More in Paris

 Yesterday, we were models for Ann, who lives across the hall. You can see here work here.
She lives on the other side of the building, with wonderful light coming in, with a view of buildings.

 This is a view from Ann's studio.  I love the way the roof tops look. The shadow lines are interesting to me, also.

 After the photo shoot, we went to the Swedish Cultural Institute for coffee. It's gotten quite popular but we found places to sit inside. 

When we were on our walk along the Canal St. Martin, we passed through an area where there's a Fire Station. These Pompiers were cleaning there hoses. You can see a beautiful photo of the hoses on My Urban Fragments blog here.

A big fire!

 These are in reverse order of how I saw the action!

I went out this afternoon to mail my "O" cards. I'd missed the mail carrier so I thought "I'll go to the mail box by the hospital where there's a 5 pm pick up. Easy and quick.

I went out my back gate, down the alley to Davis Ave. and took a left onto Grove. I noticed flashing lights, then a smokey look up ahead. Whoa, some yellow police tape.

Looking east on Grove

Looking west on Grove

Channel 12's truck on Grove

I saw Adrianna, Sage, their mom and friends coming towards me. They'd seen the smoke and went to investigate. They filled me in about what they'd seen. They smelled smokey.

There was no way that I could get to the mail box, nor would the postal workers be able to make the 5 p.m. pick up with the street closed.
I decided to walk around the hospital on Floyd Ave, parallel to Grove, to a post box on Grove and the Boulevard. Lots of fire trucks, police cars, the streets blocked. Lots of smoke. I was able to get really close to the action from this direction.   There were lots of fire companies involved in this.

I didn't realize how many of our fire fighters are women. I think in one of these photos you can actually see one of them.




I just heard the news on Channel 12 that firefighters are still on the scene as they investigate how the fire started. The owner and his dog got out safely but the man lost a lot including his computer. He said that he wished he'd had off computer back up. Good idea! Glad I have my photos on Flickr and this blog.

Oh yes, they said that it was a 3 alarm fire.


Such excitement in the neighborhood. And it took my mind off of what had been bothering me. Along with 2 pieces of mail art, I was mailing copies of the death certificate of my friend to businesses. I was feeling sad about that. I'm still in surprise about her death. I suppose that's how it goes.

Dramatic Dog Rescue

We were glued to the television set yesterday watching a dog, who had somehow gotten caught in the Los Angeles river, usually a cement trench with a trickle of water, but because of the storms it was a raging, swift moving river. The poor dog was walking back and forth on thin pipe or ledge right in the middle. Some fire fighters were on a bridge trying to scare the dog into walking down to another bridge where there were other rescuers ready to rappel down to catch it. The dog headed that way, but the water got deeper and faster and the poor critter couldn't get a visual on pipe/ledge so he went back to where he could see it. The dog was shaking. A helicopter came, but there were over-head power lines, so they couldn't lower anyone. The dog got more frightened and started walking down to the 2nd bridge, we were so scared for it, that it'd step into a hole and drown or get swept away. Finally, he walked toward the side, but it was too steep, though a 100 yards down he probably could have climbed up, the announcer said. The helicopter at that point was in a place where it could lower the firefighter, who grabbed the frightened dog. The dog bit the firefighter numerous times, but the rescuer never let go and the helicopter lifted man and dog and flew to the bridge. Once lowered to the roadway, a number of rescuers surrounded the dog, sedated him it looked like because he looked limp as they carried him to the rescue vehicle. It was VERY dramatic. You can see the rest of the photos that I took of the incident HERE.