Sting*

The dictionary has three or four different instances. Including injecting small amounts of poison, feel/cause sharp pain, or upset somebody. But my definition sums them all up:

(verb) Definition: acute pain felt immediately after an encounter.

A few examples:
bee, yellow jacket, or wasp spike
dirt flung in your eye at high speed
blunt, unexpected rejection
knife bite from a cooking mishap

Note: Cutting up onions, sunburns, big fights, and mosquito bites don't count; they're in an entirely different class because they lack the immediacy factor. In such cases, yes, they all still hurt, but they usually get worse before they get better.

*Not the Paul Newman movie, not the Police frontman.

Day Tripper

Took a day trip recently to the Olympic peninsula. It was...beautiful. In a way, it was different than what I was expecting. But 'west side' Washington fed my soul in a way that hadn't been fed in awhile. Driving along, it reminded me of the trip I made when I moved here almost exactly two years ago.

The day started with a stop at the gas station in Poulsbo. The population of Poulsbo is just shy of 10,000. For some reason, I thought it was more than that.

I bought corn nuts, water, and a map. All essential traveling elements. (Thanks, Dad, for introducing me to Corn Nuts. Thanks, K-lo, for keeping the love for them alive. Thanks, mom, for giving me an appreciation for H2O, and thank you everybody who helped me learn to love maps.)

Hood Canal floating bridge @ Termination Point

I wish I could show you - I tracked our progress with special map markers. Maybe if I ever got a scanner I could upload it. Hmmm. I brought along the camera because I wanted to show off what it could do. My friend Ridj drove so I could lean out the window and take all the pictures you are about to see.

PS before the actual picture: I am very impressed with what my little $150 camera* (blog post in the making) can do. Just watch:

Look. Not very blurry, yes? Seriously, I just pressed the button. I was trying to capture something else, and when it didn't work and I got this sign in my sights instead, I just laughed and thought, if I were driving, that's what my tire tracks would look like.  Above, see three other examples of what my camera can do at 60 mph. I'm impressed.

And then, because I wasn't sure if my eyes were playing tricks on me, we stopped on the other side to take a pic or two. Look at that bridge! 

Right: Termination Point

But we weren't terminated...we veered off toward the 19. We meant to go somewhere else to see a lighthouse, but we ended up going to...drumroll...


Bucket List Item #1: Port Townsend instead.

Then we passed a tilty barn that wasn't a Pea in the Barn barn, or a Bill Peet barn...it was just...a tilty barn. And that's why I took a picture of it. I love my new camera!!



Left: Industry. Ridj is smiling because he thinks industry is the meaning of life.  I really like how the steam just rises up into the clouds in the horizon until you can't tell which is which.

Right: Dry Boats. = former industry? Future industry? Either way, coming from the desert, it is weird to see so many boats. And since there is water, it makes it weirder to see them while they're dry.

Right: Hometown Pride

Apparently being 2A high school state baseball champions was the last Big Thing to happen in town. Part of me thinks that's really cool. Also cool that the town thought it was cool enough to put up a We Are Awesome sign.

Right & Left: Downtown Port Townsend...from within the car. There are a lot of pretty, old buildings in the downtown area. It's also full of little specialty shops that are the hallmark of tourist towns. There are also some quaint houses. 







Left: Pseudo Lighthouse. That is to say, it was a house, and it was made to look like a lighthouse. Hence why I thought it actually *was* the lighthouse.

It's really pretty, and probably some rich person who loves lighthouses built it to mimic. They did a good job - it fooled me.

I was so excited!

But...it wasn't the real lighthouse. The real one is Port Wilson.  Ridj, who knows more  about the sea than I do, said we should drive around a bit. (Meaning, he wasn't fooled, but he was too polite to say that I was easily hoodwinked.) So we did. And we found the real deal.  I got close enough to touch it.

My first real lighthouse!

Left: New (functioning) lighthouse. I like the aesthetics of the old one better! As Harrison Ford/Linus Larraby said, "What kind of guy takes a job in a lighthouse?"

This is one of the prettiest things I've seen all year. I wish I'd taken a picture of the whole tree so you could see the awesome shimmery effect it had. Those regrets go right up there with no pic of Mt. Shasta and no pic of the Seahorse Tree. :( :( all the way around. But at least you could see that my camera, in some respects, acts like a DSLR. In other respects, it does not.

See my attempt to focus on the berry below. It was totally awesome and in a kind of weird way reminded me of a fat-bodied spider. Don't be grossed out, it is a friendly spider. And fat, so it won't want to bite you. But you can see that a DSLR would have been handy...

