Author: Kelson Vibber

All the “meadows” (i.e. weed fields) I noted a while back have been mowed down and just look like dead brown grass. The one where I stopped and watched birds and butterfies has a few flowers that have popped up since then, but is otherwise pretty much dead.

Speaking of dead grass, the traffic island where I took the picture of the Grass Under Renovation sign is almost completely dead now.

Jamba Juice gets really loud when they’re making lots of smoothies.

A green tea boost turns mango smoothies green. I’d hate to see what it does to a berry smoothie. With luck it’ll look sort of like a mocha… but it sure won’t taste like one!

I suspect the local schools are out, since there were a lot more teenagers than I’m used to seeing on a weekday. That’s part of why Jamba Juice was so busy.

As I was leaving with my smoothie, a pair of girls waiting to pick theirs up suddenly hugged each other and started dancing in circles for no apparent reason.

Many of the trees along the path from the building where I work to the Spectrum shopping center are purely decorative. The sidewalk along Irvine Center Drive is lined by trees on both sides, but only a few shadows managed to touch the sidewalk. As for shade for someone walking at high noon? Not a chance. Maybe in a few more years they’ll be useful. Or maybe if the city doesn’t trim them back so far next year.

This lack of shade may be connected to the lack of pedestrians. Today, for instance, I encountered no one on the way to lunch until I reached the office building across the street from the center. On the way back there was one guy carrying a soda and a bag from fye, and a woman jogging with an iPod. And they were both on the first block out, before the first signal.

Speaking of that first signal (second if you count the one crossing the street from the Spectrum itself)…drivers don’t expect pedestrians there either. A truck was turning right in front of me as the light changed, and another car zoomed right behind it despite me stepping forward into the street. By the time I got three steps in, the “don’t walk” signal was already flashing… and this is nine lanes worth of street.

Yes, you really do notice different things on foot than in a car. For instance: after the heavy rains this past winter, all the empty lots in the Irvine Spectrum area are full of weeds. But in spring, when the weeds are green and in bloom, those fields look an awful lot like meadows.

The lot (or meadow) in front of the Ford building, in particular, had so many birds wheeling and swooping above it that I stopped to watch, and also spotted butterflies and a ladybug that zoomed past my hand to land on the bag of allergy medication I always carry whenever I go somewhere to eat. (I moved it over to the hedge I was standing next to and waited for it to jump off.) A bit later in the walk I started to notice bird songs, and something I couldn’t quite identify as a very loud cricket, a frog, or just a gravelly-voiced bird.

Not all the empty lots look like this. The one nearest the building where I work is, at this very moment, being reduced to stubble by some guy on a power mower.