lawns sprout tombstones and coffins, and spooky sounds drift from artfully concealed loudspeakers behind the well-trimmed bushes.

The Trick or Treat Trail is hosted by the Willow Glen Business Association (with the Willow Glen Lions among the volunteer safety monitors). Thousands of kids show off their costumes parading up and down Lincoln Avenue while collecting treats from local businesses. This event will be 10 am – noon and 2 pm – 4 pm on Friday, 29 October. Many of the costumes and decorations are shown off as-bought but some of the scariest are home made.

But there is a dark side to Halloween in Willow Glen… Someone has been collecting other people’s scary displays from unattended lawns. One of the protest signs in a temporary graveyard reads

TO THE THIEVING LOSERS
WHO STOLE OUR ZOMBIE
AND DEAD ELVIS….
RETURN THEM OR
BE FOREVER
CURSED BY
THE UNDEAD!