Return to Angel City: Part II

My Return to Angel City: Part II

We woke up the next day and went to breakfast at 26 Beach Cafe.  K got hot chocolate again (do you see a theme here?)

Hot Chocolate 2

Quick straw poll: Do you think that Hot Chocolate 1 (previous post) or Hot Chocolate 2 was more visually appealing?

We got everything. Bacon, eggs, french toast...hers was custard and came with mangoes and whipped cream. 

Mine was filled with strawberry preserves and cream cheese and had a shocking lack of strawberries on the top.  I found out that in fact, I do not like strawberry preserves on French Toast. In fact, I think fresh fruit and strawberries are the only way to go. Or maybe syrup. But no preservatives, and no cream cheese. I'm glad I had it though, because now I know cream cheese french toast is not my cup of tea.  

Rating: 4.0 Long wait time, good menu. 

Venice Beach

"I Pose for Pictures. Please feed me change."

Beaches, we love you.
Parking at beaches, we do not love you. 

Venice is probably the most shamelessly chintzy touristy place I have ever seen in my life. Manhattan and Pike Place are right up there, as was Hollywood itself, but this and Pier 39 in San Francisco are immediately called to mind when the word "touristy" is mentioned. I don't know whether to be charmed or annoyed by it, in all honesty.

Here I am getting cuddled by a half shark half man who's metallic blue. He thinks he's all that. Apparently I thought something of him because I gave "him" approximately 27 cents (do you see a theme going?) in exchange for pretending to put his arm around me. I got 27 cents worth of enjoyment out of it, so we came out about equal.

Here is the ocean...and the sand, and the lifeguard huts. This is as close as I got to the water. I was sort of tempted to go in but as it was I was already freezing. Plus, it was calming just to be near a real ocean. I see water every day, but it's just the bay. (Not even The Bay. Just the bay.) It's not bona fide, to quote Oh Brother! Where Art Thou?

Look! It's the OCEAN!!! And me, of course.

In case you didn't know, Venice Beach is also referred to as "Muscle Beach." It's because there's a bodybuilding gym built into the beach, and guys go there to work out. It's part of the tourist "charm." I'm not joking.  

The sign (above) says that the workout gear was put there by the founder of bodybuilding. I'm not sure I believe that. 

We actually walked right by it without even noticing. And then K, being K, decided to ask the cops for directions. And because she's K, they rolled down the window and smiled big ol' smiles and happily told her everything she needed to know.  Which apparently didn't include how to make me look instantly like a bodybuilder while playing on the bars at the playground.

This is me, by the Venice Beach sign. A beach with its own brand?!? But look at that sky! Wow. I hadn't seen a sky that blue in...months. My marketing hangups aside, it does make for a nice backdrop of a picture. --->

The other thing that blogs do not do is tell you about the "feel" or smell of a place. I had flipflops on and I took them off and then the thought occurred to me that I better put them back on or else I might step on a needle.  K had the exact same thought at the exact same time. Shoes went back on, needless to say. Also, sadly, after we were through, we reeked of marijuana.

Swingin' @ Swingers

More breakfast food! Bacon, eggs, and two pancakes. I got the All-American. 

Rating: 4/5. Good bacon, good eggs, helpful staff. However, this is the one big breakfast I ate that didn't really stick to my ribs - I was hungry not too long after. Also, there is a major qualifier on their "fresh squeezed grapefruit juice."

 It's not actually fresh-squeezed by them. It's organic and apparently wonderful high-end stuff but they let me have a sample: as all of you who know me are not surprised because I am very suspicious of any citrus juice that I did not squeeze or saw someone squeeze it in my presence. Also it was weird to see waitresses in full makeup at like 9:00 am. But hey. It was good. I'd definitely go back. Just don't get the grapefruit juice!

Forest Lawn

Forest Lawn is a mausoleum/graveyard. Why, you ask, would I want to go here? Because it's so peaceful. It's one of the only truly peaceful places in LA - sacred space. It's in a beautiful setting, and there is also lots of amazing art there. (Let's face it, that's the real reason why I went.)
Above: Behind me is one of the main mausoleum buildings. 

Left: Here is the view as you drive in. So peaceful. So serene. 


