A Tree Falls in South Pasadena

Wow, she does exaggerate. What happened was a delivery van clipped the low hanging branch of our pine tree. This was bound to happen. Why our landlord or the city doesn't do preventive cutting on these trees, I'll never know. I goofed on this picture. Adrian's car was right under that branch. It wasn't hurt. The branch is so long that it hung over his tall Jeep. Kinda slowed down traffic, which was great.

The city responded so quickly. We had a cop out front within half an hour. He closed the street. The saw truck arrived about ten minutes later. The tree branch is still out there, cut up, lying at the curb. We'll see how long that takes.

I met the neighbor from apartment 2. Yes, I've lived here 9 years. Your point is what? He's Gordon, just retired from Sears. Has lived in that apartment for 40 years. Wow. He also confirmed that the apartment complex was built in 1949. I was thinking '50's. Pretty close. I just had one art deco element to go on. I also found out that our loud neighbor, Manuel, bugs him too. His car radio drives me crazy. Gordon told me that he does the same thing with his house music. I am so lucky to have very quiet next door neighbors.

I've started a new needlepoint. This one is a picture of a Parisian Bistro. You can see that after a few days I've almost completed a window. There is a lot more to do. This means that I've been doing a lot of listening. I've finished 2.5 books since I started.

I re-read Six Days of the Condor. Yes, six days. They shortened the story to three days when they made the movie to fit better with Robert Redford's image. Why leave him hanging out in the cold for six days? I remembered really liking this story thirty years ago. It's less complex than I like now, but was still pretty exciting. The author does a short segment at the beginning, telling about writing the book and the transition to the movie.

I also read Deadheads by Reginald Hill. This was very good. It's part of a mystery series set in Yorkshire. I like the detectives, Daziel (pronounced DL) and Pasco, and the plot is really good. You sort of know what's happening, but not really and the ending is very good.

I'm currently listening to The Serpent's Tale by Ariana Franklin. This is the follow up to Mistress of the Art of Death, set in the time of Richard II. The heroine is sort of a one woman CSI for the Middle Ages. Fun. Audible had a half price sale on books or I'd be dead in the water. This needlepoint is going to take a long time. See how little it looks on that big piece of fabric?

Just remember how it was hard to see a cat when I started my last needlepoint. He eventually grew into a real cat surrounded by a library of books. It just takes time.

Maybe it will be done before I fly back to Virginia for two months, starting mid-June. I decided to do some summer temp work at Booz Allen. Let's hope it all works out as planned.