The Brief

Because I live in California and because we live in a post-pandemic world, I often work at home, outside in our backyard.

It’s a small, modest space — just room for a table and an umbrella pretty much — but being California, it also manages to contain an apple tree, a fig tree and a banana tree.

Our backyard, full of California goodness

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Suzanne Levy

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LAist

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Because I’d grown up in London, my only previous interaction with figs had been eating Fig Newtons (a fair to middling experience) and eating ripe figs picked fresh from a tree as an exchange student in the south of France (a pretty amazing experience).

I’d walk along on a baking-hot, lavender-scented day, as my brain exploded at the sweetness, the slightly warm fig dissolving in my mouth.

So decades later, when I saw there was a fig tree in our backyard, I was astonished. And slightly doubtful. Could a California fig match up to the exquisite French one in my memory? I picked one and ate it. And yes, incredibly, there it was again … sweet, exotic, a gift from nature that’s inexplicably over-generous.

Figs, the inexplicably over-generous gift of nature

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Suzanne Levy

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LAist

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Introducing Mindy

The first year, I watched the young green figs ripen reddish in the sun before baking into their black exterior. It was time. But when I went to pick the plumpest one … another creature had beaten to me to it.

That creature was a squirrel, determined and voracious, who would jump onto the tree like a wrestler jumping from the top turnbuckle into the ring, scrabble through the leaves to find the best fruit, take a tiny bite, realize, no, that was not up to their standards, and throw it dismissively on the floor, before moving on to the next one.

Mindy's aftermath

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Suzanne Levy

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LAist

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Which meant the squirrel — whom we named Mindy, and, yes, there was also a Mork — had way more figs than I did that first year.

Mindy the squirrel's version of sharing

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Suzanne Levy

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LAist

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The second year, I was smarter. I read up on what to do. Cover each fig in a gauze bag! I bought lovely white bags with a satin tie from a wedding site and spent a Sunday placing each fig tenderly in its own covering. It looked a bit ridiculous, like Victorians covering the ankles of their pianos, but I didn’t care. I wanted those figs!

I watched triumphantly as Mindy seemed to lose interest. Or so I thought. A few bags had dropped on to the ground, so I went and looked. And it seemed, Mindy had been having her way with the fruit. There were tiny holes in the gauze. And tiny holes in the figs. Gaah!

A multiplicity of figs

This year, however, we had a bumper crop. I have no idea why — we did nothing but our normal benign neglect (read: my husband waters whatever new plants we’ve put in underneath the tree).

It turns out that while Mindy has a voracious appetite, she has only one tiny stomach — and can only eat so much. And if you have a bumper, bumper crop, something tremendous happens … you have a multiplicity of figs left on your tree! High, low, near, far, black ripe figs every day.

A woman on a mission

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Steve Holtzman

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Courtesy Suzanne Levy

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So one Sunday, I got up early, put on a floppy summer hat, climbed a ladder and picked as many figs as I could find. My Californian harvest: sun-filled, lush and orchard-fresh. (Meantime, I’ve been watching closely and so far the banana tree hasn’t managed even one tiny banana. I am disappointed.)

Preserving nature's bounty

I was ecstatic and took my bounty into the kitchen. Then, after a few days of the family eating them with yogurt, with goat cheese, on salads, on cakes, and still barely making a dent in my pile, I began to realize — oh, this is why all those pioneer women canned constantly during the summer. You use them or you lose them. No Ralphs to pop into back in 1842!

So I looked up canning. Way too much equipment needed. But I could make preserves with lemon juice, sugar and vanilla. My kind of recipe. Way to go! I chopped, I cooked, I stirred, and through a magic of alchemy, after an hour, a rich, slightly goopy jam was dropping off my wooden spoon.

It's Mindy's world. We just live in it.

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Melissa Holtzman

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Courtesy Suzanne Levy

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I bought some cute mason jars, filled each one, labeling them “Mindy’s fig preserves” (as a colleague said, it's Mindy's world — we just live in it), and when I was next in the office, handed them out to my co-workers. All lit up with smiles at this unexpected gift.

The managing editor bought crackers and cheese, and we sat munching happily with oohs and ahs all around. It felt so good to be sharing the beneficence of a Southern California summer with others.

When I got back home, I sat in the yard, silently giving thanks to the fig tree for its abundance. And then, as if on a shared psychic hotline, Mindy suddenly appeared, jumping onto a branch.

Mindy's ready for her closeup.

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Suzanne Levy

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LAist

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I picked up my phone to capture the moment, and, I swear, she looked straight at me, as if offering herself for a closeup. I took the picture, and then, she turned her attention to a nearby fig.

That’s fine Mindy. There’s enough for all of us to share.

LACMA’s first Van Gogh isn’t a painting of blue flowers, golden wheat fields or aged faces. It’s of a parked stagecoach, and it’s considered a good example of what made the Dutch painter, and the Impressionist movement he was a part of, so revolutionary.

The painting is called “Tarascon Stagecoach.” It was painted in 1888 and was donated to LACMA earlier this year by the Henry and Rose Pearlman Foundation.

It’s LACMA’s first Van Gogh painting, and the encyclopedic museum will be showing it off starting Sunday in a show called “Collecting Impressionism at LACMA” that focuses on 100 works from LACMA’s collection. The works are arranged chronologically to show the evolving tastes that have shaped the museum's collection of Impressionist art.

