Flower Friday. : : Brilliant Roses...

...growing in front a a little bungalow in what is known as The Arts District where we go for coffee at Cafe Frida. With the reckless abandon of California freeway engineering in the heyday of huge gas guzzling cars with fins, roads which once respectfully skirted the town became freeways which split them in half.

Pasadena, my home town, Oakland and San Francisco all had freeways built through vibrant business districts cutting them off from foot traffic and effectively strangling them. The elevated sections of both the Cypress freeway in Oakland and the Embarcadero in San Francisco both fell down in the Loma Prieta earthquake of 1989. By then, common sense had overcome the worship of the car and both were torn down and not rebuilt.

The ones in Pasadena and Santa Rosa, not being elevated remain. This little bungalow must have the freeway running directly through its back garden but one would never know it from the vibrant roses and clashing bungalow color (it used to have turquoise trim) that faces the street.

We had a full complement at coffee this morning and a lot of laughter about elderly (certainly not us) people who were compelled to stop driving . My favorite story was Aunt Minnie who asked her nephew to have a look at her car because ‘it keeps running up on the curb’...

It’s been a pleasant day as John regains his legs and I look forward to not having to drive him around. I can practically feel him trying not to tell me how to drive as he presses on the imaginary brake and clutches the grab bar above the door....