Susan A. Kitchens

@susankitchens

This year I started growing a home garden bc I’d rather be bloomscrolling than doomscrolling. Hope I can edit my posts here. SoCal SGV Tovangaar LA Co; Zone10b SunsetZone21

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Susan A. Kitchens@susankitchens· 10d

Love and Solidarity for people in Spokane area. There are three fires on the map surrounding Spokane Old Trails Fire Fairview Fire Meadowview Fire (a FB friend talk about being near, ready to go, waiting. I wrote a post, here's screenshot w alt text, with love from Eaton Fire standing home person)

To people in Spokane area, sending you all my love and solidarity from the Eaton Fire region (Altadena, CA).

Quick thoughts from one who’s still dealing with fire aftermath from the “standing homes” community.

If you haven’t already, download Watch Duty App. Solid solid info. Vital.

If you have electricity and a half an hour to spare (you are just waiting), take a slow video tour of interior of your house. Open drawers, even. Should the worst happen, that inventory of home’s contents will spare you so much.

Smoke infiltration of home. If you have blue painter’s tape on hand, do an extra sealing of windows and doors.

If lots of homes in town are burning you have an urban fire. Stuff that is toxic is going up in flames. More toxic if homes are older. Dealing with smoke and toxic damage is a Whole Damn Thing. My 2025 was devoted to poison. A year and a half after the fire we are still dealing with it.

Much love to you and I hope this helps.

Susan A. Kitchens@susankitchens· 14d

I saw CBS News is trending That led to news about 60 Minutes and that blogger named Ross Douthat who wrote a cringy thing about chunky Reese Witherspoon (oh, my bad. Chunkier Reese Witherspoon) Guess that puts me in the obscure corner of these here Internets (Apologies to Ms Witherspoon)

60 minutes title with red background and top segment of ticking stopwatch.

Susan A. Kitchens@susankitchens· Jul 11

Here is a minute-long video of the scale model of the popup book, where you can see both spreads of “Luceros y Penumbras” the largest popup book in the world.

Susan A. Kitchens@susankitchens· Jul 11

Largest pop-up book in the world is in the rotunda of the Los Angeles Public Library #papercraft #bookbinding

Susan A. Kitchens@susankitchens· Jul 9

Finally getting back around to remediating smoke damage from some items we took out of Himself’s house (standing home, Eaton Fire, Altadena), long before the remediation co came to deal with everything. In one bag, I discovered Godzilla and sharpies. Wet wiped em clean. Please enjoy.

Three photos (labeled “Godzilla remediated”)
1) Godzilla figurine (with bright turquoise blue back and tail ridges) on a surface with postcards and paper, with chem sponges and a packet of wet wipes.
2) Godzilla stands behind and gesturing (?) at a pile of a few dozen brightly colored sharpie pens, with a chem sponge nearby
3) sharpie pens are now in a narrow brick shaped box, and Godzilla stands atop items in the end the box as tho gesturing at them with dragon love or maybe dragon menace.

Susan A. Kitchens@susankitchens· Jun 25

Pope LEO “Dear writers, we need your imagination, your narrative creativity and your lively thinking. We need these to create spaces of freedom and authenticity, within which divine grace can make the promise of consolation and peace resound.” and that meme in reply! hee.

Pope Leo tweet: "Dear writers, we need your imagination, your narrative creativity and your lively thinking. We need these to create spaces of freedom and authenticity, within which divine grace can make the promise of consolation and peace resound."

Meme in reply shows a photo of Pope Leo smiling at the camera while holding a dark baseball bat. Meme text reads: "Dear Writers, Don't even think about using A.I."

Susan A. Kitchens@susankitchens· Jun 24

Ah the thrill of satisfaction of DIY repair. My ancient Luxo lamp broke some time ago. I took it to a repair cafe. Problem diagnosed, but needed screws to fix. Bought some, yet lamp squirmed and resisted attempts to fix. Today I found the angle to hold lamp for 🪛repair. Improved (still fragile)!!

