Life of Wry

Left Matt and Michael’s this morning to begin part 2 of the Southland visit..

Cruised through downtown LB… this is along Ocean Blvd

And over the new bridge down in the port, the one you cross just before the Vincent Thomas Bridge that takes you into San Pedro. Seems like we were watching its construction for years and years, and now it’s finally done, and it’s pretty cool. It was a grey shot, made blurry by rain, so I goofed around with it (using Prism):

By the time I hit the peninsula, the sky started to clear. I love entering PV via this route (while flipping the bird as I drive past the trump golf course).

Some good ocean views from the road.. the clouds were breaking up, but the seas were churning!

Then the E-ticket ride that is the eroding Palos Verdes Dr. South…

I had about a half an hour to kill before meeting Carol G. Negier for lunch at Lunada Bay… so stopped at Pt. Vicente for a quick walk:

It was fiercely windy!

Really enjoyed seeing Carol again. She wasn’t someone I knew well in high school — different circles — but is someone I’ve gotten to know fairly well since about 6 or 7 years ago. Lives in Paris and we’ve visited her there (fancy fancy). She’s managing details of her mom’s transition from her house in PV to an assisted living place down in Torrance. After lunch Carol showed me around her mom’s house (nice, classic mid-century PV house). After that I spent some time at Chris’s, then headed down to my Ave A cottage in Redondo to settle in.

Stopped first to enjoy the Esplanade in stormy mode:

I can’t tell you how much I love the two little beach cottages I rotate between when staying in Redondo.. one on Ave A, one on Ave C. Modest, but cozy and close to the Esplanade. Can’t get enough of that view, the walk, the long stretches of bench-sitting. I remember my mom saying the same thing.. that she could sit on those benches and look at that view forever. The vast horizon, the air, the peace she felt.

I agree.

One thing I’ve really loved in the last five or six years or so, is getting to know Long Beach. When mom was still alive, my trips to Southern California were largely limited to Palos Verdes. Especially in later years, she was reluctant to venture too far from home and really, truth be told, wanted me to herself. So we pretty much hung out, just the two of us.. maybe an occasional brother. And of course Betsy was always on the approved guest list. Lol.

Now that mom’s off to new adventures, I still come down here — twice a year’s been the pattern — and my radius is still small… never venture beyond the South Bay and Long Beach. Mostly, it’s to see the M&Ms and Chris (and now Pam). I am never able to complete my rounds. John, Alexis and kiddos are a must if all schedules align, and Betsy’s still on the visit list.. and an inconsistent smattering of other family. I got some great time with Aunt Ellie before she died (and after mom’s passing), which was pretty great. Truth is, a week is never enough and I ALWAYS drive home thinking I must return sooner, or stay longer next time.

But back to Long Beach. I am developing a pretty good sense of what’s where and how the neighborhoods lay out. I like Long Beach a lot. Very multi-cultural, lots of economic diversity, a ton of culture and restaurants. I spend a lot of time eating out and driving to and from one neighborhood or another.

Today was one of those. Started early this morning with a two-hour visit with John in his new abode, which is right on the traffic circle — a Long Beach landmark, FWIW — close to his mom, new girlfriend, work, and main arterial to Torrance where his kids are during the week. I love my nephew so much and am always so impressed with his work ethic, devotion to his family, and his boundless capacity for juggling life. He’s been working hard to create a home out of his (rather large) apartment and a place in which his kids can feel comfortable and loved.

I felt a little invasive taking pictures of his place, but got a few.. this one is John standing in the kids’ room (which is large and has a triple bunk bed and lots of activity areas):

Here are some other pictures from today..

Drove to Betsy’s (where she’s starting the daunting process of sorting through her mom’s stuff), then we headed over to Anne’s to pick her up to go to lunch. This is Anne, Chris and Betsy in front of Anne’s place — a massive renovation in process:

After a great lunch at, where else, Joe Jost’s (pickled egg, hot-dog-embedded-with-pickle-on-rye, pretzels, beer), Betsy and I drove to the top of Signal Hill.. shockingly, a landmark I’d always seen but never ascended!

