Recently my apartment complex left a note on my door that our community bicycle cages were being cleaned out of all abandoned bikes. They requested that I come to the office to get a tag for my bike so it didn’t end up in the dumpster. Dumpster? Really? I thought of the dozens of abandoned bikes I had seen languishing by themselves in the bike cage covered by a few centimeters of Los Angeles soot and dust. Dirty yes. Damaged no. Dumpster worthy? Not at all. Immediately I jumped on the computer... [Read more]

“You can call me Tara.” Tarashai trills to our crew leader Bill. She doesn’t notice me staring at her – eyes wide underneath my hat.  When Tarashai and I met in college I asked her if I can call her “Tara” and with plenty of attitude she had told me, “Absolutely not.”  That was our first conversation.  Even with the brutal rebuff I liked her right away because of her spunk.  Her sensitivity about her moniker had obviously changed. Luckily our relationship through the years... [Read more]

 I love eating out a much as anyone, but the negative environmental impact of the activity (wasted food, Styrofoam takeout containers, ingredients of indeterminable origin) has never been that savory to me. Eating out has become a key part of our culture, whether it’s done during first dates, business meetings, or a birthday celebration, it’s not going away anytime soon and will continue to have a negative impact on our environment. So recently I set out to find restaurants or fast food... [Read more]

It’s 10:30 in the morning and I’m nibbling on donated Starbucks muffins and sipping juice waiting for my escort to arrive.  Pam and Ellen, the two women who run the Meals on Wheels of West Los Angeles office, seem to be excited about his entrance as well -after all movie star Chris Ellis is nothing if not fun.  Suddenly I hear the melodious sound of four letter words being strung together in inventive combinations and I know he’s in the building.  Believe it or not I met Chris at... [Read more]