Circled Phillips metal screw part way inserted at a location between cord and pivoting assembly on hood of lamp.

Text says, “I have good news aboul my dear old Luxo lamp: I found the angle of altagk where I could insert the screw and behold! It stuck two bits together!

Susan A. Kitchens@susankitchens· Jun 22

Testing whether I can upload animated GIFs in BlueSky. This was the finale of Hollywood Bowl’s opening night Saturday— Broadway at the Bowl. Aaaaand the gif failed to process. What will it look like when I post? Oh can’t. BlueSky dumped gif alt text So here is a very short video instead.

Susan A. Kitchens@susankitchens· Jun 20

Boyle Heights structure fire smoke is blowing my way in the SGV. 😵‍💫 Watch Duty screenshot and a fire watch camera shows wind direction, air quality dots (red=bad) No wonder the air purifier fans* went from calm blue to high speed red! *Eaton Fire appliance share.watchduty.org/camera/YWxlc...

Watch duty screenshot shows structure fire in lower left, a camera pointing to it and the image below of a large plume of white smoke and an overall hazy/smoky sky.
The wind direction indicators go from lower left to upper right. Alas, the blue The blue “you are here” dot at the upper right is directly downwind of the fire. The screenshot is annotated with a set of red arrows following wind direction. Also the air quality dots are mostly yellow (meh) in San Gabriel Valley but a trickle of red (bad!) dots are in a more or less direct line from fire to You Are Here location

Annotated text on screenshot reads, “between wind and flare up, no wonder the air purifiers are going full blast in here!”

Susan A. Kitchens@susankitchens· Jun 5

Whew! I deposited my ballot for the California primary into a drop box on Monday. Today I got the text from Ballottrax that it’s been received. Feeling relieved. Saw other people mention on here and 🐦‍⬛ that they hadn’t heard from CA Sec State regarding ballot. Lotta ballots turned in near end, no?

Susan A. Kitchens@susankitchens· Jun 3

Here are the LA County results for #InsuranceCommissioner as of 8:48 pm election night. For top 2 vote winners so far, Jane Kim has a slight lead over Ben Allen. Will be watching to see if that holds as more, late-voting returns come in. results.lavote.gov#year=2026&el...

Results as of 6/2/2026 8:48:40 PM
Insurance Commissioner
(Top 6; there are 5 additional people who ran for this seat)

D Jane Kim
27.22% 237,754

D Ben Allen
23.20% 202,614

R Stacy A. Korsgaden
13.60% 118,771

R Robert P Howell
6.80% 59,393

D Patrick Wolff
6.51% 56,827

R Merritt Farren
5.90% 51,495

Susan A. Kitchens@susankitchens· Jun 3

Went to a Friends of Altadena Library event where Steve Crowder, Mayor of Paradise, CA spoke about the town’s recovery 7.5 years after the 2018 Camp Fire destroyed over 90% of the town and over 80 people died. He spoke with Altadena Town Council member Victoria Knapp. Recovery is years, not months

Altadena Town Council Member Victoria Knapp addresses the room as Paradise CA Mayor Steve Crowder looks on.

Steve Crowder answers a question from an Altadena community member while Victoria Knapp stands behind her chair on which is a white gift bag of Altadena swag.

After Altadena Town Council Member Victoria Knapp presented items from the swag bag to Paradise, California, mayor Steve Crowder. Mr Crowder’s face isn’t visible because enema holding up a black tee shirt with the word Altadena on it.

Susan A. Kitchens@susankitchens· May 26

Another amber alert with no details in the message and a (longer) bitly link than the previous one. Someone’s been compromised? I took a screenshot and then manually entered the url into anShort URL checker and the link goes to the CHP twitter account so I guess it’s legit…? ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

CheckShortURL Expand and verify all your shortened links

The Short URL
https://bit.ly/A010-2026

Expands to Long URL
https://x.com/CHPAlerts/status/20590975524155682
45/photo/1

Susan A. Kitchens@susankitchens· May 23

“My beauty you had early withstood, and as for my manners -- my behaviour to you was at least always bordering on the uncivil, and I never spoke to you without rather wishing to give you pain than not. Now, be sincere; did you admire me for my impertinence?” (Hand-written with a metal pen and ink)

Susan A. Kitchens@susankitchens· May 8

The D Line extension is now open!!!!