Completely surprising to me, Signal Hill is an incorporated city with a very upscale neighborhood on top. You can walk a lovely promenade and get fantastic views of the entire LA Basin (this is looking north). Especially gorgeous on a day like today.

You can see the skyline of downtown LA, with the San Gabriel Mountains behind.. maybe some bit of the Santa Monica Mountains to the left (west).

Signal Hill was (is?) one of the richest oil fields in North America.. so you see a lot of oil rigs. Everywhere. It’s so interesting. Here’s a monument to the oil drillers, and an explanation.

At the tippy top, there is a park with views to the east, west and south. This is Palos Verdes (the hill) to the west.

The top is where you’ll also see the structures for which the hill is named:

Betsy and me at the top, wandering around reading all the directional plaques and history markers…

We ended the evening having dinner with Matt at Captain Jack’s (est 1965) a traditional fish and steakhouse on PCH in Sunset Beach. Had an exceptional dinner, made more so by the fact I ate my first (yep) escargot. Never need to repeat that. It was garlicky and buttery and extremely tasty, but it was a snail, so, you know. Not doing it again.

Also on our dinner table (at one point or another): artichokes, great bread, sushi, swordfish, crab legs, filet mignon, cocktails and vino. Skipped dessert, if you can believe it.

Settling in for a few days with Matt. Always (always) easy and fun. Breakfast was a Peterson staple: sourdough toast with butter and peanut butter. Then at a lazy pace, mobilized ourselves and Matt and I hit the beach for a walk…(Michael busied himself with his full (always) list of chores).

We’d invited Betsy, Chris & Pam, and Victor & Debbie to dinner so had some errands to run, including a stop (my first) at the famous Beef Palace in Huntington Beach. Whatta trip. There were several life-sized statues of cows out front. Inside, recognizable music from TV westerns played (like Bonanza, for example) and a huge staff of men in red and white checkered shirts were available to fill your meat order. It’s a cash only establishment and the cash registers are the old fashioned kind with large round push buttons and a drawer that opens with a loud ding.

Matt picked out three long racks of short ribs. I bought some cheese for appetizers. The place carries all kinds of accoutrements (pricy). If you’re into meat, it’s a great place to go.

Picked up a few more things at another store, then returned home and Matt commenced to prepare the ribs:

He covered the slabs with an herb mix, and used most of a bottle of inexpensive bbq sauce on each.

Then loosely wrapped them in foil and put them in at 350 oven for at least three hours.

Matt’s quite at home in the kitchen.. loves cooking, never uses recipes, and has a large repertoire of excellent signature dishes. Dogs are always underfoot. Matt’s making dirty rice and corn bread to go with the ribs. Victor’s going to bring a key lime pie (which he’s going to have to make twice because of an evaporated milk-condensed milk flub up).

It was an interesting and voluble evening. After dinner, the republicans gathered in the kitchen to yell about the woke dems, and the rest of us gathered mellowly in the living room. Here’s a pic of Michael (who ate an entire bag of Chip Ahoys earlier in the afternoon and bowed out early with a stomach ache).

After the neighbors went home, Chris suggested we watch The Smell of Success… a really funny movie from about 2011? I recommend it for something very odd.

Here’s another nice shot from the appetizer and cocktail part of the evening…

Just a little of this, little of that.

I drove to Southern California today.. my semi-annual trip to see brothers and as many other family members as I can fit in. I was supposed to leave yesterday, but the trip got delayed a day due to that weird thing that happens to me the night before a long drive where I can’t fall asleep. This started way back in about 2010 when I was about to drive a van-load of junior high school kids to a leadership conference in Irvine… and, well, it’s a long (and funny) story about anxiety-induced insomnia that I don’t want to write about at this moment. But suffice to say, if I think too hard about the fact I have a long drive ahead of me, there’s a good chance I’ll psych myself out and won’t be able to sleep. Even if I have no reason to stress. I get into self fulfilling prophesy territory and then it’s curtains. Oy.

