Buena Park: City of Saints January 1, 2011

Today I went on my first bike ride of the new year. I spent an hour looking at OCTA’s bus schedules and maps, figuring that La Palma could take me up to Imperial Highway. Then I would bike 3.3 miles up to Oak Canyon. Memories of this serene nature park, with never ending oak groves, blue jays, coyote footprints and droppings, the impeding solitude (Until you hit this area where you see the real cougars of the canyon nestled inside their multimillion homes)…. but then the clock hit 3 pm.
I had some new glasses to pick up on Lincoln and Knott, so I decided to go and celebrate the first day with new glasses. The office was closed. I stared at the nearby Northgate…I did have nopalitos to buy…yet my legs were itching for more.
So I went ahead on my bicycle , passed the huge fancy sculpture/sign announcing the boundary of Buena Park and turned right on Holder. “I’ve never been through this street!” I thought.
seeing this old house with tree fooled me into going on with Holder:

I was wrong. Very wrong.
Holder took me through a never-ending maze of 1950′s tract housing with every single East-West streets named after one saint or another!
Maybe it was because it was the first day of the year and there was no school, but these streets were as sterile and similar as their names. No one was walking and about three cars passed me by in the course of an hour. It came to the point that I could ride in the middle of the street and not worry about getting run over.

Now, this was very cool because I always am close to getting run over by a big truck driven by some bro douchebag and that was a welcome break. But after 20 minutes of this movie perfect suburban tract, it began to get creepy.

I have no idea why Buena Park would name their streets after saints in this tract…these streets might as well be named 1,2, 3, 4 and so on. Even the housing tracts in the West Anaheim Island have personality (If by personality I mean chaos…).

I’m Back! January 1, 2011

So there was a haitus on this…mainly because life got in the way, but things should be calm enough for me to start this up again. I’ve learned a lot about Anaheim, so be prepared for some new stories!

Haiti January 13, 2010

As a moment of silence and respect for the earthquake in Haiti which occurred yesterday, I won’t be posting a regular post today.

I don’t know why this really affects me, when thousands of natural disasters happen everyday and in other countries..but it’s just that Haiti is already so driven down to the ground, do they really need an earthquake?

Here’s a good blog post from the NY Times which lists several ways you can help donate:

I woke up this morning, since my alarm clock is my radio tuned to KPFK (90.7)…it was Democracy Now with Amy Goodman and I just heard “Earthquake” and “Haiti” and I thought, “Crap.”

Apparently, this Haitian-American living here lost all of her family in this earthquake, and every major building in Port Au Prince got flattened, almost. Their Montana Hotel (The main hotel for visiting journalists), presidential Palace, the cathedral’s roof caved in, houses crashed ontop of houses killing entire families….how sad. And here I am just sitting around, wondering what to crochet.
Here all of us are, getting angry at a car in front of us, or people crossing the street, or that an order came up wrong in a fast food restaurant.

Bicycle to School January 12, 2010

school is soon going to start for me, which I thought, no problem. Yet my ride has gone, and I’m stuck with either taking the bus or biking to school.
Recalling those torturous hours of waiting on a hot bus stop, getting in a bus full of really weird people, paying $4 just for four rides and then never using that bus pass again, getting stares because I crochet, probability of losing a textbook or a hook, forgetting something on there, getting left behind by an impatient bus drive, a bus driver taking too long, and then seeing how fast it takes to get to Fullerton and always thinking, “I can bike this”…
And we all know how reliable the OCTA bus system is! Yes, the bus gets there…but only when it wants to. Especially the 46. Route 46 is a nightmare! Sometimes, when the bus should arrive at 2 pm, it comes at 2:45 so that means it’s the 2 , 2:30 and 3pm bus, so if you miss that one, then you are screwed. Or it never comes and I end up waiting a half hour or so for it to come. Normally I wouldn’t mind, but it ‘s a bother when your professor gives you an evil stare when you enter his class about 10 minutes late.
Well, I’ve decided to bicycle to school.
It’s about six miles or so from my house to Fullerton College. It’s 3.5 miles to get to Harbour and I suppose from Harbour and Ball to Full Coll should be another 5 miles, 40 minutes at the most.
Overall, that’s about the same time I’d take if I were to take the bus.
Besides, riding my bicycle is free. And a $4 day pass can easily turn into laundry money (And who doesn’t like wearing clean knickers?).
Since I didn’t ride my bicycle for this winter, I’ve had to begin riding it this month to get ready for my treck to school, weighed down with books…and my bike is not in such a good condition. The front wheel clicks, clicks,clicks , the chains squeak and the whole thing sounds like it’s going to fall apart.
But it’s gone to the beach, off trails, all over North Orange so why can’t it survive a treck to school?
Perhaps it will break down on me one day, but for now it has no reason to if I just get it checked over.

