I watched a few episodes of Begin Japanology while I waited for Dave to rouse himself. The most interesting episode was about Japanese hot water bottles, some of them made of clay. Of course now I have to make myself one for winter, when Dave wants the casita to be cold as it is outside and I want the casita to feel like we're growing orchids. Anyway, I always forget that hot water bottles exist. I guess it's my desert upbringing.
After we were both up and caffeinated, I suggested vegan sushi for lunch. We ended up at a place on Central called Loving Vegan where we shared an order of tofu and vegetables then a bunch of vegetable sushi. We had four rolls, one each of avocado, cucumber, takuan (pickled daikon), and ume (pickled plum). Then we had some crazy concoction made with vegan salmon, vegan crab, green chile tempura, avocado, cucumber and some kind of spicy mayo on top. It was very tasty. Of course this was my "cheat" meal for the week. Now I have to make it to Wednesday before I get another one.
After lunch, we took a walk down Central to do some window shopping. We stopped in at a place called Astrozombies and looked at their toys. I was tempted by a Yellow Submarine figurine, but in the end decided against it. We walked further down and checked out Masks y Mas, a shop that sells mainly Day of the Dead stuff. I bought a pair of dangling earrings there, cartoonish flaming hearts wrapped in barbed wire, made by a local artist out of polymer clay. I was tempted by a large, unframed print of two skeletons and a framed image of a skull made of dried flowers and leaves. If I'm still thinking about them next weekend, I'll probably go back and buy them.
On our way back to the car, we walked past a place called Chocolate Dude. I asked Dave if he wanted to go in and have a coffee. We ordered decaf Americanos and a chocolate-covered graham cracker, then we sat on an orange sofa and watched a young woman dip chocolates in between helping customers. I took a picture on my phone of their display of caramel apples, but didn't succumb to the temptation. It's a nice, cozy place (albeit a little strangely decorated with a mixture of antique-ish wood furniture and Grateful Dead era memorabilia, including tie-dyed bunting and two lava lamps housed in wooden display cases). If parking were more readily available, I might make it a regular coffee stop.
We stopped by the studio after leaving the coffee shop. I worked for awhile on underglazing various pieces, including the sculpture I finished up last week. Here's a bit of a blurry view of her:
What do you think? Her proportions are a bit off, but I'm still working on getting that right. I like the butterfly motif, though I'm not sure about the blue of the dress versus the blue of the underskirt. Also, the gloves started out white but that made the hands look too large, so I switched to a very pale Dreamsicle orange. In this photo, they appear to be almost flesh colored, which I don't want. I may end up making them blue also--or dove gray.
We chatted with Judi and Paul for a bit, then I got a call from a friend of mine so I chatted with him for a bit. He's someone we met years ago, when we first started at the old studio. He's an interesting guy, in his late 40s, works in the entertainment industry (mainly television and movies), and is the least lucky in love person I think I've ever met in my life. His last girlfriend was a bar girl in Thailand. He thought it was true love, she saw a walking wallet. The girlfriend before that was nuts and it was one of those awful get together, break up, get back together again kind of things where you just want to shake both people and tell them to snap out of it. Today he told me about a woman he met online recently. They dated for about eight weeks, then she dumped him on his birthday. Ay yi yi.
When we hung up, it was time to take Crunch on a walk. Poor Crunchie has recently developed arthritis in his shoulder, so he's limping. He's still got plenty of energy, but I don't think he's terribly comfortable, poor thing.
Dinner was vegetable soup and strawberries and an episode of Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt.
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