Anyway, left a day later after a GREAT night’s sleep (insomnia-induced exhaustion does that to a person). Got an earlier than usual start (8:00), ran into unexpected Saturday traffic (what the…) which started in the San Fernando Valley and didn’t let up until about the 110 interchange (ugh!), and generally turned what should have been a breezy drive into a slog. BUT… look what all these record-breaking storms have done to the California Central Valley!

The other thing I saw a TON of — which I rarely see — was wildflowers in spectacular abundance..

Both of these were taken blind as I drove… that is: I keep my eye on the road and just hold my camera at arm’s length and shoot out the passenger side window. I cut, crop and level the horizon later. I don’t bother getting rid of the reflections…

But wow oh wow! Pretty, huh?

Other highlights: seeing quite a bit of snow on the southwestern edge of the Tehachapi Mountains and the northeastern Emigdio Mountains. (Yes, I had to look up the mountains that comprise the Tejon Pass and define the so-called Grapevine.) I also discovered an organic family farm called the Little Purple Barn just before the Grapevine, which was lovely… a little off the beaten path, but worth the short drive. Got a strawberry rhubarb pie for Matty and Michael, which was a great addition to our dinner that night.

(NTS: Don’t forget those crazy dinner guests.. a Russian social media influencer (a gorgeous model who posts pictures of herself vacuuming in her underwear) and her self-made millionaire husband.)

Surveying our garden, discovered buds on the fig, blossoms on the nectarines, leaves already filling in on the plum, a whole bunch of unpicked broccoli, and even more great stuff. Good job garden!

But this was the most exciting…

Based on our carrot experience last year, where we had numerous deformed, stubby, multi-pronged specimens, I didn’t want to let my expectations get too far ahead of me… so imagine my delight when I gently tugged and wiggled and brought this fella out of the ground!

A little deformed, but one could most definitely find such a carrot in the produce department of any store! And it cleaned up nicely!

Having that baby for dinner! (Which I almost feel bad about..)

What a gloriously sunny day it was today! Feels like the first real spring-like day we’ve had in a very long time.

If you counted rain days since November, you’d find that in four and a half months — roughly 135 days — there were maybe 60 rain days (do NOT quote me on that). Curious, I did go to a weather site about a week ago, and counted the rain days, but lost my little tally (scribbled on a piece of scratch paper). Generally what I learned was, in spite of my feeling that it had rained just about every single day for months on end, there were probably more non-rain days than rain days. Again, don’t quote me on this. Still, ELEVEN atmospheric rivers have drenched northern California this winter, about eleven more than normal. We MAY have had an AR or two in the past, maybe, but this year has been an altogether new and different rain experience.

So…. today felt more springy and more colorful and there was definitely the hint of warm days coming. And we are ready.

Mostly front yard and a couple from the back:

Tulip tree’s waning… but look at all the color coming in! Calendula and poppies are filling in and starting to form a blanket of orange..

And here come Jim’s fave:

A purple guy snuck in (and besides this one, we have another couple of volunteers that are in the blue family and gorgeous!)…

Front yard also has a decent patch of sour grass. The back’s got a lot more back in the orchard.

And speaking of the back, here is our first bulb (not counting all the narcissus that popped up before Christmas)..

Can’t remember what these are, but just love them. They should be followed by some daffs and tulips, and other unnamed bulbs, soon.

…TASTY!

We don’t really celebrate St. Patrick’s Day, but it’s a good excuse to eat corned beef and cabbage. I’ll be driving to the southland on Friday, so we had this amazing dinner a couple days early. Okay by me!