Right: Here I am with the children, reading the Builder's Creed. (You have to click on the 'see larger image' to be able to read the whole thing in a decent font size. But I highly recommend clicking over - he was a man on a mission, and he really did succeed. Beautifully. As you will see below. )

 

Left: This building is where the glass window reproduction of the Last Supper is. They have a kind of commercialized audio program that lasts about six minutes that comes on every half hour. They only open the shutters that let the light into the nave-like space every half hour for about seven minutes. I'd never seen stained glass like it.

I'll save you the audio program and tell you that it was made by the last of the family that made all the awesome stained glass windows in Italy. It was commissioned back in the 30s and took years to make. Apparently Judas was the hardest - his portion of the glass broke about five times and the artist thought she was going to have to scrap the whole idea but finally his shape conformed and she was able to finish it. I can only imagine what the real Last Supper is like. The colors were so vivid - the shading so convincing. I can't wait to see the real one.

Also in this building are some other cool works of art. Yes, they are exact replicas and not the real thing, but it is still really cool that they went to so much trouble and expense to get them in. They have copies of the Moses, Day/Night, Dusk/Dawn, the Pieta, the only copy of Madonna of the Bruges, and loads of others I can't even remember.

The only sad thing is that the museum, which apparently houses the largest painting in America, was closed. That always seems to happen to me. I was mucho disappointed but then decided that it meant I would just have to come back. I hope I do, someday. It's a beautiful place.  

 

Holly Terrace: Where Michael Jackson and a host of other people are buried. The first engraving I saw that I recognized was Louis L'Amour's. 

All these flowers were for the King of Pop. (V, I took this picture just for you because I knew how you would bristle and threaten to disown me all over again.)

You can't go inside, because it's a private building. In case you were wondering.

K in the heart of Babyland

Babyland:

It's exactly like what it sounds. There is a huge heart sidewalk surrounding all these tiny graves. They're all tiny babies. Babies that will have to be still in the ground with no human mother to cradle them to sleep at night for a really long time. It was kind of depressing in a beautiful way to know that out of so much sadness could come a place of beauty and reverence. From up on the hill, all you can see is the outline of the heart. It's not until you look at the map that you see it's Babyland, and are reminded of all the sadness.

Sometimes maps are overrated.

On the other hand, classic art is almost never overrated:

 This is how I feel about art. Mom, I think this is how you feel about it too. Especially since the installation of the Postcard Buying Tradition.

Drumroll...for Michelangelo's David

 I knew he was there. I knew he wouldn't be lurking in the bushes either, like a total creepster. I knew he'd be standing tall and proud and that I would get goosebumps from the sheer awe at the artistic prowess it took to create him. I knew that I would be unprepared for the combination of grace and aloofness he presented. I knew that his hands would be too big. But I didn't know that I would see him first by just driving past him as if he were another bump in the road or an Average Joe statue. (Apologies to all other statues at Forest Lawn. But really, the reason I came here was for a boy. And not just any boy. A naked one! (oops. that sounds bad.) He is naked though.

I'd even seen him from the air before when we flew over Forest Lawn one time. That was how I knew that he existed. What I didn't know was that this exact replica is made of stone from the same quarry that the original came from. I don't know how many copies there are - I would guess less than 10 - but this one, in its outdoor setting, was amazing.

"K, stop, back up!" I cried. He was on my side of the car. She put it in reverse and did her awesome K thing and we pulled right up in front of him. I practically embarrassed myself because I couldn't get out of the car fast enough. I think I did a combination of running and floating to get to him.

I don't know if you call that runfling or florning but I did it and he was everything I thought he'd be.

Look at his smallish waist. Look at his too-large hands. Look at the way his musculature flows. Imagine me speechless. Yep. That happened, too. I touched his toe and shivered. It felt like sacrilege. I looked up and wondered if he was going to frown down that long nose at me at my audacity.

I just sat and stared for about three minutes. It was just me, David, and K. K was playing on her phone for some of it, so it was really just me and David. We had some quality time. I was sad when I had to leave. I will see your original soon, buddy. Seeing you keeps alive my Italy dream. 

After that, I didn't really care about anything else. Except we did see a blue bird eating an orange berry. The progression, caught by K on film, went like this:

Take that! I have snatched a berry!

Hi. I'm a bird.

I'm a bird pretending to ignore you.

I might be able to swallow this.

I am eating your berry!

The bird managed to eat the berry without asphyxiating. Huzzah, birdie. Extra huzzahs to the birdie for leaving us alone afterward.

