Surprise!

Well, I guess the novel will be once again in my peripheral vision, however something really great has happened and that is that I will be facilitating this new weekly poetry workshop at the redhare, a gallery and preformance space @ 260 10th street in downtown Astoria, Or. It’s a beautiful space, an ekphrasis goldmine. I’m super excited. Back when I lived in California, I was part of a group of poets that met twice a month to workshop and write new poems and ever since I moved to Astoria, its been my dream to do the same thing here as my experience was such a motivating and inspiring one in Pacific Grove. I talked endlessly to owners of various venues and there was always some issue that wasn’t quite going to work, but I finally found it. So here is the start of something new for me, and the community and I simply cannot wait. This weekend is the Fisher Poets gathering in Astoria, which is a must-see/must-do. For those that may not be hip to it, it’s a preformance series of poets who are also commercial fishermen, and come from all over the world to Astoria to share their wisdom and insight through poetry. I’m hoping that this event makes people excited about poetry enough to be inspired to do it themselves and that they come to try out the workshop.

for more info on the redhare and to get the skinny on the workshop, follow the link below:

http://www.americantowns.com/or/astoria/events/astoria-poetry-workshop

New Painting (SOLD)

This painting is up and you can bid on it at the Astoria Events Center this week

UPDATE: Painting has been SOLD.

I’d like to thank whoever bought it. So thank you, whoever you are. Your

contribution will help the Riverkeeper and I’m glad someone appreciates

something I made, someone who is in no way related to me. I hope you

enjoy looking at it.

Best,

LA

Keep Astoria Safe – AVA hosts an Anti-LNG art show

I am going to have a brand new piece for sale at the upcoming “Keep Oregon Free of LNG” show at the AVA gallery which will be a Art Show and Fund Raiser for the Columbia Riverkeeper

The show runs March 20 - 23 with featured artist Lori Durheim. 100% of sales will benifit the Columbia Rieverkeeper – an organization that has been working to keep the Columbia River safe since the 80’s.

If you hate the ideer of LNG, come buy some art and support the opposition.

The artists’ reception is on Friday, March 21st from 6-9 p.m. at the AVA Center, 435-A 11th St, Astoria, Oregon

Call 503-325-4589 for more info.

Back to Work.

A quick review of Bridgewater Bistro

While the Bridgewater Bistro didn’t make me the best dinner I’ve ever had, they made

the best dinner I’ve ever had in Astoria.

Dinner started off with the best salad I think I’ve ever had. It had peanuts and pea shoots on it and

I could eat it everyday for a long time before I would get sick of it.

The ”famous” clam and mussel chowder also very good and I was pleased to see something different

from the traditional white cream chowder, living around here, it’s easy to get sick of chowder. Theirs was

rich and tomatoey, the soup had been pureed and it was a three star sort of deal. I was expecting a prix-fix menu,

that was not the case. The menu is ala carte. I wanted a replay of my dinner at the hands of Walter Manzke at L’Auberge in Carmel-by-the-Sea, CA and I did

not get that. That dinner was truly special…(Manzke is no longer at L’Auberge, his sous chef was appointed executive chef in 2007 – his name is Timothy Mosblech.

This is by far, the best restaurant at this time in Astoria.

We had the chili-lime prawns off of the small bites menu which were not that great or exciting, but edible.

We had the ”crabscargot” which was yummy probably because there was a whole hell of a lot of melted butter on it and

toasted hazelnuts. Very rich. However, the presentation of this dish was stupid. Look at the picture. Lame. A big

waste of cilantro and I love cilantro. I don’t know.

I ordered the Coquille St. Jacques, which was good

Will’s salmon with chorizo was spicy and warm and he liked it.

Our waitress was kind. Its a beautiful space and its nice we all have somewhere

new and upscale to go to in town. But what I would like to see in Astoria (besides a

Trader Joe’s, more galleries, rennovations at the college, a better library,

and better nightlife) is a true fine dining experience.

Art for sale

Tonight is the big Second Saturday – Arts Night Out Art Walk in Astoria so there’s a ton of stuff happening around town tonight.

If you are interested, I have a piece you can bid on at the AVA Found art show opening tonight.  It looks sort of like this, but now it has red curtains

on either side. It’s titled ”opening night”

This is a picture of it before I decided to add the curtains:

Thanks for all of the people who called or wrote to wish me a happy

birthday! I had a great time. My parents took us all out to dinner and

they bought me a beer and art supplies. It was a great day all around.

Tonight we are dining at the Bridgewater Bistro and you can expect

an in-depth review tomorrow of that and the Second Saturday Art Walk.

Cheers and best,

LA

You say, it’s your birthday!?!