Lighthouse #2: Dungeness

Apparently this is new (ish). It was crazy - you could see over to Canada from some places. (!)


Bucket List Item #2:
Dungeness Spit

Here is my first view (on camera). Of course, again, here's where a DSLR would have come in handy. Or making a panoramic picture. The spit is approx 6 miles long. It's really truly awesome, as you will see later.

We walked down to the spit - it's about a ten minute walk. We didn't walk all the way down. The rocks were hissing at each other as they tumbled over and over, climbing each other like so many kids in one tub...


We weren't the only people there (as you can also see.) One of them took a pic of us on a huge old log.


Poor Ridj, my balance was awful so I was grabbing on to him to keep my balance.

Bucket List Item #3: Hurricane Ridge.

This is aptly named. 

Left: Here is the tunnel.

 It got crazier and crazier  as we went up the hill.
At the bottom, it was green and nice. Then:

Right: Fast-moving mist. It reminded me of Caradhras, in the Misty Mountains. Or maybe I'm getting my Middle-Earth geography mixed up. In any case, it was quite impressive. And cold.
   Then it was a mist blanket. 
And then there was snow on the side of the road.
   Then, you could see the snow line clearly. (Left)
Then, there was snow in the air.

Then, we couldn't see anything except snow if it was more than ten feet in front of us. We got out to explore. We were underprepared.

Below: Ridj is using me as a windshield. 

It was colder than cold, and the wind was swirling around us. I couldn't hear what Ridj was saying to me. We got out and then ice crystals started to pelt us from all directions at thirty miles an hour. We were outside under a minute and I definitely got windburn. Here (right) is a picture of the "view" at the top, where all the skiers were retreating. (The retreat of the skiers was definitely a sign to turn around and go back. Not being stupid, we heeded it and after our 90 second adventure, we did just that.)

 Right: Here's what I looked like immediately after. You can't really see from the picture how hard the wind was blowing. Trust me, it was hard.

The weather was definitely on the downward spiral on our way down the hill. (Below.)

 

Then we drove back through Port Angeles. I wish I'd gotten a picture of the golden elephant, but I was way too tired to even think about pulling my camera out at that point. I needed food and a bed! 

We hadn't eaten a very large lunch, and we were hungry! We both wanted to eat at a diner. We walked into one place and waited around for a couple of minutes and they didn't even try to come and seat us. So we left. Also, it wasn't *just* what I had in mind. 

Highway 101 Diner definitely was. It had the old-fashioned juke box, homemade pie, and, yeah, it was gooood. 

We both got the bbq burger. 

    Rating: 4.25 stars. Food: good. Burger was juicey...didn't taste like McDonald's. It tasted /real./ Service: she forgot my cole slaw side, but quickly remedied the situation when I reminded her. Location: Right on Hwy 101. Easy to find. 

(Ridj got the sweet potato fries and the milkshake. I ate some of his fries. And some of the milkshake.)

And then when we had stuffed ourselves, we drove all the way home.

THE END

Bandit

This dog was awesome. He was rescued from some teenage miscreants who were bent on his destruction by my aunt's brother, who was half their size. (Let's just say that's the reason why he only had half a tail.) He had markings of a bandanna - like a bandit - on his face. This dog was known all over several neighborhoods. Everybody knew his name. He loved to play, and would play fetch for hours. He'd go into the closet and chew open a tennis ball canister if there were no balls to play with. He would also do the job of fetch and carry for the kids. Auntie M said if the kids put the groceries away strategically, all they'd have to say was, "Bandit! Go get a can!" and he'd go down to the food storage and nose a can of food off one of the lower shelves. Chances are, their mom had asked them to get a can of tomato sauce or tuna fish, so they'd put them on the lower shelves. If he brought up the wrong can, they'd just say it to him again, and odds were, he'd bring up the right type of can so they wouldn't have to do it. This dog was also like a homing pigeon. Auntie M grew up in Orem and one night her brother took the dog on a Boy Scout camping trip up Mt. Timpanogos. At dinnertime, the boys noticed that Bandit was gone. They looked and looked, but to no avail. No Bandit. Her brother felt sick, thinking a cougar had gotten him. They went home, and lo and behold, there was Bandit, sitting on the front porch. He had walked miles, all night, to get home. If he got bored, he'd just go home. He always knew how to get there. He was part homing pigeon!



