In my mom's recent move, a storage unit time capsule was upended and a few of my moldy yearbooks tumbled out. It was awesome looking at them after all these years. My favorite was 8th grade. The hair! The clothes! In the late 80s we girls were SO not dressed how 14-year-olds dress now. Aside from the crunchy bangs and bright eyeliner, we were conservative and kid-like in mostly baggy T-shirts and sneakers (with giant scrunched socks, natch). We were such babies but thought of ourselves as serious grown-ups. I mean next year was the big time: High School. After reading it cover-to-cover, it seems we were all most concerned with:

Not being phoned

Others losing their sweetness and/or beauty

Everyone's Summer becoming an awful tragedy

I grabbed some of my favorite entries for your reading pleasure. The names have been changed to protect the guilty. All spelling and punctuation remains unabridged. Enjoy!!:

Jolie,
Have a great summer lady. I hope your hair gets real blonde. Braces suck. Well tell your dad I said hi. You better call me. We should do something over the summer. See you at the beach. My little blonde.
Charlie
P.S. Hang in there.

Jolie,
I have not had many classes with you but I think you are really nice. I'll see you at the Beach. What a ripper. Call me.
Tim

Jewels,
You are a good friend and I thak you for that I hope I see you next I'll Just Look for a groupe of guys Stay Sweet
Love,
Bobby

Jolie,
It's been a fun year knowing you, and being friends. See you at TP next year. Keep up the PASE (positive attitude super effort) and stay beautiful.
Love you lots,
Susan
P.S. Call me!!

Jolie,
Have a good summer you are very nice. Keep up the smiles even though you got braces. Don't worry you will forget about them in a week.
Love,
Erin

Jolinski,
Have a dugee-Fresh. Don't worry about the braces. They look cool! Invite me over to your house and I will terrorize it. (Kidding.)
Dave

Jolie,
Glad I got to know you (wish we would have gone out) but still like you a lot. Stay sweet.
Fred

Jolie,
I'm sorry too that we didn't say too much this year. but you've been great anyway Thanx for everything. Keep in touch (CALL ME),
Meg

Jollie <------HA HA
I luv your leadership dedication. I hope you continue to be just as successful at everything!
Luv Ya,
Sally

Jolie,
Mrs. Kane sucks, Finally out of this shit whole. It's been fun most of the time like at the beach and parties. I'll see you.
Sean

Jolie,

It's been great having you in Science. You've always been really nice and sweet. Stay that way. When some people said you were a snob I told them they were wrong. Good luck in the future.

John

As you can see by the buck teeth, this photo was taken before the aforementioned braces were administered.

Have a great Summer!
Stay Sweet!
Call me!
Jolie

bathroom photo shoot

My girl has a new favorite sleeping spot.

Either that or she's partying hard all night long after we go to bed.

oxox
happy wednesday:)
jolie

tarragon chicken salad (with grapes and toasted walnuts)

Yesterday at a stop sign on my block, there was a full, open container of lasagna with a fork stuck in it.

Something's up. I know I often write about weird stuff I see in my LA walkabouts and granted, I am welcoming it because I appreciate odd humor more than anyone but seriously. It's getting weirder out there.

Evidence:

*At a massage the other day, the therapist led me down the hall to point out the bathroom and said, "The lock is right there in the doorknob." You mean, WHERE IT ALWAYS IS? I locked myself in there and blinked a few times, making sure I wasn't imagining it. 

*On my way to the massage I saw a guy walking down the street (and not a seedy street, mind you) in tighty-whiteys. And shoes. That was it. Just minding his own business. 

*And then yesterday, when I was walking Lena, a guy was outside standing in the middle of the street in a knee-length robe. I could understand making a quick scurry to get the paper first thing in the morning but this was four in the afternoon. He just smiled a big broad smile and stood there, unmoving, making no bones while saying, "What a beautiful dog!" I muttered a tentative thank you but wish I'd  said "What a beautiful robe!" or "That isn't outerwear!"

A few minutes later I stepped over the lasagna.

See what I mean?!

How about some chicken salad?  <----------------------------(segue award of the year)

Tarragon Chicken Salad
yields about 4 cups

Man, this is good. Adding the crispy leeks really makes this salad killer.


3 cups cooked, shredded chicken breast (I used a small rotisserie chicken and it yielded 3 cups)
1 leek, white and light green parts only, chopped (about 1 cup)
evoo
1 1/2 T finely chopped tarragon
3/4 cup chopped celery
3/4 cup toasted walnuts, chopped*
1 1/2 cups halved seedless red grapes
scant 1/2 cup veganaise (or regular/light mayonnaise if you desire)
juice of 1/2 lemon
salt
pepper

In a drizzle of olive oil, sauté the chopped leek (with a little salt and pepper) on med-low until brown and crispy in spots. Get this going while you chop all the other ingredients but watch that they don't burn.

In a large bowl, combine chicken, tarragon, celery, walnuts and leeks. Add the lemon juice and veganaise. Season to taste with s+p.

Serve in a sandwich or over greens.

xoxo
jolie

*great idea: toast some extra walnuts and make these!

whole grain pancakes

I know what you're thinking.

I was just talking about how for the next five years I'm only gonna have protein shakes for breakfast and here I am making you pancakes. Well. I'm a woman that way, I guess. Deal with it.

Speaking of unexpected--you're never gonna believe what happened to me the other day. I was sitting in the nail salon, waiting for my toes to dry when I heard some bloop bloop police sirens on the street outside. I glanced up to see three motorcycle cops drive by, one-by-one. A person running with a flag followed and then came a peleton of about 8 runners, one of which was carrying a FLAMING TORCH!!!!! A couple police cars trailed behind. I looked around the quiet nail salon. Had anyone else seen that?????????

