Life of Wry

I am so losing the desk battle.  For now, this is why I can’t write.  Can barely think.  Even if I make the time, I have a cluttered mind.  Obviously.

First orders of business: 1) unpack;  2) put shit away.

Then: write.

Actually, this is Redondo Beach, along Catalina Ave.  Someone made a great decision when they decided to plant tall, skinny palm trees along this piece of road, wouldn’t you agree?

More scenic is the Esplanade, one block to the west, a 3-mile stretch of shoreline between Torrance and the Redondo Beach Pier.  Perfect for walking dogs, it would seem.  The Avenues of Redondo Beach tee at the Esplanade, and long, sandy ramps take you from road to water level.  Easy beach access, miles of sand.  Ice plant covers the slope, seagulls soar… it’s gorgeous.

From the Esplanade, looking south, is my favorite view of the peninsula.  I’m partial to this side of Palos Verdes–Malaga Cove, the Plaza, the PV Pool, the Neighborhood Church, the dense eucalyptus, the red tile roofs, and Rat Beach–cuz, obviously, I grew up there.  Looking at the hill, you can’t see the houses in our neighborhood (for the trees), but you can see where our house is (a wee bit above the red convertible, below).

Here’s the view a little to the right.. Catalina Island is on the horizon, hiding in the glare.

Anyway… yeah, it’s beautiful.  See ya next time.

Though we celebrated mom’s 82nd birthday last Saturday, today was the actual day.  It was a really pretty day for the beach, so after breakfast, we decided to go for a walk.

I believe she’s pointing to the top of the ramp… since hiking down and up this thing is a significant accomplishment these days.  This is the ramp at Avenue I.

We’d eaten at CJ’s on Catalina Ave.

A little out of control laughing is a good thing. This jag went on for a while, so I finally took a picture.

It’s been an efficient weekend of celebrations.  Five kids honoring two moms at two meals on two occasions.

Here, at the head of the table, with syrup poised over Jim’s famous french toast, and flanked by her four kids, is mom–guest of honor for the second straight meal in a row.  (Little bit of a bummer, if you’re a mom, to have your birthday and Mother’s Day so close together.)  For this celebration she shared guest of honor honors with me, at the other head of the table, half flanked by my own offspring.  (It is not a bummer, I’m told, to share Mother’s Day with your daughter, who is also celebrating Mother’s Day.)

We celebrated my mom’s birthday tonight.

She was born Ina Claire Abrams on May 9, 1929, in San Francisco.  In her heart, she’s still a city girl, and in particular, that city.  She grew up in the Marina, just down the street from the Palace of Fine Arts.  She says that back then, it was a very working class part of town.  She was a scrappy, street wise girl who grew up fast as an only child.  She said her parents were so in love with each other, they didn’t really have much left for her.

She hardened early.

She graduated from San Jose State and I’m sure she would have gone far with a career.  She worked for a short time as a buyer in a department store and loved fashion.  She did a little modeling, too.  But she dropped everything in favor of marrying my dad, and after he graduated from business school they moved to LA.  He got in on the ground floor of the aerospace boom and focused most (if not all) of his attention on executive life, leaving her to raise four kids pretty much on her own.  This was not an unusual arrangement in the 50s and 60s, and it was not a horrible life by any stretch.  Kids kept her busy and she found ways to adjust to suburbia–she was my brownie leader, she ran the little league snack shack, she joined bridge groups and played a lot of tennis.  She always found respite in reading and crossword puzzles, and enjoyed cocktail hour with the neighbors.  She wasn’t a typical suburban joiner, but she had a lot of friends.  Which was good, because my dad wasn’t all that available.  In any sense of the word.

I can’t help but wonder who and what she might have become had she stayed in San Francisco and followed her own dreams.   She’s strong willed, has a wicked sense of humor, and is damn smart. If she’d have been recognized, valued and loved, who knows?   One thing’s certain: if she hadn’t married my dad and moved to LA, she’d never have become a republican.  I have to say, I’ve really enjoyed, in the ten years since my dad died, her gradual but steady swing to the left.  To me, it has seemed a way for her to reclaim a small but important part of her original self.

Anyway, it was a good birthday celebration.  She’s a good sport and a lot of fun.  A couple of times tonight, I caught her looking reflective and I wondered what she was thinking.   I know she deserved a whole lot more from some really key people in her life, but she’s not one to dwell on that.  My mom has always been a suck it up kind of person.  I just hope, on balance, she’s happy with her life, her choices, and the way things have gone.

