Life of Wry

I’m liking this out and about stuff.

I’m already regretting that I arranged only a single night with Matty and Michael. I think I could build a nice life around cocktail hour, a large plate of cheesy aps, long leisurely conversations around a dinner table, the total absence of pretense (one can be oneself around one’s little brothers) and, combining the last two, the kind of conversations that come with the shared experience of growing up and the knowing and understanding that comes with that. Adding to that–a bit of a bonus–the delight that there remain a good hunk of shared values and, for example, that we all hate trump. (That last part was gratuitous… true, but gratuitous.)

Well… maybe I over romanticize cocktails and aps (and old movies and thick mounds of down and pillows on the guest bed), and maybe I couldn’t quite make a life out of it… but it was totally fun and I missed it, missed them, missed the beaches and the southland and the eucalyptus trees. One day was too short with the M&Ms — as mom called them — and I expect now, with covid precautions easing, there will be more trips.

Okay. So.

Rose on Tuesday morning to the sound of Michael making coffee and yelling at the dogs (lovingly, both). Stumbled in and got my mugful, with flavored cream (but of course) .. chatted breezily about the day/s ahead, wandered through the garden and ummm-ummmmed over all Michael’s new flowers (their garden fussiness pays huge dividends). Ooohed ignorantly over their latest vintage car acquisition — a 69 Mercedes something with original everything.

A couple pics:

When Matt got back from physical therapy (this is a big deal and suggests great progress on his muscle-attacking-autoimmune front), the three of us went to breakfast — a vestige of the beforetimes and so .. normal. Hung out a bit, and then I took off to see Bev and Anne. Learned (or relearned) that she also has multiple myeloma (didn’t realize that was the cancer she was dealing with, which is, of course, the cancer that Michael–and Chad–has been fighting/treating all year).

It was such a lovely visit! Bev’s the last of the tri-family parental generation and I’m grateful to be having the chance to spend more time with her (and all the Osbornes and Hesses) in recent years.

Here we are…

Took the long way to PV, via the new gabillion-dollar bridge at the Long Beach/LA Port, averted my eyes as I passed the former, one-term president’s golf course and made my way down to our old house to check out their remodeling progress. Parked in front of the Walter’s old house and ambled up the alley to ours. Had to climb the Bacon’s fence to see the back-forty, since the new owners have put up a very tall fence with no gaps whatsoever. They have removed the brick steps, graded the terrace into a rolling slope and are building a pool (damn.. why didn’t we think of that?). It was a bit hard to hold a long pose since I was wrapped around a chain link fence.. instead, I went to the other side, and just extended my phone over the top of the fence and shot blindly.. this is what I got:

After that little nostalgia tour, I checked into the cottage on Ave A and took the requisite walk on the Esplanade and dropped down to the sand for a while (it was a short one as it was incredibly windy.. additional pics on a later day). Seemed as though no time had even passed…

A great way to wrap a relaxed day… dinner with Betsy at the Blue Water Grill.. Grey Goose w/ two olives, hot sour dough bread, grilled swordfish, scalloped potatoes, sauteed spinach… all my faves… and I think we shared a key lime pie. 🙂

Nothing not to love to pieces.