"Wow!" I said, looking around, trying to elicit responses from the most passive people in Los Angeles.

"Ohmygod, was that, like, the Olympic torch?" A tattooed girl said while two women massaged her. She was a little too nonplussed for my taste.

"YES!!" I said, "The OLYMPIC torch!! Amazing! What are the odds?! We're just sitting here getting pedicures and happen to glance outside at the exact moment the freaking OLYMPIC TORCH runs by!!!"

An older, WASPy woman piped in. "Was that the torch for the Olympics?" She asked, cooly, while inspecting a cuticle. Did you not just hear me screaming about it? I thought.

"YES!!" I said.

"Cool." She replied.

Cool? It's THE OLYMPICS! It's a little more than cool! I couldn't believe the casualness of these people.  

After getting over my irritation, I sat there with my jaw hanging open feeling such gratitude for the synchronicity of life! And being so in the flow! I couldn't wait to tell David about it:

"It was so cool, Chicken! You shoulda seen it! I kinda got a little teary!"

"Huh." He said.

"'Huh'? What do you mean, 'Huh'?"

"Well. Did you look it up online to see if it was the actual torch? Seems kinda weird that it would just be running down Ventura Boulevard with such little fanfare."

I was giving it plenty of fanfare! I thought.

Sadly, a reluctant google search confirmed that it was, in fact, not the Olympic Torch. Not only did I feel like a gullible idiot, my Olympic dreams were dashed. To add insult to injury, I couldn't even confirm what the torch signified. I think it was for a Sheriff's Law Enforcement Torch Run. 

I'm going to go eat pancakes now. With Lena.

Whole Grain Pancakes
adapted from Gourmet
yields about 20 3" cakes

These are my favorite pancakes outside of Claire's in Solana Beach. Beating the egg whites separately makes them fluffy and frying them in a little extra oil makes them deliciously crispy on the edges.

1 1/4 cups whole wheat flour
1/3 cup cornmeal (or corn grits for a little more texture)
1 T sugar
2 t baking powder
1 t salt
2 large eggs, separated
1/4 cup coconut (or vegetable) oil, additional for skillet
1 1/2 cups plus 2 T milk
blueberries if desired**
maple syrup for dousing

Whisk together the flour, cornmeal, sugar, baking powder and salt. Set aside. In a separate bowl, whisk together the egg yolks, oil and milk. Add the wet to the dry ingredients and mix well. It will be a thick batter. Let sit for 5 minutes.

Meanwhile, in an electric mixer with the whisk attachment, beat the egg whites just until stiff peaks form. Add them to the batter and combine with a whisk gently but thoroughly.

Heat a nonstick griddle or skillet over medium heat and add a swirl (1/2 t) coconut oil. Drop the batter in 2T blobs and take care not to crowd the pan otherwise they're hard to flip (I know this from messy experience). After a couple minutes, when the top starts to form bubbles and/or look drier, gently flip and finish with another minute or two. If you like crispy edges (my Dad's specialty) add a little more oil to the skillet between batches. Watch your heat throughout--you don't want the oil to smoke or burn.

**optional--after you've spooned the batter into the skillet, add a few blueberries to the top of each batter blob. Alternatively, you can add them to the whole batch of batter but they tend to sink to the bottom.

Serve with copious amounts of maple syrup. Or honey. Or jam.

xoxo
jolie

a scene from my pantry

Apparently if you brush your teeth with baking soda you only have to do it occasionally. Score!

Happy Tuesday,
xoxo
jolie

a cure for insomnia

DP and I accompanied some friends last night to view a documentary at LACMA about the painter Gerhard Richter. Elvis Mitchell, a film critic and public radio celebrity, introduced the film by saying, "You're in for a real treat!" He went on to say it was remarkable how the filmmaker was unrelenting at times. That she held the camera on her reluctant subject and patiently waited for his reaction. "You're really gonna squirm in one particular part," he said, which made me (throughout the entire movie) keep thinking is this the squirming part???  Is THIS??

Not ten minutes into the film I saw a head bobbing in my peripheral vision and turned to see that the older lady sitting next to me was fast asleep. I elbowed David and gave him a get-a-load-of-that head point and thought ha ha! I caught that lady sleeping! Well. Not five minutes later karma's boomerang came back around. And it sprinkled sleeping dust on its return trip.

Unfortunately, while there were some really beautiful parts watching Richter in process in his studio, overall I found the film a cure for insomnia. It was such a quiet movie, subtitled and with no narration, and there were long stretches with no dialogue where the camera would just hold on an abstract painting for like 30 seconds. And then someone would start speaking phrases in German that sounded not unlike a spoken lullaby.

I kept trying to stay awake for the special squirming moment and decided that the only squirming I would experience was trying to find a comfortable sleeping position in my movie seat.

When we got out into the lobby afterward:

Me: "Wow. What a movie, eh?"

DP: "Yeah. I thought it was spectacular. Riveting."

Me: "Huh. Really? Which part?"

DP: "I loved what he said about not believing in gimmicks."

Me: "Hmmm.......remind me??" (SINCE I WAS SLEEPING)

He loved it, bless his heart. I suppose I'd have enjoyed it too it if I'd had a few shots of espresso on hand. Either that or a fluffy pillow.

xoxo,
jolie

P.S. We had dinner at Ray's and Stark there at LACMA and I cannot recommend it more. They gave us homemade Oreos with the check!

P.P.S. The pictures above are of the Chris Burden installation 'Urban Light' in the LACMA courtyard. So pretty:)

P.P.P.S. David is not a permanent part of the installation.