Life of Wry

It was a Long Beach day.  So, over the Vincent Thomas Bridge we went (rumor has it, that the I-guess-famous, giant, yellow rubber duck was floating in the harbor and maybe a tall ship or two, and also a Catalina paddle event thing….so traffic around San Pedro was thick and slow), and into downtown LB. Snapped a few from the driver’s seat (while stopped at reds) along Ocean Blvd and applied some arty filters.. because art:

Then pulled up to Legends, on Second Street in Belmont Shores, for lunch. Matt and John met us at the curb.  I fronted-in to a small space (because Second Street is so busy, parallel parking is a real hassle) and it took me many back and forths to wedge in, especially as I wanted to avoid hitting the fancy gold car parked ahead.  Finally settled into my spot, got out and Matt says, “how do you like Michael’s new car?”referring to said fancy gold car.

It took a little convincing on Matt’s part, but we finally believed that it was, in fact, Michael’s new car… a happy 50th birthday gift from Matt.  It’s a 1969, I believe he said.

What a guy.

We oohed and awed a bit…

…checked out the instruments and stuff… I think he said it’s all original:

…then went inside for lunch; below, mom and Matty (I love this picture):

A couple shots from inside:

First, the beer that bartender John recommended, based on my beer tastes — planning to remember this one:

And some views of the place…

… including the gargantuan big screen TV (largest west of Mississippi, we’re told), on which the final game of the Little League World Series was playing (nice!):

All and all, a nice lunch with mom, me, John, Michael, Alexis and, here and there, Matt.

Time to go…

Thanks, Matt for having such a fun restaurant! Buh bye, see ya next time:

Today, mom and I 1) walked about a half mile on the Esplanade in Redondo Beach (and had a painful conversation about the Peterson style of communication (a term I use lightly); 2) bought some figs at Trader Joe’s in Hollywood Riviera; 3) ate lunch at Ercole’s (a bar) in Manhattan Beach; 4) bought a few things in a cotton boutique on Manhattan Ave; 5) went back to the Esplanade to look at the surf and sun and feel those breezes (just…o.m.g.); 6) drove down to Malaga Cove and up Paseo del Mar to look at Bluff Cove; 7) drove around the Plaza to see what shops were still there. Came home. We pooped. Our day in pictures:

Views from the Esplanade:

Lunch at the old bar in Manhattan Bch:

I’ll have a Guinness with that burger:

Strolling along Manhattan Avenue.. Ercole’s is behind the window above the bricks:

What Manhattan looks like from the water, if you’re an artist:

Then, up on the hill….looking northwest:

Looking south:

Looking west, mostly:

(I love that shot…)

Oh, and while I maybe could have used a few today, I don’t drink Manhattans.

I would have to say that mom’s current best dish, the one I love for her to make when I’m here (and have for about ten years) is this one:

Baked chicken thighs with lots of butter, lemon and white wine. Then whatever’s around… tonight some zucchini, onions and fingerling potatoes. It never tastes as good in Davis, and I suspect it has to do with the amount of butter she puts in there (tons) and her very liberal use of lemon and wine. This went about an hour in a 350.

Oh man. Not going to post a picture today. Didn’t take any, but also I’m way too fried. My patience… it ran out a few hours ago and it wasn’t pretty.

I will say that it wasn’t an episode… one of those very horrible exchanges with my mom that–after I’ve blown my cool and reduced my mom to a withering mess on the verge of a coronary–makes me feel like an evil shrew who should never be allowed around old people. THAT hasn’t happened in maybe a couple years; it is truly, truly awful when it does.

Most of my impatience today remained inside me, and I promise it was justified…like, when she was so angry about having to take all her evening pills–she definitely does not see herself as a pill person–she emptied the allotment from her [ridiculously large] pill tray into her hand and simply threw the whole bunch into the garbage disposal. Yes, the garbage disposal. That whole lovely thing came on the heels of another frustrating conversation about her caregiver (who’s perfect, by the way) who can’t seem to do anything right (according to my mom) and I fear she’s going to quit because my mom is so mean to her.

Anyway, I didn’t explode (though I may have said, “fine, I don’t give a shit,” when she pulverized all her pills), but everything that did come out of my mouth for about an hour was bossy and curt… and frankly, she doesn’t need that either. I can really be insufferable when I’m bossing my mom around.

I can do better.

Matty told me to bring my A-game just prior to my last visit (just three weeks ago) and I was totally on my best behavior. She had just gotten out of the hospital and was recovering from a bout of pneumonia and I certainly wasn’t going to lose my patience with her when she was down. And I didn’t. It was a great visit. But I think I let my guard down today…. and she’s been feeling pretty good the past few days and has a lot of her feistiness back. Both lead to my impatience. It would seem.

Well. Tomorrow is another day.

We did see a great movie… Boyhood. I saw it last week with Jim and liked it well enough. Today–the second time around–I liked it even more. Here’s a collection of shots of the boy you watch grow up. Darling kid.

Yup, flew into LA again today. Today’s flight cost something like $11.00 because, for the first time in Frame-Peterson history, we figured out how to use frequent flyer miles. (True story.)

