grape-o-melons

Crank was taking us on a bike ride through the hills in a part of town I didn't know. There were great views down into the city, and amazing trees in all the front yards. Hoffman reached up with a lacross stick while balancing Crank's laptop on the other hand, and knocked down a HUGE grape off one of the neighbors' trees. There were only a few ripe, and they clustered all over the tree like cherries. The grapes were the size of large honeydew, but pale red like seedless grapes. We eventually sat down in the front yard to start into our grapes, but Caroline and I had no idea how to start.

We decided to bite into the tiny hole where the stem started from, but when I did, I found a small group of long translucent millipede like animals. They seemed to live just in the core of the grape, and we hypothesized that they were the reason that these huge fruits were able to self-pollinate. We ate around the core, like a giant apple, and the grape flesh was delicious and sugary and perfect!

Later at the nature center we were prompted to check into the origin of the critters. So we approached a giant wall of tiny wooden drawers. The card catalog of all the plants in the area. It took us a while to navigate through all the tiny drawers stacked floor to ceiling, but we found our way to "grapes" and found stacks of cards as well as drawers full of tiny grape plants. The information on symbiotic organisms wasn't as detailed as we would have liked, but we found all sorts of other interesting facts out, and tasted some grape samples that were savory like olives.

The nature center also featured a time lapse video art piece of various animals eating their way through different things. One was humans walking past a wall of cheese and breaking off tiny parts till it was gone, superimposed over a video (scaled to fit) of ferrets eating their way through a wall of food. Chris and I watched others including ants and other insects eating their way through certain objects in super fast motion. The layering of scales was fascinating.

beck salad

We were all at the Beck concert even though I didn't work at the firm anymore. I spent the first couple songs down right at the edge of the stage, but soon went up to the tables we had for the group. The dinner theater setting was weird for the concert, but it worked. I had to squeeze into the table with all the girls, and most of the food there was gone other than some baked tofu and some salad which I couldn't even get a hold of. The other tables still had tons of food, even the three or four filled with our friends.

In front of us there were a bunch of guys being loud and stupid. I recognized them all from my high school. My date from junior prom was there, wearing a yellow tshirt and facing the wrong way.

water cannibals

I was working with my cousins to make a few dollars separating out the little plastic bits from the edges of molds and plastic milk crates. We sat on trays that were dragged behind the high speed water rail that ran through the bay, and when we had collected enough plastic we would dump all the little colored bits together.

At one point our rope came undone, so I dove into the water and swam it back to the last car to tie us all back to the train. We were back in action, water skiing behind the train on our lunch trays.

Inside the car, we found a bunch of kids that had been quarantined. We could watch them on the screen from the bomb-squad robot that we sent inside to spy on them, and it turned out they were cannibals! gross!

glaw!

I had to try and get all the teletubby autographs I could for the younger kids. I don't know why this was my job, and I wasn't very happy about it. I got 1/6 on the appropriate colored paper by waiting in line with a bunch of 6 year olds. Once they cleared out, I went back to the others to get the rest. Some yellow one gave me a really hard time, but finally let up and gave an autograph, so i moved over to the brown one. All he did was say "GLAW!" really loudly, like a handicaped dinosaur, as he stamped his brown papers with a big dino-claw shaped stamp. I got all the colors that were there that day, but was informed by the kids that really they wanted the one big pink guy's signature, and I would have to go back the next day to get it. crap!

meanwhile back on Valencia street;

Lucy and I were at the bookstore, lying on the grass next to each other, tossing with our friends. Throwing giant blades up in the air and trying to fight each other to catch them as they plummeted down at our faces was less easy than we thought. Most of the fun was trying to play defense on each other by tackling the other person's legs, while never getting off the ground. Eventually, bookstore guy with the long red curly hair came over. He had recognized us from college ultimate, and wanted to say hi.

Over at the counter, the bookstore was doing a sandwich exchange. It was going great until some lady came in with a clearly inferior sandwich and the manger let her exchange it for an awesome sandwich anyway! why!

At the counter, I decided to kill time by asking about the postcards. Customers were not allowed to look through the box themselves, but the clerk told me all about the different kinds available. I ended up getting a whole set of the handmade "Muppets Take Manhattan" cards, as well as a few random others. I am going to send these to so many friends!

bike party

We threw our yearly party of excess, and the cleaning up had begun. My grandparent's house was pretty trashed, so we were trying to put everything back together. Reed ordered us around, and i had stacks of pans that needed to go somewhere even though i kept leaving them around while i pick up some other task in the melee that was the aftermath.

Eventually we needed to go into town, so Todd and I grabbed some bikes and headed down the lane through the fields and the curving paths to the old timey town center. We stuck our hands in the candy jars at the corner store and filled our pockets with colorful sweets for the rest of our ride. We crossed the trolly tracks and kept going on to the bank, swerving through crowds of people lazily enjoying the sunshine in the square.

buggy

We were hanging out in this apartment I had been in before. It has been passed down from friend to friend. There was a really nice atrium, and cool steps inside. Sarah, unfortunately, had gotten way too skinny after she moved in here though.

I saw a really colorful caterpillar on the wall and you giggled. The rainbow colored caterpillar curled up to make a ball that looked like a little raspberry, each ball of color different. It pulsed and each bubble grew like a balloon, and as they grew each one came away from its body as if on an antennae. The balls of color swelled and bobbled around as they grew. More antennar grew from its body bearning little black flags. Each colored antennae bubble sloshed at the end of its appendage as they began bursting! sticky bug juice ran down the wall everywhere.

It was amusing until we realized that the juice contained thousands of tiny tiny wormlike babies. they were nearly translucent and resembled 1/4" long nematodes on speed. We tried to kill off the infestation with some alcohol. It didn't work, and we grabbed listerine, nail polish remover, anything we had on hand, but they just kept comong down the wall.

Soon there were longer ones as well, several inches. the waves of worms cascaded down the wall on to the floor where they began collecting all the dead exoskeletons of other bees wasps and tucans they found on the floor, organizing them into large grids of bodies. Grids were forming on most of the walls and parts of the floor before we had to leave. When the accumulated enough of a grouping they would animate the dead creatures and move their bodies into hiding.

bombs

we were all at my moms house when we saw the DHL planes in long lines crossing the area spraying some sort of chemicals. gross. we all covered our faces with our shirts, and tried to ignore the fact that the government had somehow allowed this to happen. the next wave of planes came by, and started dropping small shells, exploding on impact. one hit the neighbors. they were small explosives, and coming kind of slowly so we could jump out of the way if we were in the open space of the yard.

the next wave dropped heat seekers. i ran and some followed me into the next yard, and somehow we got away.

back at the house we saw the next round drop. these turned into robot spiders on impact and began dismantling parts of the house and the cars.

we saw the progression. testing newer bombs on us, one wave at a time. each one a different candy color, smooth, and tiny.

we retreated into the catacombs through the wine cellar. hopefully we could wait this out out with the others who were already down there.