LA TIMES FESTIVAL OF BOOKS

just a reminder this weekend is the LA Times Festival of Books.. more later as we're off! (Kat Kora is at 2pm but we have other stuff we're doing first). =)

Settling in on Hope

Happy New Year from Downtown! i5Nomads have taken the plunge as far as moving to downtown LA and so far it seems alright. We're still not unpacked or organized but we do have the general layout of the place complete (and realized early on that our place is MUCH smaller than we were led to believe or comprehend).

Our cats are having a good time as long as they stay away from each other when they are cranky and they get their catnip. =)

I actually sleep less than I did when we lived in Anaheim, but honestly I do feel safer. Since we've left Orange Co. we haven't had near as many helicopters and domestic disturbances waking us up in the middle of the night from the intoxicated neighbor, or the cats getting upset over the stray neighbor cat that comes around to hang out on our old balcony. No more big wheels and street racing and donuts in the middle of the night.

Shortly after we moved, Buena Park (the city) got put on 'lock down' at least once. Gang activity or something.. I can't recall now.

I do know that when hubby commutes he has been taking the bus or driving and when he drives, he gets home a LOT quicker. Backwards commute!

We're still waiting on Ralph's but the key to the store ceremony took place last week, so the June opening looks like it could be happening. We usually shop at Trader Joe's anyway, so when it opens we'll be glad but that doesn't keep us from trips to TJ's. =)

We've gone to a couple local places (local in that we could walk there if we like) as well checked out the Pershing Square ice rink with friends and I don't skate but it was fun, and other than be a real danger to kids and people who know what they are doing, it seemed really festive (maybe they can put a fresh layer of ice on the rink next year?) It was pretty goug-y from what our friend (who skates) mentioned, and when they 'resurface' the rink they only scrape the loose ice off and leave it pock marked and uneven. bleh!

We like our ability to just walk up the street for garlic mashed potatoes, we like the central library being so close and despite it NOT being Berkeley, it is a walkable city, a bus-able city, and yeah.. a city one can live in, not just visit. =)

CITY LIGHTS:
My insomnia is worse here though because the neighbors heels wake me up, and hubby's snoring hasn't improved and since we don't have walls to shut a door from the snoring I usually sleep on the couch. The lights are on ALL night in the halls, the neighbors are awake and while IN their loft we don't hear much,we do notice sound travels A LOT in the halls, the atrium, and oh, yeah.. upstairs if you don't have carpet on the concrete. This is mainly worse on weekends but you have to wonder with an energy crisis and all looming ahead, why do we need ALL the lights on at night?? (I'm talking the common areas of our building, not the city streets.. we need MORE of those at walkers level so the dog folks & the puppy-less walkers don't get taken advantage of).

We like our loft a lot though honestly, and it's a a great lesson in simplifying. It's probably a bigger lesson than we really wanted though. ;P We had a TON of storage in the old place (more than we needed and honestly, not very practical storage) Here we have our big walk in closet and that's it. A couple trips to IKEA have helped but despite that, we really need a second closet for the other stuff.. so we'll be visiting IKEA at least one more time to replace the dressers & cabinets hubby donated because of space issues here.. A nice PAX wardrobe for the hubby's work clothes (and some of my stuff too I hope!) and then we can put the Christmas decorations in the closet. =) Then we'll be done.

Lesson in loft living #1: learn to live with less.
Lesson in Loft living #2: (or anywhere really) it's freaking EXPENSIVE to live in California and depending on what you want & what you are willing to give up, rent is relative. Live near work and save some time or live where you want & have it be a little cheaper but spend twice as much time in traffic & congestion & away from your family. Either way you pay. I think in the long run the time well spent with family is worth the extra in rent... that and the peace of mind that your neighbors aren't going to hurt someone. I'm not saying downtown LA is safe, but so far so good.. and if it wasn't for the concrete and my insomnia, I'd be in bed already. =)
Lesson in Loft living #3:Solar Shades are NOT curtains.. if you want folks to not see YOU at night, get some real curtains and leave the solar shades for the day time! ;)

I'm just glad that we have more time together. Now I need to get my library card & a job. It's January everyone! New Year New me! =)

ps: congrats to Celia & Jim on the wedding and hope the honeymoon is going wonderful & fantastic!

coyotes of griffith park?

Last night we saw coyotes running from the zoo. We were driving home from a series of errands and SeanYoda decided to check out the festival of lights at Griffith Park. He was going to drive to the zoo parking lot and have us walk (I didn't feel dressed for the cold snap we had over the past couple days nor did I have the camera with me). As we drove through the lot however, there were a couple of dark shadows running from the main gate of the Los Angeles Zoo. Like the silly I am, I asked "omg! are those coyotes?" and SeanYoda replies, "why yes I think those are coyotes!" and my imediate thought was that they had escaped from the zoo (I would too!) but before I really entertained the thought of that or that maybe they were stealing popcorn from the snackbar or whatever, Sean said "but there are coyotes in Southern California," and that was that.

My first real wild coyotes.. scampering through the zoo parking lot. Berkeley has raccoons. Los Feliz has skunks (and so does Atwater Village I might add). Places like Corona and the inland empire has coyotes, and now for the first time, I see Los Angeles does too! Keep your cats indoors folks!

Still they were beautiful.. and I thought a hopeful thought that they find their way back to where they came from and don't get hit by cars (we saw another as we turned around to drive out).

Regarding the lights.. we drove through and I tried to take photos with the cel phone, but alas 'earwax' as they say. The 2 photos I attempted to upload to flikr didn't work and the other pix I took weren't really worth keeping.

I was so happy about the coyotes though, I posted about it on my LJ. =)

Hope Street Alley Cats

The i5nomads have moved to a downtown alley near you! (or maybe that's Starbucks?) Seriously though.. after signing the lease and finally getting the keys to the old place turned in on the 3rd of November (yes, this place really is smaller than our old digs in Anaheim.. but, it's nice.. very nice. If only we could get the folks to stop setting off the deafening fire alarms int the building.. that one at 2am Tuesday night was more than I really could handle with the cat wrangling and all. Also the cats are now terrified out of their minds every time some buzzer or thing goes off. (oh and if I ever do catch the person supposedly 'having fun' with the fire alarm, they will be the ones to help me catch the cats and put them in carriers at 2am cause I'm rather tired of that.

I've decided for the huuuumanz though, we will be adopting the mindset of volunteer firemen when the alarm sounds.. no more fumbling for pants and shoes, we'll have our fire alarm costume all laid out and ready to go, so it's only the cats we need to grab and shove into their Petmate carriers.

Yep, welcome to downtown LA folks.

Otherwise we like our apartment just fine so far. =) It's nice to be just a few blocks from a lot of neat stuff.. including the nice firemen who either came to save us or came to find out who tripped that fire alarm at 2am.. seems a little late on election night to be burning popcorn, so who knows what happened? I'm just glad they came.