I was also a champ in the airport, having mastered airport protocol like nobody’s business.

So it was all extra beautiful.  Some shots from on high….

This one we’ll just call, “Wheeee..”

This one’s flying over Malibu…

And this is coming into the LA Basin on the 405, San Fernando Valley in the distance.  You can see UCLA, Westwood, and the high rises lining Wilshire Blvd. And if you know where to look, you can also see the Getty Museum…

It’s not like I have a lot of room in my office for the addition of a weight bench… but I’ve determined that this is the next stop on the find-the-perfect-exercise-routine tour.

A weight bench in my office. So I can conduct a full body weight workout in the comfort (and convenience) of my own house.

Having worked with Igor a few weeks ago on an ideal weight routine, I have a much better sense of how to use weights to get a full and effective workout. He crafted a great program–three different routines to be done on three different days of the week– that would pretty much address all the body parts. (I’m sure I talked about this already. Ad nauseam. As I do. )

A good number of the exercises included Peter’s giant home gym thing that takes up about half our outside porch. While these were well-conceived,  effective workouts, I found the set up of each exercise involving the monster home gym to be extremely cumbersome… which means it’s a deal breaker, because…. given the choice to go outside (where it’s dusty and probably too hot or too cold or too windy) and wrestle with numerous settings on the various mechanical arms and legs of this thing, mess with the weights and the weight holders, finagle inserts into awkward slots, and maneuver myself into the various tricky positions to use the damn thing properly? I’m probably going to go do something–anything–else.

Simple, doable and convenient are the tickets to sustainability. Sustainability is the key to lasting fitness. You can quote me on this.

So.

Not completely there yet, but getting closer.. like, I need space to move my arms around, for example.  Perfection takes time but not too much time or I’ll get all flabby.  So, you know…working on it.

Once again, no, I am not posting a picture of our dinner. But if I did, it would only be to wax further on about the heavenliness of summertime food. And to tell you that if you haven’t discovered Rudy’s hamburger buns, you’re missing out on hamburger bun perfection. Not kidding; these buns are like no other.

So… hamburgers (tomatoes, onions, lettuce), sauteed chard, cantaloupe.

And besides, if I didn’t post a picture of tonight’s dinner, I’d have to post a picture of the giant praying mantis on the window.

You see my dilemma…

I can get used to summer. (I know, we all can.)

It’s a lot of walking around in bare feet.

It’s having a lot of fresh fruit around and a scatter of vegetables on the butcher block that cames from our garden (yes). Mostly, I’m thinking of bending over the sink eating a ripe peach or plum or nectarine. Or a great melon. Or a bowl of strawberries.

It’s windows wide open in the evening to let in all the cool delta breezes. It’s fans blowing, and air softly moving.

It’s a relaxed pace, where get up times and go to bed times are whatever.

There is just hardly any schedule at all, hardly any stress.

And of course the hammock, which I’ve written about plenty. I’m having a thing about that hammock.

It’s a lot more, but these things stand out.

Tonight, we needed to use up some of our Rivercats tickets–we are required to purchase ten vouchers in return for the privilege of Peter getting to play with the DHS team at Raley Field… and then we get to redeem them for tickets to be used whenever we want. So we had a bunch of those and decided to use two tonight.

Warm summer night, baby! Baseball, peanuts, beer, (and cotton candy). And these things:

They call it a chicken fajita bowl.  Not bad… some rice, chicket, cheese, onions, salsa, tortilla strips and a roasted pepper. Beyond my lap, is my beer.  We are satisfied.

Sun setting on downtown Sac makes for an urbany backddrop, sure I’ve written about that before:

And my seat mates:

It was a lightly-attended game and super light traffic. Easy in, easy out. Super pleasant all around. Rivercats lost. No worries…. there was music, good energy, warm breezes and the aforementioned ballpark food.

Really stalling out here, as I’m between trips and mostly just catching up on what’s gone on while we were in Yosemite, only to prepare to leave for Palos Verdes again in a few days. In other words, no space for thoughtful blogging.

So, with that, here is just a nice picture I pulled up from the archives (taken by the mom of one of the kids on Peter’s AA Phillies team, 2005, seven years old.. I think it may have been the first and last time he wore batting gloves.):

I know.

This is what happens….

…when you are old and try to do two things at once!

Thing one: play catch with your son… who throws HARD; and

Thing two: try to clock the speed of that blazingly fast hardball holding a radar gun in the other, non-gloved hand.

Peter was dying to know how the thinner air at 8900′ would affect the speed of his fastball. Because… he’s like that.

Being a nice dad (note, I didn’t say dumb dad), Jim agreed to catch him. And operate the radar gun. At the same time. (I quickly had other things to do.)

Apparently, Jim was able to get a bit of his glove on the ball, but most of it bounced off the glove and hit him square on the…

Here are another couple shots to give you a better perspective:

Nice color, huh?

The above shots were taken five days after the initial trauma.

I know I have definitely aged out of playing catch with Peter; I don’t have a glove thick enough, nor reflexes quick enough!