That’s Ann and Marija. We went for a walk with the dogs after a Monday potluck lunch.
Ann’s garden always has some groceries to offer. The fig tree is pruned way back this year so Ann can get the net over the top. More figs for us instead of the squirrels. The other trees are grapefruit and tangelos. The two different kinds of lemons were also delivering.
Hi cutie!
The Salton Sea is located in the Imperial Valley near Indio, Indio being famous for its groves of date palms. Bonnie took these pictures from the car while we were on the road.
Here come some more scenes.
Below is Bonnie’s close-up of the above peaks.
Above, the last picture of this delightful day.
And below, the first.
I’ve had a pretty negative impression of the Salton Sea from a few visits decades ago, that it was all ramshackle lodgings, random farm animals, and stinky, so one of the best parts of today was to have that impression overturned, at least here at the Salton Sea State Recreation Area.
We arrived around 4pm, ready for some of that sweet Golden Hour photophoto but little did we expect such serenity.
Our attraction was the bird migrations that pass though here, and the year-round residents as well. We didn’t get the flocks we had hoped for but anyway I got plenty of fuzzy (rather pathetic) pictures that were fun to take. Walking to the shore was problematic since the ground was both slippery and squishy so we couldn’t get very close. Still what birds that were there were very enjoyable to watch.
I enjoy the sound of a passing train and this sound went on for a very long time. Here’s Bonnie catching a shot.
How long IS this train!
You can see a picnic bench in the upper right.
There were other covered picnic spots with wonderful views and also some camping spots set nearer the road.
Notice what looks like sand in this picture above and you’ll find that basically the entire ‘ground’ that surrounds this part of the lake is made up of barnacles, major big ouchies on your feet! Here is a link with sooo-much-information but you can search for barnacles in the article and learn what’s the what.
It’s Us.
Getting to the end of the day.
Gotta do shadows.
And then we were off for a yummy dinner. I super-liked this place, full of families, young couples on dates, old people enjoying a night out. It was another surprise since it felt like they were all local people and mostly Spanish speakers. And then we had a good sleep at a Fairfield Hotel in Indio so we could have a morning visit too. What a great day, and more tomorrow!
Every day for the last 10 days I’ve enjoyed lunch with friends and family, including a few walks up to the tile house. It’s been a great run!
A couple things about this performance of Wagner’s Das Rheingold. 1-There were 105 pieces in the orchestra including six harps and a mess of anvils. 2-Frank Gehry’s staging of the opera, turning a world-class concert hall into a world-class opera house, was magical BUT it messed with our perfect seats! The stage hid some of the players, mostly the low strings, but at least it didn’t hide Dudamel.
See the white arrow above, that’s Dudamel’s empty seat where he likes to hang out while the orchestra is getting ready, and during the long run of ovations. And there he is in the next two pictures.
I was thinking during this two and a half hour piece performed without an intermission, that I wouldn’t want to stand for two and half hours let along bring the constant passion and urgency that was evident here. I was, however, utterly amazed for two and a half hours which was effort enough for me. If I don’t get to see Dudamel ever again I will be happy in the memory of this performance. What a master, guiding the orchestra and singers with perfection, and playing every part in the opera with his body, all participants tuned into every nuance of his face and hands.
Not my picture. It comes from an article in bachtrack.com. You can click the link for a good review of the music and Frank Gehry’s staging in honor of the 20th anniversary of the Disney Concert Hall. It’s worth it to read the article and look at the pictures!
Hellooo KITTY and Merry Christmas from Rome! YES! Rome took me to the Hello Kitty Cafe at the Irvine mall. Wow, right!
When you arrive at the Hello Kitty Cafe, there is an entry space with a counter to buy food and a few souvenirs to-go, and a line to wait to be seated, reservations encouraged since it’s quite the deal inside there, oh man, HELLO KITTY! During this whole hellllo kitty kitty experience I said Hello Kitty 150 times in about 150 different ways because I could not stop.
I’ve left the overall pink tint in these pictures because it was indeed PINK. These are both Rome’s and my pictures.
Here comes the first course, a chocolate pudding and strawberries decorated with Hello Kitty. Note the cups with Hello Kitty handles and multiple decorations, and the plate, wow, the plate. Also, the pink bit on the cup is sugar in the shape of, you can guess, Hello Kitty. Rome is not a fan of chocolate so the server said ‘let me figure out something’ and came back with the strawberries and cream and, yes, a Hello Kitty cookie.
The adorable sugars in two different forms and a view of our seats.