All what I’m going to need to buy is probably a bike rack and stick a box on it, or perhaps a basked, or a bike rack and saddle bags. Good thing there’s to help me with this! Excellent store! They have this bicycle:
which I’d do anything to have it. It’s $500, but that chain protector means I can wear my flared jeans without worrying about ripping them up.
Though that means I will betray my Nishiki, which has been very faithful to me.
And it also means that I will have to take comfort over speed and going over any terrain (For the most part).

So I will have to brave the streets , avoid getting run over, being safe and in the process hopefully lose some weight.

Spider Hunting and 4th of July, with some updates July 6, 2009

Weeeelll…I’ve been partying lately, which is why I haven’t added new posts.
But I’m done for now!
Warning: The following is not PETA friendly…so PETA followers, you have been warned.

My plants are still alive, though the nasturtiums inside my house are looking rather yellow, after I placed them in the sun for a while, so now I don’t know what to do with them. The hollyhocks and poppies are also growing, strongly, so I don’t have any worries about them.

This morning I awoke around 6 am and went to water the plants, so that the sun wouldn’t take all their water and I saw this MASSIVE spider! No pictures, but the camera wouldn’t have captured it. The spider was brown and white, and was starting to make a web from the balcony to the watering can, so I quickly took away the can. To be honest, I’m scared of spiders…even if they eat bugs and such. I just don’t like them! And when it comes to killing them, I can be very brutal and then feel bad about the action. Anyways, there was a metal ruler next to me and i chased the spider around for a while, wielding the ruler as if it were a sword and the spider became cornered. The ruler lifted high into the hair , glinted in the sun, and swiftly came down without mercy upon the spider. The victim fell to the the fake grass, several legs still moved, and I kept hacking at it until it no longer existed.

After doing that, I couldn’t help but feel horrible! What right do I have to kill a harmless thing…but then I thought of all those horrible bites received as a child, and then my remorse promptly left.

As for my crocheting, I found some insanely cheap yarn at the dollar store on ball and brookhurst, $1/skein…of course, the yarn only comes in one color (Black), 100 grams (Very little) and is acrylic. It’s soft, very soft, but sheds as if it were a cat. I bought four of the skeins and with three, I’m very close to finishing my raglan cardigan. I’ll post pictures of myself wearing it once it’s done. Right now, it has no sleeves so it looks like a crochet vest from a crochet book claiming it is “hip” and “youthfull” but really full of horrible patterns that look like they came from the evil side of the 80′s. Trust me, the majority of crochet books are like that. I can see why the knitting camp doesn’t like crocheting much.

Finally, Anaheim.
I’ve noticed that the garden walk area had a lot of foot traffic today, which was pleasing to see. By the looks of some of the people, they were tourists and it’s interesting to see that some tourists do wander away from the Disneyland bubble (Even if it’s a couple of yards away).

As for the island, well 4th of July in the West Island is awesome! Every year on Harle Street, a man hooks a cart to his tractor, fills it up with hay and gives hay rides to the neighbors. Of course, the Old Glory is displayed on the cart.
Many people took to riding their beach cruisers and two boys kept riding on the street with gigantic flags…I thought of them as modern day flag bearers in the Revolutionary war.
And, like every year, a step ladder was set up in the middle of the street where many fireworks were let off.

Mariachi music, banda , cumbia…all drifted into the night sky along with the surprisingly advanced fireworks. No matter what colour, we’re all Americans. North, South, Central, it’s all America.

And the parties…oh the parties.

That House June 25, 2009

Today I’m going to write a bit about the house which shows up on my Flickr photo stream.

It’s this one:

Used to be orange...

Usually known as the Red Cross house, this was built in 1895 by John Woelke from Chicago, and then sold to Peter Stoffel. Stoffel lived there for a long time, enough time for him to raise his 10 children! After the family left, the house was set for demolition around the 1950′s (That’s when Anaheim decided to destroy its original downtown area so it could “modernize” and fit the image Disneyland put up…alas! Now Anaheim looks like any other 1950′s-1980′s city *cough*boring*cough*) but it was moved away from its original place on Lincoln and Harbor (Then Center st and Palm) and now rests on N. West Street, conveniently next to the Mother Colony House and behind Anaheim High School.

Unfortunately, it’s hardly ever open for visitation, and I still dream about entering that house. I do like to go on the back porch and peek into the kitchen (As most Victorian houses are–the kitchen is always in last room next to the backyard) where several orange crates lie on top of the cabinets and a modern refrigerator sits for people who are never there.

It’s now known as the Red Cross house since it got donated to the local chapter and the second floor is used as a museum for the Red Cross. This is what probably saved the house from demolition.

This house is known for having a ghost. He usually dwells in the second floor of the tower.

