Reflecting on Porto's Bakery

Porto's Bakery is being built next door to a building with very reflective, gold-tinted windows. The reflection is so strong and crisp that it's hard to believe that I'm on the outside of this building, looking at the construction behind me. (That's me, on the far left of the top picture.)

As part of the City Daily Photo community, we're participating in this month's City Daily Photo monthly theme day of reflections. To view pictures from other CDP bloggers around the world, Click here to view thumbnails for all participants.

Mr. Opportunity

Today, Joan's daughter decided she wanted to buy a car so we all headed over to Honda World to test drive a few. She had talked before to one of the Sales Associates, Vince, and so we looked for him but he was a little busy. We were introduced to Shahan,



who asked us a few questions, let us test drive a few cars, offered us a soda and ushered us into a great deal that she couldn't refuse. It was actually a great time laughing with Everest,



and not feeling like we were in a dealership at all. Andrea happily signed the papers



and received her very own set of keys.

Whenever I am in the market for my next car, I am definitely going to them. They were professional, friendly, well-informed and confident.

They were definitely the "Helpful Honda Guys in Blue" and I was really impressed with everything today.

Oh, and the car is great too.

What do they feed these flowers?

Okay, so these flowers are really yard art and seem to be popular right now. I keep seeing them all around Downey. The petals spin when the wind kicks up, which just adds to the fun. And, they come in all colors.

It reminds me just a little of my Mom's front flower bed when I was growing up. My mother was a firm believer that you should always have "flowers" in the flower bed. So, she would stick plastic flowers in the planter across the front of the house when nothing was in bloom. These flowers seem like a better alternative to my Mom's plastic.

Off we go into the wild blue yonder

Watching airplanes always makes me antsy to travel. Living with these miniatures would leave me in a constant state of daydreaming about my next trip.

What's stopping you?

Along the river walk, you see all kinds of fences to discourage casual riverbed traffic from wandering through the bordering neighborhoods. In this area on Downey's island, various kinds of cactus grow up, through, and around the fence.

What do you think is the greater disincentive — the razor wire at the top of the fence or the cactus needles?

For more pictures taken around the island, click here.

Garden door

This is another picture from "the island." I love doors, so I couldn't resist.  Somehow doors always represent a kind of mystery to me.

I often just like the look of them. But, I'm also so curious as to what lies behind the door. My guess is that this door leads to a sanctuary, a garden of some kind that is beautiful and serene.

This old house

At the very very end of the road on the far side of Downey's island (see Tuesday's post The Island) sits a cute little country cottage. Susan bought the little house thirty years ago, when it was just a run-down white house with lots of peeling paint.

Ever since, she's worked on the house to turn it into this appealing little home. She has done all the stripping and painting herself, and added the extra touches like the Victorian decorative wood things (I'm sure they have a name, but I don't know what it is...) along the top of the porch.

Susan regularly sees hawks, possums, raccoons, and squirrels in this secluded section of Downey. She says that on one of her first nights out in the garden of her new home, a giant white owl flew right past her ear. She wasn't sure who was more startled!

Let's go Lakers!

I guess I will jump on the band wagon of cheers. The last game was unbelievably anticlimactic and yet so full of tension that the only obvious release is to sell/buy as many purple and gold colored merchandise as you can find and clothe even your wee little ones in Mr. MVP's number.