….to 13 years ago this week (March 10, 2010, says the timestamp). I chose the year at random and this is what I found…

Peter was 11 years old, a big sixth grader at Cesar Chavez Elementary School. Out on the playground, he inadvertently intercepted a flying sneaker.. which hit him square in the eye. He never saw it coming. It was kicked from the foot of one of the more .. uh.. rambunctious agitators in the sixth grade class, a girl whose name I shall withhold (I can’t remember it anyway!). Not sure what she was doing, but in the course of some animated gesture, her shoe — a high top — flew off her foot, sailed through the air, and found Peter’s face.

I can’t remember what exactly happened next, probably the nurse’s office, but in short order we were picking him up and on our way to…

Peter is not a happy camper.

I mean, poor little guy, huh? You hate to see your kid in so much discomfort.

They ran a lot of tests.. concussion checks, eye exams. They wanted to do a CT scan and Jim, in particular, was not comfortable with the radiation exposure. Ultimately, an MRI was done instead, the results of which were satisfactory. He did have a year’s worth of follow up in order to track developments in his eye, which also produced a happy ending.

Grateful for access to sophisticated medical resources.. especially when administered professionally and compassionately. (I figure we should acknowledge the successes in our medical care.. you know.. because so much of it is so very frustrating and clunky.)

And deeply grateful he emerged with all faculties intact.

Also: I love him sooo much. (Yeah.. this stuff still gives me a jolt of adrenaline and makes me cry.)

Pulling out of Village Homes, looking south across Russell Boulevard, shot through passenger window. The sky was a full and gorgeous palette of clouds of every shape and size. Just waiting to rain down on us.

This is a calm, warm and welcome break in the rain, before the next atmospheric river hits (according to my weather app, in 52 minutes).

And moments later, pulled into our driveway and beamed at the colorful sight!

Hoo boy, I love spring. And it feels so great that Mary’s back after a long winter and spent 2 1/2 hours weeding the front yard! Great to see her, great to get those weeds out.

Starting tonight and continuing through tomorrow it shall rain, yet again.

I love them. Or at least I make a point of never missing one. Lol.

I miss my mom, because it was always fun to either watch them with her, or talk to her while we were watching in our respective locations. She had good opinions. Loved movies. Loved fashion. All the good stuff. We would be snarky together.

Now I watch with Janet. Jim sometimes cooks for us and brings us our dinner as we are crammed into my office watching on the little TV. (Our big TV is actually Peter’s TV and is in his room, but it’s not hooked up to a broadcast signal.. so..). I set up the card table and we eat, drink wine, fill in our ballots, etc. Tonight we did Symposium take out, which was, of course, excellent.

I started watching a live feed of the red carpet on Youtube at about 3:00. The ceremony started at 5:00 and was 3 1/2 hours. Are you counting? That’s 5 1/2 straight hours of dresses, speeches and Jimmy Kimmel. And another couple hours following the show of reading commentary, looking at all the best- and worst-dressed lists, etc. If you must know, it’s about 1:00am and I’m still not in bed.. I only just emerged from my Oscar immersion.

Oh, wanna hear about the movies that won? You’ll have to read about it on your own. I have no interest. Not this year. I wasn’t a fan of any of them. We didn’t see as many movies this year as we have in just about any year in the past.. meaning: we see a LOT of movies, always. But this year didn’t see that many. And the ones we saw… none really grabbed me. I had no favorites. Furthermore, the biggest winner — Everything Everywhere All At Once — just did nothing for me.

Having now read a ton about many of the movies, and having now listened to hours of movie people talking about the importance and significance of every little thing, I could possibly watch some I missed and re-watch at least EEAAO. Maybe. I hate to be this out of step with current cultural thinking.

One thing I did love was this dance and song number. It goes with a movie called RRR, which I did not see (or even hear of). It won for best song. Yay.

I’d see this movie just for the dance. Fabulous!