Left: I need a cape to be a proper George Washington.

Right: K and I found Walt Disney buried in the corner. The little thing hanging from the tree is a disney wreath, probably left there over Christmas.


Isn't K cute?


We also stopped at the Garden of Remembrance, which makes a very pretty picture.

Then we left Forest Lawn, and went back to the West Side - but we took a tangent to the mall in Pasadena first to buy water, food, lacy things, and makeup. Classic girl time.


Santa Monica Pier

At sunset, it can be pretty. It was really cold though! Hence the reason why I am actually wearing a coat. I'm always surprised how cold it is on Third Street and the beach - even in the summer.

Riding the bronze dolphin.

You can see Cirque du Soleil in the background, and the Ferris wheel is the neon blur to the right.
 

View from the Top

I tried to jump up and be like the girl in the mural. Sadly I have no vertical and so it ended up making me look like the man in the photo.  I tried two or three times but none of them worked. K and I laughed so hard looking at the attempts that it made it hard for her to operate the camera properly. 

When it was determined that in fact I do have no vertical, we got in line with her bf, G, to ride the Ferris wheel. That's why there's an implied third presence.

This is what the sunset would look like without my glasses on. Only I was wearing my glasses, and got to see the non-blurry version. But I like the little blobs of light - they seem so friendly and warm. So I invited them onto this blog.



Then we went to the brand new mall on 3rd street promenade and tried on headbands at kiosks and nail polish and other stuff.


And while we were there, I saw this sign that cracked me up.

No pets on the escalator: No Pets!!

But we'll be cute while we remind you. 

We went to Baby Blue's for dinner and we ordered far too much food, because we were STARVING.

Rating: 4.5/5 stars. Great mashed sweet potatoes, but the mac n' cheese didn't win me over.  Meat was really good.

The meat was really excellent, but since we sat so close to the door it was a little cold. Good food. We had ribs. We had brisket. We had wings. We had cornbread. We had baked beans. We had Carolina style BBQ sauce. We had water with no ice. We also had "no fat added" to any of this. Basically, it was a great way to end a great trip!!

Return to the City of Angels: Part I

 Los Angeles!

Good people: I used to live in the City of Angels. I know there are angels there (see car accident, guitar rescue, and other stories in previous blog posts). I recently went back to visit the sunshine and the angels. It was beautiful. It was so much the same, and so much different, all at once - so many old familiar feelings and new feelings rushed over me as I drove through my old neighborhoods. It seemed as if I had never left. But I had, and now I was, as Arnold would say, "back."

So I'll give you a picture-log of what happened:

LAX - POINT OF ORIGIN
Flew in. The paper bag wasn't on my knee, but I did forget my ipod. Never again! But better to forget the ipod than the noise reducing headphones, if you have to leave just one, I guess.

Note to self: Airport shuttles are not always optimal modes of transportation.

Dinner, 11pm: Cafe Rio, courtesy of Aunt Marti.
(Pork burrito. Piping hot = 5 stars)

Sighs of relief at being horizontal.  Peace. Warmth. Welcomed.

Literally. In many ways. Seriously, Aunt Marti is the best. And here's why:

•  My room was warm
• There was a lovely gift on the bed
• And a book waiting for me to read with a note on it
• She got me a blind date invitation, and made a
• Large note expressing love.

I don't think it gets better than that. Auntie M has pretty much spoiled me for all other houseguest experiences.

Orange County
Day 2: Woke up. Went to Auntie M's room, where I was regaled with stories of Bandit, the awesome stump-tailed Jack Russell Terrier. (I wrote a whole Bandit post, which I will post later.

Then we went to Mimi's for lunch, where they brought cold chowder for Auntie M along with her club sandwich, and I had a pulled pork sandwich that was standard.

Harley Davidson nail polish flower

Rating: 2.5 stars. Fairly standard stuff.

Company: 5 stars.

Then we went to get pedicures. I'd never gotten a pedicure from a man before. He asked me if I wanted a flower, and I said yes. So he gave me one. It kind of reminds me of a Harley Davidson symbol.