I found this by typing in “happy birthday”

on youtube. Perfect. It is awesome.

Someone took Fritz Lang’s silent movie ”Metropolis” and set it to the Beatle’s music.

I guess they have a lot of time for this. I don’t know.

Too much time on their hands. But it is really cool.

Also, I was hanging out in the basement with Will last night and I looked down

on the floor where I was standing and I saw this:

Now, I thought that was pretty cool. And I wanted to tell you that I didn’t do

ANYTHING to touch up or alter this picture. I resized it and I rotated it, but

that is all. Now….Look closely at the picture. Above the heart, there is a black

spot and if you look closely….(squint)…I think it looks like a hand making a peace

sign. All you need is peace and love. That’s all I want for my birthday. And I got

it written to me from my very own basement floor. The heart is a naturally occuring

part of the wood floor boards, it wasn’t carved by anyone to look this way.

How cool is that????

Peace and love,

La

Hope your day is wonderful as well

Craves: Membership

 

Membership. We all want to just belong. When I was growing up, if you didn’t belong to the Rose

Garden Pool Association, then you were lame. The pool pictured here is not that pool.

A few months ago I was talking to a friend of mine, who is a professional

writer and I was telling her that I thought it was time that I join some professional associations. I asked her if

she belonged to any, and she said ”No., I’ve thought about it but they’re too expensive, too time consuming, blah,

blah, blah.”

I come to find out today that she has in the interim built a website and joined like four professional associations! I feel outdone.

As I am not one to be outdone,  I have started joining a few places and I’ve decided to start local.

So yesterday I joined the AVA (Astoria

Visual Arts) and I also submitted a request to join Astoria Fog (Friends of the Arts). I feel a lot better now.

The above picture was taken while cruising the back roads of Pennsylvania. Circa 2000.

If you have any suggestions about memberships I should join, feel free to leave them in the comments section.

Lum’s – A review

For those of you that don’t know, Lum’s is a car dealership in

town and Rod’s is a local garage (Rod’s auto and marine electric)

I’ve been having some serious car trouble lately. It started about a

month ago.

This is my story.

My car kept stalling and eventually wouldn’t start.

Because I have a honda and there is no honda

dealership nearby, I decided to take the recommendation

of a gas station attendant (not recommended)

and take my car to Lum’s. Now, I KNOW that dealerships

are the place where stupid people take

their cars to be fixed, but because the problem was serious this is where

I decided to go. Big mistake. Huge. Major.

The people at Lum’s were very nice and

they charged an arm and a leg to replace a wire leading to my battery

which they said was corroded and needed replaced.

Fine. Done. I pay and pick the car up and immediately it stalls.

So what would a smart woman do?

Well, I don’t know because apparently I was in denial

and instead of immediately going back inside to complain,

I got the car to work and drove it to the grocery store.

Where it died in the parkinglot. So I call Lum’s on my

cellphone and…and…well, I cussed them out.

So they send someone to jump me

(turned out to be my neighbor- awkward) and bring me back to the garage

promising they are REALLY going to fix my car this time.

Ok. What would a smart woman do? Yeah, I didn’t do that either….

Fast forward a day, they don’t call me ALL DAY LONG. I call them,

they say they will have the car right out ASAP. TWO HOURS later,

my neighbor (who is really nice) shows up with my car and a bill

for a new battery. A very expensive battery. I pay the bill (no labor)

and the car works for a month, then four days ago – it dies on Hwy 101 while I’m

driving it. I manage to pull over and I get it towed, call a cab, etc.

Thank GOD my baby wasn’t with me.  THANK GOD.

This time I take my car to Rod’s Auto and Marine Electric.

They fix my car (FYI Lum’s: It needed a new alternator!)

it was reasonable, they were nice, and they were fast.

Don’t go to Lum’s - go to Rod’s

Lum’s doesn’t know what they are doing. They sell NEW cars.

Thoughts from locals?

Best,

L.A.

Astoria: the city at the end of the rainbow

Photo Expedition #2 – The beach. Yesterday.

So yesterday, I took the dog and my camera for a walk on the beach. Apparently,

there was an article yesterday on CNN.com about how the storms in Oregon this

December were responsible for washing up all kinds of cool stuff on the beach

and I wanted to see and document what I could find. Lina loved to run around:

and I did find a whole sanddollar, completely intact, which is now at

home in my shrine. I felt guilty taking it from the beach. But I’ve never

found a whole one before, so I did. I found some cool crab shells and I

also put those in my new shrine, in hopes that they would bring me

seafood-a-plenty. It must have worked because we ate salmon for dinner

last night.

Lina and I also found this wierd hermit crab thingy that looked like a ram’s head

or an armadillo. I have no idea what it’s really called