You Can Teach an Old Dog New Tricks: Sometimes Bandit was a bad dog. One time he had gotten ahold of a kitten and was the means of its demise. Auntie M's mom got really mad and chased him around with a broom yelling at him, telling him how inappropriate his behavior was and what a bad dog he'd been. He sulked for hours. But he never did it again. In fact, years later, Auntie M's dad and his crew of kids were in their big car and were pulling in the driveway when all of a sudden Bandit dashed in front of the car, a little white streak. He wouldn't move out of the driveway. Auntie M's dad got out of the car to see what was making Bandit be so stubborn, and there was a cat and her brand new litter of kittens exactly in the path where the tire would have gone. Another time, Auntie M's mom was putting away the hide-away bed - the old fashioned kind that you fold up and then insert into the couch - and she'd left the sheets on. Bandit immediately started barking and barking and standing at attention by the couch. Auntie M's mom was curious - what was Bandit being so insistent about? She could have just left it but she didn't. She started pulling out cushions, and there was no indication of what Bandit might be after. Finally, she took the bed out again because Bandit would not stop barking. It turns out that their cat had been hidden in the sheets and was probably so surprised that she had no time to make any noise, and had no air with which to meow later. Bandit knew she was there, and saved her life. So you see, you can teach old dogs new tricks.

Bandit also apparently was a good dad. One time, he insistently barked and barked at one of Auntie M's brothers and gestured for him to follow. Bandit took him two miles across town, and waited while Auntie M's brother awkwardly tried to figure out what was going on. The lady of the house came out and said, "Are you Bandit's owner?" When the answer came back affirmative, she showed him to the backyard, where there was a litter of puppies just a few days old. Bandit was a proud daddy and wanted to show off his springoffs (as my dad would say). 


Sadly, Bandit would eat almost anything...and one day, it turned out to be his ruin. The neighbor, Mr. L, hated Bandit, and always claimed that Bandit did his dirty business in Mr L's yard. One day, the mean old man actually put a shovel full of dog droppings that were far too large to be Bandit's doing on the front porch. That made Auntie M's mom mad. (Go figure.) Anyway, Bandit was poisoned, and it was a sad way for an awesome dog to go. Auntie M suspects Mr. L had something to do with it. But at least he had a good long life first.

Gold and Green and Brown

On St. Patrick's Day, I went to a party.
I made Irish Soda Bread.
It went over very well.
I watched Darby O'Gill and the Little People. Who knew Sean Connery ever had brown hair?
I wore green.
Then, I went to the Gold and Green Ball.
I didn't wear gold. Or green. Neither did pretty much anybody else. A lot of people did wear jeans, though, which I thought was odd, considering it was advertised as a 'formal dance.' I thought it was so weird, and a little depressing. "Och, the ways of the young!" and all of that.

This is what I wore.  <---

As you can see,  for the first time in almost ten years, I decided to do something new with my 'accessories.' -->

Also, my very inebriated neighbors invited me over for a drink. They met me in the elevator with my Irish Soda Bread leftovers, wearing my formal. I must have looked a little unusual. I went and had an ice water, much to the disappointment of at least one of them. He kept trying..."Just one li'l shot of vodka. Look, it's even in a pretty shamrock glass." Much to the amusement of his friends, I steadfastly refused, and they were like, "Dude, you're embarrassing yourself and getting nowhere with her. Just leave off already." It was kind of funny. Anyway, the point is that I went over with a plan in mind: to have them eat said leftover Irish soda bread. The plan worked like a charm.

Tongues and Dentists and Sunday School, Oh My!

Last week I went to the dentist. He told me that like 5-10% of the adult population of the world, I have a weird "tongue thrust" that makes me look weird when I swallow. (I am between 5-10% of the population in so many categories, especially medically, that it seriously boggles my mind that I could be outside the standard deviation in so many ways.)

It also complicates my life greatly because my orthodontist had to put a lingual bar across my top teeth, really high up close to my gumline, so that my teeth wouldn't move when said muscle thrust its way toward the top of my mouth.

Furthermore, it means that for whatever reason, I swallow down the wrong tube more often than it seems anybody else ever does and therefore I am always eye-watering and trying to contain myself (usually it happens at public events, like work dinners, banquets, or dates), failing miserably, until I can swallow more stuff and soothe the passage and make it all go away.