Time for a quick church ball game. I'd never seen so many boys play b-ball in Keds. Also, there were a shocking lack of teenage girls there to cheer them on. I remember going to such basketball games and there were always a million girls there...but not at this game. We had steak for dinner, yummy mashed potatoes. Auntie M put some makeup on me. This is what I looked like. Then I went to Farrell's with TH on a blind date. That was interesting. Farrell's mimics old-timey soda shoppes, only they have a new age cheekiness on their menu. It was loud. Every time there was a birthday, they would play a siren really loud and then proceed to sing almost as loudly a birthday song. They had two or three that I heard just in the hour that I was there. Also, they had this amazingly huge concoction that was the size of a really large mixing bowl that had plastic flamingos and palm trees on it and was apparently full of ice cream. They did an elaborate worship dance where they put it on a litter and then literally ran it around the entire restaurant. I'm amazed they didn't trip. The litter dance was accompanied by siren after siren. I think I need my hearing checked. Anyway, I had a good time with TH. We both had banana splits, which were good, but a tad overpriced.

 Rating:  3.5 stars. Five for novelty; minus one for cheek, minus 1/2 for prices.

I had breakfast potatoes and sausage for breakfast, and then took L to Chuck E Cheese: where a kid can be a brat! (instead of just a kid.) I had never been inside a Chuck E Cheese before, and I'm not even a parent, but I can understand why parents would shudder in horror at the very idea of entering such a place. Ever.

Then we went shopping - my first ever time to Kohls-and I bought some stuff but nothing fit the image that Auntie M had in her head. Oh well. Maybe next trip.

A Twip on a Twain

I took the 609 to Union Station. I'd never ridden Metrolink before. It took a shockingly short time to arrive at my destination. I was amazed how many people were there - but I shouldn't have been, because it was 6:00 on a Friday night.

Famima!!

My first stop in LA was at Famima!! Those of you who have not encountered the awesomeness that is Famima!! are really missing out. Yes, two exclamation points. Not one, not three. Just two. And of course I bought ranch corn nuts there, in honor of K-lo. And RJ. But that's another story for another post.

Rating: 4 stars for this location. They didn't have bananas and whipped cream with chocolate shavings wrapped in a large pancake for sale.

Seeing Stars

Then it was K-time! She came to pick me up and we went to Griffith's Observatory We waited in line to see the nebula beneath Orion's belt from a rather large telescope. And I saw Jupiter. I had seen Jupiter before, with my naked little eye, but I guess I always just thought it was an uber bright star and not actually a planet. Look what an education will do for you. Here are some pictures. Sadly, I posed for a picture with this guy and I don't even know who he is. It was one of those things where I thought I would remember but I don't actually.

<---This is how much I would weigh on Mercury. And Mars. I'd weigh 350 on Jupiter and 5 on Pluto.

--->Saturn's rings are kind of blocking the rest of the planets, but the big metal thing is the background, and then the rest of the hanging things are objects (the planets)  scaled to size and distance away from the sun.

 Look at all those lights!  I used to feel so comforted when I flew into LA and saw all the lights. It was like they were winking blinking me home. And that song, "Sometimes I feel like I don't have a partner/sometimes I feel I like my only friend/is the city I live in/the city of Angels/lonely as I am, together we cry that talks about how the city knows him...that song always went through my head right as we were about to touch down. And I do love LA.

This is what I think of when I think of Los Angeles...the view so often given in TV shows - the view (from a different angle) that I saw every day on my way to work. You can see my building in this picture. It's smack in the middle. Then, below, that's where I lived. Seems less glamorous but it was oh so much better than living downtown.

 After our brief educational field trip, K and I went to Father's Office. It was packed, at 10 at night. Who knew. There are no substitutions on the menu. Everything is F.o... Not FO, or F.O. And they get offended if you ask for ketchup with your fries. Rude. All you need to say is, "I'm sorry miss, we don't offer that on the menu." If you wanted a bit of snark, THEN you would say, "I'm sorry miss, we don't allow red sugary goop masquerading as tomato based condiment to come anywhere near our culinary creations." It's a bar, people. Bars should have ketchup. They put gruyere on my burger. I found out I don't like gruyere. :( Especially not on hamburgers. And there was this garlicky mayo-based sauce for the fries. I skipped that part. Which meant I mostly skipped the fries.

Rating: 3.5 stars. Inflexibility on the menu + crowded and no ketchup partially offset the otherwise pretty good burger. Partially my own fault, since I don't like gruyere. 

