I feel the Earth.... move.... under my feet....

But hopefully no sky tumbling down!! Yes,we had yet another earthquake the other day. This one was only a 3.5, "only," but enough to scare the beejeesus out of an Aussie!

Just wanted to give a couple of shout-outs to some buddies of mine who have had their birthdays since my last posting. Happy birthday to my awesome buddy Ailie on August 7th (well, nearly after my last posting); Niki, who is currently living in England but came to visit us in LA earlier in the year, has her birthday on Aug 12th; my brother Patrick who also came to visit us a few weeks ago had a birthday on August 14th, and my buddy Catherine who has her birthday today on August 18th. Happy birthday you guys!!! Hope you day was as spectacular and fabulous as you all are!!

Jimmy and I have been having a bit of a sticky beak around the housing markets here during our past few weekends. We're looking into buying a house, exactly where or when yet we don't know. We're in the best situation for the moment where we don't have to buy, we want to buy. We're in a great apartment paying very reasonable rent and are saving up nicely. However, a turning point came last week when we came across a car that had run into a fire hydrant, creating this:



And here's the artistic, shot, naturally:



So we had to make a detour. While we were weaving through uncharted streets, Jimmy thought he'd show me a couple of his favourite type of houses, absolutely gorgeous works of art called Craftsman Style houses. They're found here and there around LA, particularly in the older historical parts and were built mostly prior to 1925. Anyway, Jimmy was about to show me one of his favourite craftsmans when he suddenly saw a "For Sale" sign out the front of it!! Wow!!! Imagine one of your favourite houses up for sale just when you're thinking about buying!! It said there was going to be an open house on Sunday, we were soooo going to check it out!! Unable to stop thinking about it, we went home and looked up the details on the net and saw that it was somewhat out of our price range. Disheartened, but not without hope, we went to check it out on Saturday and then again at the open house on Sunday. WOW again. This house is nothing short of incredible. It was built in Hollywood in 1913 and transported to Van Nuys in 1920 where it has remained virtually untouched for 87 years. We were drooling all over each other and cringed at the thought of what we'd have to sacrifice in order to be able to afford this magnificent dream home. Here's the website link, go check it out: http://www.hamlinstreet.com/ Stay on the main page and let the photos scroll around by themselves. The outside is not my favourite, but the interior is phenominal. It even has a basement!!! In order to buy it though we'd have to give up trivial things, like food, clothing, petrol, etc. While it took us a while, we've kinda come to the decision that it's a little out of our reach (Jimmy thinks eating and filling the car with petrol is important, like, sheesh!!) and we might have to pass. There were a lot of things that needed fixing and updating, a lot of TLC would be needed, and we wouldn't have any dosh left to mess with if we made that house our home. Alas!! I hope no one buys it and it's still on the market in a year's time... wishful thinking... We're very protective of that house now. It should be ours. Bahh humbug.



I am sad to report that our little Max Biallystock passed away last week. He was a very cute birdie but was not quite right from the beginning. Whether whatever ailment he had caught up with him, or he was exhausted from all the unwanted attention and shagging he was receiving, we separated him from his buddies for a few days. He was very sick at the beginning but seemed to perk up after 3 days in isolation. The other birds were always calling to him and he would call to them, he missed them so, so we decided to reunite them. He seemed to be doing alright until one morning he was gone. The others are missing him, but at least the shag fests have substantially subsided since his passing. Here are some photos of the boy quartet... That's Max with his head under his wing, surrounded by his ever-vigilant body guards; pigging out on some yummy seeds and that's the four of them snuggled up together.

You have to forgive me if there are any mistakes in this posting, I'm competing for keyboard space with Harriet, our new(ish) cute little yellow cockatiel. She's awfully friendly and loves to play with whatever we're doing, especially the keyboard. Why do birds always go for keyboards??

And I'll leave you with that thought for the evening. Goodnight all, love & hugs xxx Laura

I hate earthquakes!!!

We were just in an earthquake!!! IKKKK!!!! Roxy the dog and I are a little freaked out. Jimmy is cool as a cucumber and thinks it's kinda fun. He's nuts. Just checked the stats out and it was a 4.5, Jimmy says the biggest one he's been in since the 1994 mega 6.6 earthquake which devastated the San Fernando Valley 13 years ago. The huge ones normally happen every 20-ish years or so, so I ain't seen nothin' yet. I experienced another earthquake here earlier this year, in about March or so, and it was scary enough, a 3.2.