She deserves that.

Nothing says airport like miles and miles of sensible carpet.  Airports are the Dr. Sholls of the floor covering world.  Or something like that.  (May have to work on my metaphors.)

This is a probably a better good morning airport shot.

Not complaining, but:

1) Found myself without a bit of cash this morning. I’m sorry Skycab, sir; you were really nice considering the hour, and I appreciate the curbside service (so much), and next time I’ll have a tip, because that was lame of me.

2) When did that great little coffee place in the Southwest terminal close down? I am pleased (enough) to see that La Bou is Coming Soon, but that doesn’t get me a cup of coffee now. (Related: thanks, Starbucks, for being so ubiquitous, even if I had to hike a ways to find you.)

3) Mr. ATM machine (I recognize the redundancy): What do you mean my debit card has expired?  Um.. really?  Do you know how much money I just transferred into my account this week? Ask Sandy at First Northern.  Really.  Ask her.  (Related: thanks, Starbucks, for the nice big balance I still had on my Starbucks card, that was kind of a life saver this morning.)

‘k, bye.

Where I ate lunch today.  How ’bout that?

The first time I ate there, the significance of the decor and the posters hanging all over the restaurant were lost on me.  Today, probably to the mild annoyance of my lunch mate, I recognized (and felt compelled to point out) all the sights and images that were now totally familiar.

“That’s Ama Dablam! I stared at that mountain for days!” “Oh, that’s that Kumari goddess, she’ll revert to a mere mortal as soon as she gets her period, she waved at us from her window, no kidding.” “That’s the view from Kalapatthar, one of the more famous, though definitely not the best, places for viewing Everest!” 

And so on.

I was equally obnoxious at the buffet table:

“Oh, I remember this stuff, it was my favorite dessert!” “Ah, yes, we’d put this sauce on our momos!” “Nice to see they have goat meat, that’s sooo typical.”

Yeah.  You probably shouldn’t go to Namaste Nepal with me for a while. Karen was a good sport.  Even as I drew maps of our trek all over the placemat.

Still, I recommend it.. great food.  Especially the goat.

In the next installment of I Don’t Know Anything About Anything, we have this conversation:

Jim: [eagerly] When was the last time you saw a silver certificate?

Me: What?

Jim: A silver certificate.  When was the last time you came across one?

Me: What?

Jim: [insistent] C’mon Kari, you know, silver certificates they were like dollars, but redeemable for silver.

Me: Never.  No idea what you’re talking about.

Jim: Really?

Me: [blank stare]

Jim: This, look, see?  It says silver certificate across the top.

Me: It looks like a dollar.

Jim: It IS a dollar, but it’s also redeemable for silver, it says right here, look.

Me: How would a person ever know that?  It looks like a dollar.

Jim: It says right here [he says again, pointing, again, at the words Silver Certificate]. It’s the 1957 series. And look, the color of the seal is blue, and the writing here is different than on a standard federal reserve note.

Me: What’s a federal reserve note?

Jim: [gives me that raised eyebrow look]

Me: Where’d this come from?

Jim: Peter found it at the ball park.

Me: And he didn’t immediately spend it on candy?  Wait, how’d he know it was something special?

Jim: He looked at it.  He could see it was different.

Me: What? Peter?  It looks like a dollar.  It IS a dollar.  How come he didn’t spend it?!

Jim then starts to tell me how they came about, and how people would redeem them, and how there were a lot of them circulating when we were kids in the 60s.  He pulls out a real dollar (emphasis mine) and goes into great detail about the differences in design.  Which, I say, yes, I can do the comparison when they’re side by side.  I can see that that is blue and that is green.. yeah, yeah.. but who’d notice that?!

The conversation pretty much ended with that.

I ask myself, every time I walk from our house to the coop, especially during the spring, especially along 6th Street: Why would anyone want to live anywhere else in Davis but in the core?

Really, it’s by far the loveliest this town has to offer.

Walked out of a meeting tonight at Harper Junior High and saw the tail end of a lenticular (or lenticular-like) cloud formation.  (Lenticular clouds are those rounded edge things that look like spaceships.) Did my best to capture it with my phone.

Pretty, huh?