Outbound train heading toward Wilshire/La Brea and inbound train heading toward Wilshire Fairfax!

Susan A. Kitchens@susankitchens· May 8

The eastbound train on the D line extension is at the station!!! (I’ve got my metro board showing at station “solid” and in-transit pulsing.

Metroboard diagram now has a light at the end of the line Wilshire/La Cienega station!

Susan A. Kitchens@susankitchens· May 8

This is the “How it started” part of today’s Los Angeles Metro D Line Extension opening (New stations open in a few hours) @designrulesco.bsky.social’s Metroboard shows trains at stations. New lights to come as train service begins at the three new stations. In a while, I’ll add How it’s Going…

LED map infographic of LA Metro system, detail view on the D line. There’s a purple LED lit at the Wilshire/Western station, to the left are 7 stations, all dark. A square overlay is over the three stations next to the lit Wilshire Western. The text overlay says “3 new stations open today at 1pm!!!”

A view is the entire Metroboard with all the lines lit up. A blue line (A Line) goes from upper right down to center below. A yellow line runs from center right to center left (the C line?)
A red line spikes off the central area to middle left, off of which runs an orange (dedicated bus) line. A purple line runs to center left. It’s mostly dark (but today more stations open!)
A green line runs horizontally toward the bottom and a pink line intersects the grrrn and the yellow lines.

Susan A. Kitchens@susankitchens· May 7

You buy insurance, the unthinkable happens, Insurance Cos like #StateFarm jerk you around. Meanwhile they make bank on you. “Our payouts are not missing. They are compounding, inside State Farm's $270 billion investment portfolio. And the longer claims are delayed, the more that money earns.”

And while families were being delayed, denied, and worn down, something else was happening.
State Farm reported $6.2 billion in investment income in 2025.
Its investment portfolio grew by $30 billion in a single year. Roughly four times its total exposure to L.A. fire claims.
See it for yourself in State Farm's eye-popping 2025 Annual Report.
Our payouts are not missing. They are compounding, inside State Farm's $270
billion investment portfolio.
And the longer claims are delayed, the more that money earns.
At an estimated $2.47 million per hour in earnings, the $2 million fine amounts to less than one hour of profit.
Less than one hour. That's the math.
If you can earn billions by holding onto money that belongs to survivors, and the worst that happens is a sub-one-hour fine, the system is working.
Just not for the people paying for it.

Susan A. Kitchens@susankitchens· May 7

Have a loss from the fire & Insurance Co jerks you around? File a complaint with #CADeptOfInsurance. #CADoI black boxed complaints Heeds Insurance Co Lawyers who say, edit that bad bit out of the complaint. Penalize your own DoI staff. #EatonFire #PalisadesFire #StateFarm

State Farm did not act illegally in a vacuum. It did so for 16 months while the department had the authority, and the obligation, to stop it.
The LA Times documented that the CDI filed survivor complaints into a black box, closing cases before disputes were resolved, and even ordered survivors to stop calling their compliance officers.
When a 32-year veteran compliance officer cited State Farm for "shoddy" and
"shameful" conduct, a State Farm lawyer complained. And the department stripped her of her caseload and cut her pay.
That is not an agency protecting consumers.
That is an agency protecting the illegal actor it is supposed to police.

Susan A. Kitchens@susankitchens· May 7

I have my answer, after checking out the #Britbox Instagram account. Three to start then one per week till done. May 6: 1-3 May 13: 4 May 20: 5 May 27: 6 June 3: 7 June 10: 8 June 17: 9 June 24: 10 #theOtherBennetSister

britboxtv (2h ago; Author) The first 3 are just the beginning! New episodes drop every Wednesday. You'll have all 10 chapters by June 24!