The menu: Croissant with cream cheese and salmon (I ate Rome’s salmon!), open-faced cream cheese and cucumber, a little tartlet with a touch of pesto, tomato, and mozzarella, a small cone with egg salad. Next level: a scone with jam and butter with a Hello Kitty stamp, and a spinach quiche. Top level: Apple pie tart, raspberry macaron with a bow, and two sweetly decorated cakes (which of course we cut in half in case they were different).
Rome’s doll and one of the cakes are Keroppi, a character in Hello Kitty World.
My favorite picture. Rome is displaying my phone, the case design and execution by Rome’s long-time good friend Lola.
Hello Kitty sitting on Buddha’s lap. Too Good.
The café was pretty full with each group having one clearly delighted person and another person taking their picture. So Many Pictures. It was like people just couldn’t get enough pictures. Me too!
One of our cutie-pie neighbors wearing the Hello Kitty crocs charmed up with other favorites I’m sure, even Keroppi. And Rome’s shirt and necklace were a favorite too including Keroppi and Cinnamoroll.
The inset is how I came to be so taken with Hello Kitty Sitting on Buddha’s Lap. Sharon brought one back from Japan, in pink, and I wanted it BAD so she gave it to me. I had that pink charm on my bag for ages but then it broke and I was Hello Kitty Sad. Then I found this blue one on eBay and I was happy. Then I was worried that it too would break so I stopped carrying it and it sits on a shelf. Now I have this gorgeous phone case and I’m Hello Kitty Happy again.
After our Hello Kitty extravaganza we strolled around the enormous mall and then went home. Oh yes, a day to remember.
That Susie’s birthday is in early October doesn’t stop us from celebrating in January. So many events interfered with us being able to celebrate sooner. But we don’t care as long as it happens Sometime!
Susie is a librarian and worked in the Palos Verdes Library District for many (many!) years. We took a swing by the Malaga Cove Library, a small and wonderfully cozy local branch library that was Susie’s favorite.
Wikipedia’s picture.
One of the librarians was a delightful tour guide taking us every which where with keys in his pocket even before he knew that Susie had run the place so many years before.
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We had a lovely Mediterranean vegetarian lunch at Turquoise in the Riviera section of Redondo Beach. I was so happy because Susie really liked her lunch. Then we came back to have another look at the newly installed garden. It’s wonderful! Note the inset that says “Magic’s Garden”, there because they couldn’t have a garden until the big dog Magic passed.
And Then we went for a walk around the neighborhood. What a nice day!
Steven’s oncologist is around the corner so Steve and Celina stopped by for brunch after his appointment. Seems I’m into brunch these days. Steve is doing so much better they won’t have to come back for two months so I’ll miss the visits but YAY for the reason!
I still go, most Mondays, out to the SF Valley to have lunch with my old pals, the Monday gang. Most weeks I don’t take a photo. We used to have dinner but since the pandemic and with everyone retired we switched to lunch. I was the biggest winner with the change of timing – SO much better for the traffic, no one had to drive at night, and we don’t go home to bed all gorged on goodies.
Marsha and I went to the Pantages today for the 6:30 Sunday performance of MJ The Musical. The timing was perfect because we also got to have an early dinner at Sky Terrace on the 12th floor of the W Hotel just across from the theater.
The food was delicious, the view was great, and the show had a lot to say for itself. Although uneven, we enjoyed it overall, the staging was particularly remarkable, and the last 5 minutes and the curtain call drove the crowd wild. However… the last song was (It doesn’t matter if you’re) Black or White which I think nearly half the audience, the white people, loved and the other nearly half, the Black people, weren’t so sure about.
View out the window including Hollywood Presbyterian Church and the Griffith Observatory.
Time to leave the restaurant, and here’s another view out a different window.
The Pantages is a gorgeous theater. Every time I go in here I tell whoever I’m with, oh, I used to work here when I was a teenager, in the snack bar because I’d been a cashier at Orbach’s, so I made 10 cents an hour more than the ushers.
Lynn and I went for a nice walk at the Ballona Lagoon off Via Dulce and Marqueses Way. Lynn showed me how to get here!
From the left telephoto-fuzzy, cormorants, an egret, and a pelican. Nice sharing, birds.
Rome and I played one of the new games I learned at Ken’s on New Year’s Eve. We had to play two hands each to make it work.
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Here’s another picture, from two days later when Beth and I went for a big walk (big for me, not for Beth) then we picked up dinner for us including Trevor back at Lona’s apartment. Trevor and Lona are having a So Sick Competition. Who’s sicker, who will get better first? I hope they are both well tomorrow!