Then we pretended we were students and went to Diddy Riese - relaxation spot of all UCLA-goers. K and KF both got cookies. I got a cookie sandwich. It was good. We also had to wait in line there. At like 11. I forget that everybody else always stays up later than I do...

Rating: 4.5 stars. Excellent price. Really good ice cream. Cookies were a bit blond for me. 

The next morning, we went to the Griddle Cafe for breakfast. And put makeup on in the car. Typical of us.

And K got hot chocolate. --->
And I got Mother's French Toast. The most popular thing on the menu. I can see why it was popular. Usually I'm not much of a FT buff but this was amazing. I am glad I ordered it instead of a giant plate of pancakes. Seriously, all the pancakes covered the entire plate. I got a side of eggs because I didn't want a sugar crash. K told us a story about how she went to school with the Kardashians and Kim K. pushed my K's friend into the bushes over a dispute over a drama class assignment. It was kind of funny, though I feel sorry for K's friend. And the bush.

Next Stop: HOLLYWOOD

I have officially arrived!

Our first stop was the Chinese Theatre. Also known as Grauman Theatre, after Sid Grauman, the uber rich guy who owned it. Or maybe he wasn't rich...but he was apparently at the top of Who's Who in Hollywood for a really long time. I actually think I saw his burial site when I went to Forest Lawn, but that's coming up later.

Chinese Theater lion, Frank Sinatra, and Julie Andrews

Then we took pictures. Me with a bunch of people's footprints: Tom Hanks, Denzell Washington, Danny Kaye, Arnold, etc. I also got one with the Harry Potter people that looks like it was really for Michael Jackson. K had to take the picture like that because the Twilight people are there, just above the HPs, and I couldn't have them sullying my picture! I also got my picture taken in front of the Chinese lion with Julie Andrews and Frank Sinatra. K also got her picture taken, with Shirley Temple and Marilyn Monroe. I think Shirley was the only one to have bare footprints. Natalie Wood, for example, was wearing stilettos. She had uber tiny feet. Just for the record.
Guys dressed up as Darth Vader, and Superman (he did look like Chris Reeves but older and not with as great of a smile...and fake muscles. I don't dig fake muscles unless they're in cartoons that my friend Jonners wrote me when I was in ninth grade) will let you take your picture with them if you give them a dollar. They do not ever give freebies. K also paid twenty-seven cents for a wannabe rappers CD. He was struck by her beauty and pretty much told her she was gorgeous about ten times. Oh, Hollywood!

Now comes perhaps my favorite shot of the trip: the uber cheesy travel agent postcard pose. My eyes were watering so bad when she took this photo. It was cute, she led me up and around and around and around and told me not to look...and then I looked. And there it was, right there in front of me: the Hollywood sign.



























Then I took a picture pretending to be an elephant..and of El Capitan Theatre...and of Michael Jackson's star on the starwalk. We didn't walk along far enough to see stars of other people...but some of the people I did see on the star walk, I was really surprised that their "contributions" merited a star. I  practically deserve a star by the metrics they were using! (Imho.)

Next, we went to the Grove. I wish I'd looked around more, but things got a bit hectic. It reminded me a bit of Pike Place...without the fish, and more truly outside. We went to Anthropologie and K bought a really cute apron. At first I thought it was a dress, but then I was like, "Wait. This dress has no back. But it's so cute! What is it?" and of course K had to explain what it was. We watched the bubble men and took pictures on the bench while we tried not to freeze. (It was a little chilly out.)

This is us, showing our shopping selves:

I met an old coworker, RJ, for Starbucks. He claimed it was cold. Do you see a jacket on me?!? I'm not saying he's wrong, I'm just saying where I come from, we appreciate weather like SoCal's.

Black beans, wet style. Always.

After that, I went south to visit K-Lo. We went out to dinner and I had the most gigantic burrito I ever saw in LA. I'm not sure exactly the name of where we went, but I'll give you a rating anyway:

Rating: 4.0 Really good portion sizes, good sauce, and a lot of bang for your buck. Cons were that there was no place for six people to sit. 

All the tables were different heights and shapes (round vs rectangular) so you couldn't effectively even shove two tables together! Oh well, I enjoyed it anyway. 

Her husband and two kids came along. I had a good time - just like the old days, when we worked together. She's still my sistah, and always will be.

Phew. That's enough for Part I.

Sneak peek for Part II: Venice Beach, more excellent food, and Forest Lawn!