The museum’s acquisition isn’t just a win for the museum. The museum-going public and the region’s teenage and college-age students also will benefit.

“I very much remember seeing Van Gogh in a rotunda space in the [Philadelphia Museum of Art] and finding it to be just so striking because of these luscious, bright colors,” said Summer Sloane-Britt, who saw her first Van Goh during a middle school visit to the museum.

Sloane-Britt now is a professor of art and art history at Occidental College.

“Visual analysis and seeing objects in person is always so core to historical learning and for studio artists as well,” Sloane-Britt said.

And seeing a Van Gogh in person, Sloane-Britt said, and saying you don’t like it is also OK because that signals the work has led you to identify and assert your own aesthetic tastes in art.

Van Gogh road trip in LA. Shotgun!

The LACMA exhibit presents a good opportunity to get on the road for a four-stop Van Gogh road trip without leaving L.A. County.

Van Gogh's "Irises"

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Courtesy Getty Museum

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You can start at LACMA and see “Tarascon Stagecoach,” benefiting from the context of seeing other impressionist works by Van Gogh’s contemporaries.

Hop over to the Hammer Museum in Westwood, where you’ll see “Hospital at Saint-Rémy,” one of three paintings by Van Gogh in the collection.

Then head west on Wilshire Boulevard to the Getty to see “Irises,” one of the paintings that’s made Van Gogh an art star.

"The Mulberry Tree," a painting by Vincent Van Gogh, on display at the Norton Simon Museum

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Courtesy Norton Simon Museum

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End your Van Gogh road trip by heading east to Pasadena to the Norton Simon Museum. The museum’s smaller, more intimate setting is a good place to see the museum’s six, yes six, Van Gogh paintings.

The exhibit also will feature the newly acquired work "The Artist’s Garden, Vétheuil" by Claude Monet.

The new year doesn’t just bring new gifts and new resolutions. It also brings new laws.

State and local lawmakers have a lot on tap for 2026 when it comes to housing laws that will affect Southern California renters and landlords.

From refrigerators to fire damage, from development streamlining to rent control caps, LAist has rounded up the legal changes coming next year that you need to know.

AB 628: No more ‘no fridge’ apartment listings

Starting Jan. 1, landlords must provide tenants with a working refrigerator and stove. Many landlords already offer these appliances, but the L.A. area stands out nationwide for having an unusually high proportion of fridge-less apartments.

Next year, L.A. newcomers will no longer be taking to social media to express incredulity at all the city’s bring-your-own-fridge apartments. If landlords fail to provide refrigerators or stoves in good working condition, apartments will be considered uninhabitable under the new law.

SB 610: Landlords must clean smoke damage

In the weeks and months after the January fires, many renters struggled to get their landlords to address toxic ash that blew into apartments and rental homes that remained standing. Some landlords said cleaning up the smoke damage was not their responsibility. Initial communication from local public officials was confusing on what tenants were supposed to do.

This new law, which partially was driven by LAist’s reporting, clarifies that in the wake of a natural disaster, “it shall be the duty of a landlord” to remove “hazards arising from the disaster, including, but not limited to, the presence of mold, smoke, smoke residue, smoke odor, ash, asbestos or water damage.”

SB 79: Upzoning LA neighborhoods near transit

L.A.’s City Council voted to oppose it. Mayor Karen Bass asked the governor to veto it. But California’s big new upzoning law passed anyway. Its changes are set to take effect July 1, 2026.

Under the law, new apartment buildings up to nine stories tall will be allowed next to rail stations, and buildings up to five stories tall will be allowed within a half-mile of rapid bus stops. This upzoning applies to neighborhoods within those transit zones, even if they’re currently zoned only for single-family homes.

Next comes the implementation. The law could give renters more options once new housing is constructed. But L.A. could choose to delay the law’s effects in some areas for years. Ahead of the law’s passage, City Attorney Hydee Feldstein Soto sent legislators a letter opposing the bill, signaling what could turn into a legal showdown over the bill.

AB 246: Protecting Social Security recipients during government shutdowns

Tenants can face eviction three days after missing their rent. During this year’s federal government shutdown — the longest on record — that swift timeline was a cause for anxiety among tenants who count on federal benefits to cover their rent.

Though this year’s shutdown did not affect regular Social Security payments, this law will give Social Security recipients a defense in eviction court if they ever stop receiving benefits because of any future shutdowns. Under the law, renters will be required to repay their missed rent, or enter a repayment plan, within two weeks of their Social Security payments being restored.

Lower rent control caps in the city of LA

After years of debate, the L.A. City Council passed a new cap on annual rent hikes in the roughly three-quarters of city apartments covered by local rent control rules.

The City Council enacted a new 4% limit, replacing a 40-year-old formula that allowed increases as high as 10% in some units during periods of high inflation. Councilmembers also ended a 2% additional increase for landlords who cover tenants’ gas and electricity costs.

The city had a nearly four-year rent freeze in place during the COVID-19 pandemic that ended in February 2024. That means many L.A. tenants are scheduled to receive their next rent hike Feb. 1, 2026. They should be getting a 30-day notice soon. Each year’s limit is determined by recent inflation data. The current cap of 3% is set to last until June 30.