A week or so ago I went out to photograph the Jacaranda trees that were in full bloom here is Los Angeles. Instead of going to the beautiful streets of Beverly Hills, where photographers are not always welcomed, I chose a quiet little street in West LA, lined up with Jacarandas on both sides. Much to my surprise, the jacarandas were not the only attraction there. Every house had a colorful, interesting door, even the most modest ones. So that tuned into a door photo shoot too. 
New York City viewed from the top of Thirty Rock.
Chicago viewed from the Willis (Sears) Tower
Los Angeles (Westside) viewed from the Getty Center
Salzburg, viewed from above the hills.
Another day of raging wildfires in California, now hitting the Los Angeles area. Today, several homes were destroyed and 700 homes were evacuated in Bel-Air, just two miles from our home. And tonight authorities are warning of potentially catastrophic winds overnight and continuing through Thursday. We could be ordered to evacuate at any time during the night if the strong winds spread the fire further south. I am exhausted from a day of worries and expectations, following the developments and preparing to leave home if needed. Hopefully it won’t happen, but we’re ready for the worst. It will be a sleepless night…
Driving West on Wilshire Boulevard towards Santa Monica, while the sun was setting in dramatic fashion. But there were bumps along the road. 🙂
Oops!! An unintentional abstract! 😀
What is something that people are obsessed with but you just don’t get the point of? Definitely Twitter. I find it annoying and weird. Can’t understand how people like it. Of all social media platforms Twitter is the most conducive to aggression and vitriol. There’s so much aggression and mean-spiritedness happening on Twitter, sometimes I wish it would just disappear. And now that the US has a Tweeter-in-Chief instead of a President, I dislike it even more. Anyway, I am a Facebook user and I have my blogs (one is actually quite abandoned) and that’s how I communicate with the world. I can live without Twitter, Instagram, and the rest.
What quirky things do people do where you are from? I live in Los Angeles and, as the whole world knows, Angelenos drive a lot and traffic is their main concern. People here are constantly looking for ways to beat traffic, looking for shortcuts that will get them to their destination faster, and talk about it all the time. Drivers can get very aggressive whenever something slows things down. They honk and exchange “pleasantries” quite often. I always say that Angelenos are very nice people who turn into monsters during rush hour. 🙂 Another quirk of Angelenos is their inability to handle rain. Meteorologists here talk about 2 inches of rain the same way their East Coast peers talk about 5 feet of snow. It’s hilarious. And since it rains so little here, people don’t have umbrellas or raincoats, and can’t drive in the rain. So any little rain causes panic, car accidents and gridlock on the roads. That’s LA…
What are some things you wish you could unlearn? I can’t think of anything I wish to unlearn. On the contrary, I can think of many, many things I wish I had learned, like play the piano and the cello; speak French and Italian; drawing and painting; and many more. Hopefully I can still learn some of these…
Who is someone that you miss having in your life? I don’t miss one person in particular, but I miss having family around. I’m lucky we live close to our daughter in Santa Monica, but all my family is in Brazil and sometimes I wish I had them here. Well, not *all* of them… 😉
Optional Bonus question: What are you grateful for from last week, and what are you looking forward to in the week coming up? I’m grateful things have been quiet and the weather has been beautiful. It will change as a heatwave is approaching. This week we are hosting a good friend from Brazil who is visiting LA. We haven’t seen him in almost ten years and it will be fun catching up.
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Jy is wat jy dink - nie wat jy dink jy is nie. Dit help soms om hardop te lag vir wat jy dink of dink jy is.
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