Susan A. Kitchens@susankitchens· May 7

On a much-needed Afternoon Walk, we stopped at a park under a jacaranda tree. Here’s one of the blossoms that fluttered its way to the ground.

A close-up look at a lavender jacaranda blossom lying on the green grass.

Susan A. Kitchens@susankitchens· May 6

Thanks to Collider, I learned the first 3 eps dropped today. Okay then! My next question: how many #TheOtherBennetSister episodes drop next week? collider.com/the-other-be...

Highlighted text: “The show premieres with its first three episodes May 6 on the criminally underappreciated streaming service BritBox”

Full screenshot context:

Luckily, The Other Bennet Sister isn't
"most" adaptations; in fact, it's among the rare ones that approach its source material with reverence, but its much-welcome sense of independence allows it to feel refreshing agd, far more importantly, timely. The show premieres with its first three episodes May 6 on the criminally underappreciated streaming service BritBox, and it's a must-watch, not only for hardcore Janeites or those who crave Regency romance as if it were oxygen, but for anyone who appreciates a beautifully crafted and exceptionally executed story.

Susan A. Kitchens@susankitchens· Apr 25

Lettuce that went to seed. (Marvel of Four Seasons Red butter Lettuce mmmmmm!!!!) Today I learned that when the lettuce acts all dandelion-like, the seeds are ready. Okay then! The plant is still there to produce more dandelion-like fluffball seed capsules, and I’ll pinch em off n save em 🌱

Plant with yellow flowers, red teardrop shaped lobs and a fuzzy furry seed carrying floofy ball.

Susan A. Kitchens@susankitchens· Apr 21

Just got my #MetroBoard of Los Angeles metro map by @designrulesco.bsky.social (cmon, be more active on Bsky now!) So cool! www.kickstarter.com/projects/des...

Schematic diagram of all the light rail routes of Los Angeles metro showing current location of trains.

Susan A. Kitchens@susankitchens· Apr 11

The other day I started a new notebook. Took a photo of the first words through a magnetic tripod attachment #fountainPen (alas the pen itself is not showing in this photo) #cursive

A spiral notebook open and the words “9 April A new notebook” written at the top of the page. The view is framed by a blurry round object close to the camera lens. There are pens on the green mat surface of the table.

Susan A. Kitchens@susankitchens· Apr 3

Shoutout to Saul Bass (I think it was) who designed the classic cord-and-plug logo for Southern California Edison back in the day. A later ceo came in and fancied himself a designer, result: ick. 😠 How it looked back in 1978. (Also trashing and purging papers should happen more often than this)

Susan A. Kitchens@susankitchens· Apr 1

Learn to code -- --- .-. ... . / -.-. --- -.. .

A telegrapher’s key (the kind that you move your fingers side to side). The business end is taped down.

Susan A. Kitchens@susankitchens· Mar 31

Packing up things from a different era, table linens, cloth napkins, damask linens, etc. And then I saw these Sup like an Egyptian! “All the old paintings on the tomb They do the sand dance, don't you know? If they move too quick (oh-way-oh) They're falling down like a domino”

Cloth napkins made from fabric decorated in block print style like Egyptian relief with women musicians and a man with dark hair and snake headpiece, and columns of symbols

Susan A. Kitchens@susankitchens· Mar 29

Hey kiddos! This is how school pictures were delivered to families of all the darling children 50 years ago, in 1976. Ahhh, the Spirit of 76 and Bicentennial.

Large photo envelopes (Red Carpet School Picture photo service). The top set of envelopes have a large 76 with stars and stripe motif, a liberty bell, and Spirit of 76 on them. On the bottom, an identifying tag line: “School Day Pictures from your Red Carpet Photographer.”

Susan A. Kitchens@susankitchens· Mar 27

On the ground at Edwards Air Force Base / NASA Dryden (now Armstrong) research center – technically, an #airport – with Endeavour (aka Space Shuttle) atop the 747 Transport Plane A fabulous #NASAsocial event #dailyPictureTheme