We parked on the street for Luna Luna and you’ll remember it was in a huge warehouse beside the 6th Street Bridge in the DTLA Arts District. Below are two pictures of the bridge from the internet so you can get a feel for how big it is, and the surround landscape.
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Take a look at the pylons that hold up the bridge, on tippy-toes!
Ingalill having a photo of Jim and Rick.
Toward the east end of the bridge, the LA River/Aqueduct. The city has broken up the concrete in many sections of the ‘river’ bringing back plants, trees, and birds. It’s pretty cool, but not here.
The industrial Arts District, a view from the bridge.
It was a gorgeous day.
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And then for lunch we headed into Little Tokyo to enjoy four different kinds of Okinawa pancakes, called okonomiyaki. Four different kinds. Right up my alley, I got to taste them all!
Welcome! If you google Luna Luna Los Angeles you will find dozens of articles telling the history and current status of this amazing installation. Amazing, heartfelt, challenging, but is it art? Yes it is!
Half, or maybe less than half of the original pieces are here. You can see them all and more at the lunaluna.com website, with a lot of clicking around.
To keep you entertained in line.
It is expensive though, very expensive especially on the weekend. I didn’t mind paying because I had read so much about what it took to mount this show, but expensive enough that I hope once the production team has cleared their expenses they will make enjoying this place available more widely and significantly lower the cost.
Roy Lichtenstein’s Luna Luna Pavilion and Jean-Michel Basquiat’s Painted Ferris wheel.
Sections from Basquiat’s Ferris wheel because everywhere you look is awesome.
André Heller’s Wedding Chapel where anybody can marry anything.
Here she is, waiting to marry anybody to anything.
The inside of Roy Lichtenstein’s Luna Luna Pavilion with the wedding chapel reflected.
The entry panel to Salvador Dali’s Dalidom.
Arik Brauer’s Carousel.
Daniel Spoerri’s Crap Chancellery.
Salvador Dali’s Dalidom.
Keith Haring’s carousel.
A clip from one of the eight very large panels created by Keith Haring.
Some promotional materials from the original installation.
Manfred Deix’s Palace of the Winds. Get it get it…
Sonia Delaunay’s welcome gate.
Kenny Scharf’s painted chair swing ride and freestanding sculptures with Keith Haring in the background.
Kenny Scharf’s chair swings with David Hockney’s Enchanted Tree behind.
There are several videos available, all of them interesting although we didn’t sit through everything. They start the rides every now and then just so you can see them go and hear the music. In the videos you can see the installation in full swing with kids on all the rides.
The Timeline: I loved this “part mood board, part cultural history” mounted across two walls. It’s so great I’d buy it if it were in a book.
We got there so early most of the entertainers weren’t out yet but this Luna Luna was a hit with the kids.
Down the ramp, Exit Through the Gift Shop.
Me and My Big Head. Jim, Ingalill, Rick
(self-portrait)
First Celina’s birthday for which Celina cooked one of the best dinners Ever. She made swoon-worthy Salvadoran tamales and to-die-for Mexican tamales too. They spoil you for other tamales. I slept over and then in the morning we went out for breakfast and Celina and I went to a theater to see The Boy and the Heron which was great.
Check this out. I only took one picture, couldn’t see the result because of the sun, and it turned out Steven’s eyes were closed. Photoshop has a built-in AI now and I selected Steven’s eyes and said “open the eyes” and look what the AI did. o.m.g.
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After the movie with Celina I stopped in Northridge on the way home to enjoy a delicious sushi dinner (thanks Steve!) with Kat and her new husband Steve, Ann’s friends passing through LA on the way to Thailand. I’ve had a couple of adventures with Kat including a stay at her plantation home in So Carolina, now sold, and a few days in Bangkok with Kat and her friend Tina.
Ann, Kat, and me, all of us 75+ years old. I call them My Southern Belles
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And then the next day I spent with Sharon. We had a fancy brunch at the Casa del Mar with a particularly delicious Bloody Mary and then did some shopping at the Century City Mall. These sculptures at the mall I’m sure were made by the same person who did the sculptures in the Café at the Honolulu Museum of Art and I like them there too. I looked it up, yes the same guy, Jun Kaneko.
(self-portrait)
Marsha and I watched the Rose Parade together. I like the Rose Parade in my jammies, feet up, from the comfort of a couch, in a warm house with coffee, and breakfast with champagne!
This year it was all about Lourdes and her granddaughter Julie. Julie marched with the Pasadena City College Rose Parade Honor Band. She was the end trombone in the front row – easy to spot!
All these pictures are from someone else or the internet.
