Last night I watched The Way I See It, the documentary on Pete Souza (White House photographer for both the Reagan and Obama administrations) which turned out to be as wonderful as everyone had said it was.  

Souza did an incredible job of capturing "ordinary" behind-the-scene shots, in part due to his unobtrusive fly-on-the-wall manner, as well as his unfettered access (especially during Obama's administration.)  

While many of his photographs were already familiar to me, a number were new.  Because there were so many photos included in the almost 2-hour (commercial-free) presentation it was sometimes difficult to absorb them all; I'm glad I have it taped so I can enjoy another viewing (or two!) down the line.

He took SO many photos daily (too many to share) that he would print enlargements of several dozen to post on the White House walls for the other staffers to enjoy, changing them out every couple of weeks.  What a delightful idea, and one of which I was unaware before watching the documentary.

Happy Birthday, Alex!

And while I'm not a big fan of snow

(like this guy, sticking out his tongue at it... <g>)

I do hope Alex gets a lot of use this winter from his birthday gift.

This morning I topped off both trash cans with most of the palm fronds, which (for some unknown reason) will not be allowed to go in our Organics can - whenever that finally arrives.

That leaves the remaining drive-thru pile nicely decimated, 

with just some bottle-brush branches left.

Of course there are still plenty of piles scattered about that need to go!

At least with post-irrigation weeding a priority over the next several days, 

there should be fewer piles accumulating in the near future. 

The good news is that we seem to be done with the triple digits, 

at least according to this week's forecast.

I got a lot more lantana pulled in "new" sections of the backyard this morning before it was time for a break around 10.  FYI: While I had checked previously weeded areas for new "arrivals" sprouting up, there were virtually none!

I took my 'relaxing' break working through the various phone options until I could to talk to someone at the City about the whereabouts of our still MIA Organics can.  According to Joy, the request is "still pending", ostensibly waiting until there are enough can requests on our route to justify delivery.  Which is fine; I was just relieved to hear they don't think it was delivered already. Since Maurice had said it could be delivered "as soon as the next day" I was beginning to worry that it had been dropped off but someone driving by snagged it!  

As long as I had Joy on the line I asked her why palm fronds are "unacceptable" deposits for that can.  She didn't know they were on that list, so of course not the reason for it.  However she did say that she'd ask around at her end so she would have the answer the next time a caller asked.