Several details of the house

Front porch

As I’ve written, the Mother colony house is right next to the Red Cross house as well as an Australian Fig tree which is around 100 or more years old. I’m glad that the city has decided not to cut the tree down.

Raglan Sweater or Guerilla Crochet? June 17, 2009

Now that I’m done crocheting a bag for my aunt who graduated (She’s the same age as I am…okay, a bit younger) I ended up with a lot of scraps,wich is a problem for any crocheter or knitter. If you decided to make a scarf, or short project, might end up running out of that scrap and so you’ll have to buy a new skein.

Two options have appeared to me: guerilla crochet or a raglan sweater.

Guerilla crochet? Yes. It’s a recent movement where instead of graffiti, knitters (mainly) and crocheters take their pointy sticks or hooks and yarn to the streets. Long strips of cloth are made and then sewed on to a lonely, drab light post, cold tree or mittens and scarves are given to cold statues.  What’s the point? Depends. Some say it adds colourto the gray city, others say it anthromorphizes common objects which are usually taken for granted, others say there is no point.

I feel that it is an interesting idea, and to see Anaheim’s lightposts or trees festooned with colourful cloth would be fun to see. Yet at the same time, I can’t help but think that while I do have scraps, I did pay for this yarn and I might as well make myself something functional.

That’s my second option: make myself a sweater. This will mean I’d have to buy more yarn, but since I’m using Lily N Cream….I doubt that the cost will exceed $30.  The sweater would be based off a raglan design (Starts from the neck down, very customizable).

You can check out the guerilla knitters at:

And I’m sure you all know how a sweater looks like

Tagging, Sandblasting June 17, 2009

It seems that tagger krews around Anaheim have taken to tagging on sidewalks, notably, the sidewalk on Gilbert St, right in front of Magnolia Highschool’s soccer field.
It’sa rather smart move, on their part. How many people walk with their faces to the ground? Companies trying to advertise could probably learn from that.

Well, earlier in the year, the tagging got so bad, that the city or something finally decided to sandblast the pavement. It was great for a while, the sidewalk had white bloches, instead of purple and yellow squiggles or what have you.

The tagging soon returned, not much, but it looks like the taggers have no hope. Yesterday the sidewalk felt sandy and was clean once again.

I think it would be much better if a dirt road were put instead of concrete, but tagger will tag anywhere…even a chain link fence.

If you are ever in the area, there is a way to identify the several krews around here.MTK and COT are the most established, while La Colonia, I think, is a gang…they do tag all over the place, though. Since they are the big three, MTK, COT and Colonia are usually fighting each other on walls or sidewalks or trucks by crossing each other out.

COT tends to stick on the side of the street facing Magnolia field, the others are around that area, or the La Colonia area.

I’ll post various tagging sites later.

Things are growing June 11, 2009

Very big plant!

Despite the gloomy weather Anaheim has been having, the seeds I planted on the 6th of Jun have sprouted! I planted hollyhocks and CA poppies inside a green plant from Big Lots.

The day before I bought it, I told my dad I wanted to have a planter so I could properly grow hollyhocks (Ever since I saw them bloom all around the neighboorhood this past summer, I’ve been wanting to grow my own) and he objected to that idea, since there’s not a lot of space available on the balcony. Eventually, he gave in and now hollyhocks and poppies might be available by next year.

This is where I planted 6 hollyhocks and a lot of CA poppies

That’s the planter above this text. It really doesn’t take a lot of space and I hope it’s enough for the flowers to grow.

A succulent garden, various annuals, and a lot of seedlings in yogurt cups make up the main garden

Main garden. A lot of succulents, and some of these succulents I got from taking cuttings on a bicycle drive by (That is, if I see a garden with plants growing out of the fence, I’ll take some cuttings and stash it into my green purse).   You can also see my make-shift plastic baggie greenhouse.

Several close ups of my main plants. The red one, kalanchoe, I’ve had since 2007 and it was just three leaves!

It reproduces a lot, though. One leaf will give you a new plant!

A mix of various plants. Aloe, aenomium decorum and carpobrotus glaucescens

In the photo above, the carpobrotus was a cutting taken from a freeway entrance and it really took to root. There’s also a sedum hiding under the aenomium’s leaf.

Hello All! June 11, 2009

Hello and welcome to  my blog.

I’ll start with basics. My name is Samantha  and I’ve been living in Anaheim for all my 18 years on this earth. After realizing that many people became enchanted with the fact that I come from where Disneyland is located (Mainly with my cousins in Mexico) or enchanted with the fact that I live in OC, I’ve decided to start this blog in order to record how life really is, or at least my life.

I have no idea what this blog will follow… life in Anaheim, my attempts to start a garden on the balcony, crocheting projects…anything goes, really.

I hope you enjoy and stay with me as I try to make sense of the world around me!