I often have a few deep moments of culture shock (or call it culture/climate surprise) when I return to Los Angeles from Washington, DC, where I grew up. Sometimes, it happens coming and going. But tonight was extra.

My daughter and I left the heated, wet air of Washington/Maryland/Virginia in early evening. It was cooler than it had been all week, but soupy nonetheless. Hot in the sun and no less hot in the shade, the shade that in the mid-Atlantic, in summer, is always softened by moisture. You could say the shadows are soggy in summer. Or you could say they are free of edges, especially with the constant August thundershowers. Until you've been to the desert, you don't know the meaning of shade.

We returned to Long Beach Airport, landing at 8:16 p.m., and stepped down to the tarmac. The air was crisp and snappy, like a piece of fresh xerox paper. And it was almost cool. My husband met us. We got in the car. The 710 ramp was blocked -- a detour proposed. So we ended up approaching L.A. on the Harbor Freeway. Which gave us a head-on view of 17 miles of fire high in the sky. Like a broken necklace. On fire: the defining edge of our geography.

I was glad my daughter was asleep.

The "culture shock" came in realizing how calmly we drove toward the fire, on our way home to go to sleep not so many miles below.

Rosie the Dog, who was known to friends in Los Angeles and Washington, DC, where she was born, died peacefully on Saturday afternoon. She was fourteen-ish. Readers of Chicken Corner knew her as the dog in profile at the top of the Baxter Steps. She was not a chicken, but she was one of the faces of Chicken Corner.

Rosie spent her first nine years in Washington with my mother. It was in Washington that Rosie developed her life-long passion for rushing into the houses of strangers if they left their front door open, and the gate of course. If a cat were present, Rosie would bark and give chase. This led to the awkward situation of calling to Rosie from the doorways of people we did not know (as well as many whom we did know). In Los Angeles, Rosie had fewer opportunities to explore houses. In the past year she did get into a yard in South Pasadena, and she tried to enter the home of a reclusive neighbor in Echo Park, whom I do not know by name. My mother used to speculate that Rosie may be looking for lost sheep, as she was a herder. She sometimes tried to herd my daughter, who finally lost it earlier this year and shouted, "Rosie, I am NOT a sheep!"

Before she lost most of her hearing, Rosie had a large vocabulary, as do many border collies (and border collie "mixes"). She had a large stuffed animal collection and would retrieve any of the toys by name, i.e., "Rosie, go get Elephant" (or "Beaver", etc.). And Rosie would say "Done." Then she'd go get Elephant. When Rosie moved to Los Angeles with me, we brought only four of her stuffed animals. She rebuilt her collection by re-homing some of the animals that until then had belonged to my baby daughter. By then she had already begun to lose her hearing, but she learned hand signals quite readily. She also learned that by turning her head to the side and pretending not to see me she could now ignore such suggestions as "Sit!"

Rosie loved Elysian Park and belly rubs. In the house, she followed me step for step, undaunted by the fact that I was always bumping into her and sometimes stepping on her toes. She was drawn to people who smoked Marlboros, as had my mother, Margot Burman, who was more or less killed by smoking Marlboros.

One time, I received a citation from an apologetic cop for walking Rosie without a leash. At court, I showed the City Attorney a photograph of Rosie. The attorney looked at the photo. Without even the tiniest smile, he said "That's a very cute dog, but you're the one who got the ticket." The injustice of the matter was clarified.

Rosie's own mother was a border collie. Her father is unknown. He may have been a golden retriever or maybe a cocker spaniel. Rosie's dog friends included Oscar the Dog and Baltau, both of Echo Park. She had dozens of human friends. Other survivors include her human family and three cats and loose herds of neighbors in two towns.

I couldn't help it. Saturday I was on my way home from an Echo Park garden party that celebrated 70th anniversary of the airship Graf Zeppelin's round-the-world flight, August 8, 1929. Driving home on Echo Park Avenue, I almost passed a seemingly abandoned stuffed animal -- a bear, no less -- with all of its obvious pathos. I pulled over to record it. And the cars driving past.

So we have Honey Bear, 8 pm, August 8, 2009.

Honey is at a street sign at Paul Place, one of the many dynamic pinpoints of the neighborhood, places in steady flux. The light-blue eight-plex (or more) to Honey's right, and out of view, turns over quite a bit -- there's often a for-rent sign, or a shadless view into what looks like an empty apartment. A few doors down door is a halfway house. And next to that is Vega Meat Market, which is now Skatehouse, a designer's workspace and prototype gallery. In the last ten years the mustard-colored building behind Honey has been a food market, an empty space, an art gallery, a clothing designer's shop and gallery, a thrift shop, a notary-tax-service-travel agency business, and now also a bird-themed boutique of sensibility.

But some things at Paul Place do not change. Facing Honey is a large lot that is surrounded by a TALL hurricane fence, threaded and re-threaded with at least nine inches of creeping ficus. In the 13 years I have lived in the neighborhood, I have never seen through that fence, and I have never seen the gate open. (The gate is also hidden.) God could not see into that lot. Not from the outside.

A wise old hen in Echo Park once told me "the more things change the more they...resemble the troubles of an earlier decade." Cluck. The '20s to be precise. The comparison between now and then is being made everywhere. But Chicken Corner was heartened to see that a performance/discussion group called The Roaring Aughts aimed to take the comparison to a meaningful place on Saturday with a dollmaking/discussion event. The Aughts' goal is to make 898,863 dolls this summer - one doll for each person in L.A. living below the poverty line. Participants work shifts, with time cards. They apply
for their jobs. An informal discussion was to be led by author-architect-car-free cyclist Michael Rochlin. The event took place at the Brewery downtown.

According to organizer Browne Molyneaux there is already an employee
of the month.

Heather Anacker is the employee of the month. Her job application states: "I am the best person for the job because I have a pocket knife." We need more employees like Ms. Anacker.

Chicken Corner was unable to join the labor force on Saturday. She was
drinking champagne from her (glass) shoes and eating cake while dancing the
Charleston (at a five-year-old's birthday party). But she does have a
question: Where will the 898,863 dolls go? Will they March down Sunset
Blvd.? Or keep watch at intersections? Will they belong to the people
they represent? Will they ride the bus?

According to Molyneaux, the next "shift" will be on August 15, with a discussion on exploitation in the tech industry.

The Public Library @ The Brewery; 2100 N Main A 15; Los Angeles; 323-342-1977