We'd been out at a movie screening ("Stardust" - pretty good movie, wicked special effects!!) and are having a late night, getting ready for bed, I'd just finished brushing my teeth and was rinsing my mouth out when the bathroom started to wobble. I use the word wobble because it was moving like a rocking wave. The ground and buildings move here all the time though, so I thought it was either something small and seismic or a big truck driving past, but then it got more intense and started rocking more and then a massive JOLT! It pushed me into the sink and towards the side wall. My first thought was that I'm glad it jolted in the direction it did because our china cabinet should be okay, ha!! The windows were still rocking in the loungeroom when we went to check, and the lamp over our dining room table was swaying away. I'm an Aussie, I'm not used to this, ha!! I came in to check the birds and the cockatiels were fine but the budgies were all hanging on the sides of their cage. Oh well, we were hoping it wasn't a prelude to something even bigger and nastier, but all looks okay now. Apparently the epicenter was about 5 miles from here in Chatsworth. Time to try and get some sleep now. Goodnacht!
P.S. If you'd like to keep track of earthquakes in LA, try this website on for size. See how many small ones we have every day!! Eeeek! http://quake.usgs.gov/recenteqs/Quakes/quakes0.htm

This 'N' That

As I mentioned before, being away at work for 12 hours a day has certainly cut into my social time!!! I’m finally making time to write in my blog and say g’day to all my family and friends who have been so kind to check in. Life has been exciting here, between getting our wickedly groovy china cabinet, extending our bird family by adding a sweet little yellow Harriet II; exploring antique shops looking for the perfect materials to make my parents’ 60th birthday presents since I won’t be able to be there in person to help them celebrate; visiting new places like San Pedro and Solvang aka “Little Denmark”; hosting visitors; dealing with a lack of hot water for 4 days and having to make an emergency hot water shower trip to Jim and Helen’s place (Jimmy’s parents), we’ve been kept pretty busy. Patrick just finished visiting, such the ultimate guest, arrives and gets himself set up with a rental car and awayyyy he goes! So glad he got to see and do as much as he did in his 2 weeks here, including breaking a few hearts here and there, charmer that he is. I’m bummed that I couldn't spend as much time with him as I’d have liked to, dern work. Oh well, the money is certainly nice after months of not working!

I’m really enjoying this new job, pretty interesting, always learning new things, and it can be challenging trying to master the art of not raising an eyebrow when some of your fav stars walk past you. Inside I’m like OHHH Victor Garber!! Lookin’ even better in person! You were so cool in Titanic! And in that Judy Garland thing! Yeahhhhh! But on the outside I’m like ohh hey Victor G, man… yeah… like… whaddup?

Something I noticed this morning was that my bus stop was surrounded by police when I got there, but I didn’t notice it immediately. How could I not notice them??? Because they didn’t look like the police I’m used to! Their uniforms are a brown-ish colour, I think they could be sheriffs, I might have mistaken them as civilians going to work until I noticed all the black police cars everywhere. Then I put two and two together. So be aware just in case you ever need to be on the lookout for police/sheriffs in LA! They blend too easily!

My Aussie cravings shall soon be fulfilled!! Temporarily anyway. I got a call from 97.3FM radio in Brisbane last week asking for a phone interview with me. Odd! I got such a surprise when they rang up, to hear an Aussie voice on the other end... "G'day, 'owzzz it gawwwin'??" Ahh, heaven! So I chatted with them on the air for 10 mins or so about life in LA away from Brissie, what was different, what I was missing, etc. They were particularly interested in the studios and the fact that I was standing right outside the “Lost” TV show writers’ office, ha. Jimmy and Patrick were listening online from home while a whole bunch of the production crew were listening at my desk… I was outside. ‘Cuz I was missing Brissie, ‘cuz I wanted to keep up-to-date with happening in Oz and ‘cuz I was sick of LA radio’s adverts every 5 mins for plastic surgery, I’d been listening to some Brissie stations at Disney, and some of the other production people had commented that they liked 97.3FM in particular. So I emailed 97.3 and told ‘em they were being enjoyed outside of Oz. As a “cheers” for the interview, they’re sending me an Aussie care pack, woohoo!! Full of Twisties, Cadbury, chicken salt, too funny!! But YUM! Oh, and after they interviewed me, they had an interview with Sandra Bullock. But, hey, let it be known that I was first, ya hear?!?! Bwahahahaa.

Anyway, that's all for now, Jimmy and I are going off to a screening of the new Bourne movie... I barely remember the first one and haven't seen the second, but hey, should be fun. Byeee!