Anyway, I was thinking about tongues, and it hearkened me back (yes I know that doesn't make sense; I am going to create a new colloquialism) to the time when I was either seven or nine (can't remember which). I was in Sunday School, and there were two or three of us that had the answers more regularly and wanted to share even more regularly than we knew the correct answers in the class. Everybody else just seemed like they were there to either moon about or socialize. Sometimes, socialize meanly. Occasionally, nicely. We are people, so that is how it goes. But I digress (as usual).

I remember that Bishop T was our teacher. He'd just been let go of his official duties, and got stuck teaching the little kids. I wonder if he was overwhelmed or if he had requested the assignment. In any case I think that handling seven (there were fourteen of us, so we had to be split into two classes) inquisitive minds (or even three) is a lot of work.

As a side note, one time, for Christmas, he invited us over to his house and we had gargantuan banana splits. I had never had a bona fide banana split before. It was glorious. He even had the cherries!!! (I don't like cherries, but it totally blew my mind that banana splits could be so fancy. Heretofore, "fancy" was getting bubble-gum flavored ice cream at Baskin Robbins.)

Anyway! Back to Sunday School. He was trying to teach us a lesson. He asked us which muscle in the body was the strongest. Me, being who I am, immediately piped up (most likely without raising my hand) and said that the uterus was the strongest muscle.  (I think I really meant myometrium, but I wasn't that advanced yet.) How could anything else compare to something that was strong enough to push a baby into the world? It was indisputable logic; however, it was not the logic he was looking for. He immediately started to interject, to guide us to his point. He began by saying, gently, "No, it's the tongue that's the strongest."

I started to doubt myself. After all, I knew that muscles had to be exercised in order to get stronger. How could a uterus be strong if it had never been exercised before? I had never exercised *my* uterus, so I wasn't sure. But then one of the other "always knows the answer" kids agreed with me. (He knew more of the details than I did, but suffice it to say, the lesson plan was completely derailed within the blink of an eye.)

Poor Bishop T. His point, of course, was that tongues can be vicious, and can hurt more than anything else. Sticks and stones, and all of that. I don't remember. All I remember was the muscle talk.

My dentist sure thinks my tongue is strong. He said, "That's why I can't take the lingual bar off your teeth - your tongue is such a strong muscle that it will move your teeth." I don't have kids, so my uterus hasn't been tested, but I bet it's pretty strong, too.

XYB, PDQ

On Monday, I woke up and thought I was going to immediately expire from the sheer exhaustion that overcame me as soon as I opened my eyes. I struggled into my clothes, and made it to work in a moderately timely fashion.

On Tuesday, I woke up and wished that I could just have five more minutes...so I took five more minutes of precious sleep time. And then five more. And then five more. And then I had to get out of bed. I blearily selected my outfit, thinking that my standard of slacks and a button down shirt would suffice. So that's what I wore. I went to work and felt better by the time I arrived. (Something about endorphins...) Typing along, fact-checking, etc., was fine until I decided to use the ladies room and walked in. Normally I don't look at myself in the mirror but this time I did and it was probably a good thing because the bottom button of my shirt wasn't buttoned. Oops. So I remedied the situation and continued with my normal routine.

On Wednesday, I don't think my alarm went off at all. Or rather, it did, but it was in another room, so I woke up in a panic...and I wish I could say I immediately shot out of bed when I saw that my body's alarm clock was approximately 30 minutes after my physical alarm clock was set to go off, but I did not. It took about three minutes for me to haul myself out of the warm cave of covers I had built myself. I started to prepare lunch but then remembered I hadn't gotten dressed yet, so I took care of that, then finished, and trundled out the door only to find that it was snowing. And then it started snowing sideways. I was feeling a mite underprepared, wondering if this would turn into a full-on blizzard. (It didn't.) But when I got to work, I went to fill my water bottle up but for some reason I decided to stop off at the bathroom first to wash my hands. Again, it was a good thing that I did, and that I looked in the mirror, because today, I had gotten sidetracked and forgotten to button the last two buttons of my shirt. I sighed and used the skill I learned when I was about three years old, rolled my eyes, and drank my water.

On Thursday, I woke up early squirrelly for a pre-work dentist appointment. (No cavities...yay!) and decided that I better wear a shirt without buttons on it, just to be on the safe side. Two buttons might go undetected while I was sitting at my desk, but my brain was awake enough to realize that if the pattern continued, three buttons would *not* go unnoticed. (Who knows how many buttons I would have forgotten, since I left my house before 7am.!) The no-button thing worked out pretty well for me that day. Well enough that I tried the same tactic on Friday, with equal success.

Maybe next week I'll go back to buttons...

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!!