’14 March

March 30

Click on this link …THE ZOO… for pictures of my outing with IngaLill where we enjoyed a great day of photophoto.

A few pictures from a couple of other trips are in there too.

I went to a late afternoon concert by the Angeles Chorale. It was a lot of Brahms and a little of other composers as well, and entirely enjoyable.

After the show I had dinner with Marsha and Tom, made by Tom and hence, of course, delicious.

March 29

Fun Day! I met Darryl and Angela and Rome and Lilly at the Santa Monica Playhouse where we saw a delightful community theater production of ‘Alice and the Wonderful Tea Party’.

Everything about it was entirely charming and everyone enjoyed it completely but I do feel obliged to note that here we are in a community of actors, actors come here from far and wide to act, we train actors in many world class institutions so what with all that, still, come to the Santa Monica Playhouse expecting ‘community theater’.

Then we walked over to Tongva to fool around in the children’s playground, then we had a really fine meal at True Food, then we walked down the Promenade for some street entertainment…

…and then we took our Fun Day picture. Fun Day Indeed!

ak.

March 28

March is almost over and the last of the wisteria blooms are still available for viewing.

Burt and Charlene came out west today for lunch and a stroll. It was a lovely day.

I also got to gaga over Burt’s new car. Burt’s initials being BMW, and knowing Burt you could understand that this was reason enough, he has always lusted for a BMW and back in the long-ago days of his youth he had one of those little Datsun convertibles and has been lusting for a convertible ever since that one died.

And there it was up on a dealership’s pedestal, screaming BUUURT, a nine year old BMW 330i convertible. Two birds; one stone.

We strolled through Tongva, had lunch at Mariasol, and enjoyed the bluffs…

…and here are pelicans soaring far over head looking like a scene out of Jurassic Park.

March 27

A walk around the Palisades with Sharon and we came upon this never before seen by either of us very bizarreo plant.

March 26

Is it? Yes it is. Chuck E Cheese. Of all the times I’ve been to Chuck E Cheese this was by far the least annoying. It wasn’t crowded, it wasn’t noisy, and it wasn’t even that expensive. We had a great time, Lilly and I.

A fun project that we will repeat next week when Angela is around.

March 25

Jimmy Fallon is very funny. Arnold Schwarzenegger is really very funny too. The March 24th Jimmy Fallon show made me LOL. Arnie was smack on the beat.

Thanks Ann and Cat for the sushi outing. Ann is a great sushi partner because she loooves her some sushi. Cat is Ann’s delightful and full-on Southern Belle college roommate. Close your eyes, listen to Cat talk, and it’s all hoop skirts and mint julips.

March 24

The last time I visited Louise, my ex-next-door-neighbor on Donmetz in April 2013 I said it was the last time I would ever be on Donmetz, but no, Louise hasn’t moved yet, I visited her today, and here’s another picture of the old homestead.

March 23

I went with Bonnie to see the Shen Yun ballet performance at Nokia. We both enjoyed the dancing, and the costumes were lovely.

However throughout the show there were various political and religious references to Falun Gong and their persecution in China. The last two numbers were full-on proselytizing for Falun Gong (they say Falun Dafa). I half expected the ushers to be passing out tracts.

The Shen Yun group is based in New York and I’m assuming they are part of the Falun Gong organization there, not a troop from China at all.

March 22

Windy and I had a nice long walk on a beautiful day and I got a chance at another bird. Not as sharp as the seagull but still better than my usual.

Then I went to a store to have my ’10 Years Collage’ framed and was swept up by a momentary wave of desire. I lusted after the Museum Glass and longed for great wealth.

That museum glass is a piece of art in itself.

Spring has sprung on Wilshire.

March 21

I had lunch with retired Merlyn today while still-working Hilda labored on. But that’s because she is so young. I snagged this shot off facebook…too cute you guys!

March 20

Practicing with birds in a beach parking lot in Venice. Brigitte tells me they are one year old seagulls (which is why they look like seagulls but are not yet white). Then I met Susie for a great day out.

City Hall during a walk through Santa Monica’s Tongva Park, a really wonderful addition to Our Town.

In the City Hall water feature.

Another view of the park.

We saw a cool Kienholz show at LA Louvre, ate a tasty lunch at True Food on the Promenade, on this beautiful day we walked to the end of the pier, and then went to Bergamot to see a (yikes) bad show at the Santa Monica Museum of Art.

We topped off the day with a yummy sweet treat at the café at Bergamot. Nice!

(internet pix)

March 19

Lilly and I out for our walk, today to the post office and then to the pizza place to get a slice with olives and pineapple.

Angela not even knowing our route by happy coincidence drove right by!

ak.

The girls, sharing.

March 18

I had lunch with Boban today which is always a treat, unrelated to this picture out my window. Some more unrelated pictures and stories follow.

March 17

From Angela, Rome and Lilly, Thing 1 and Thing 2 at Rome’s school’s Book Faire.

And on an unrelated note, from Cynthia, check out the ice skating rink forming in their back yard.

And speaking of back yards, I’m getting some new plants which is crazy exciting.

I found this on the camera. A test shot probably, from some fooling around, but it’s a cool shape.

March 16

I got the shingles shot. I was thinking if I got shingles and hadn’t got the shot I would be really mad at myself because having shingles is sooo bad.

The only evidence I could find of the efficacy of the shot, after a cursory browse through the internet, is a statistic from the AAFP: “The shingles incidence rate was 10.0 per 1,000 person-years among unvaccinated participants and 5.4 per 1,000 person-years among vaccinated participants, yielding an overall vaccine effectiveness level of 48 percent.”

Not so great.

March 15

From the magnificent Kauai house where, Many Thanks to Sharon, I have the privilege of spending a month every year.

I have been lusting after this rain chain for YEARS and now that I have new gutters I want to get rain chains too but, big surprise, I cannot find anything one tenth as nice as this one, which came from an antique store where they got it from Thailand if I remember rightly. Ah, I’ll just have to go to Thailand and get a couple.

March 13-14

March = Wisteria. So beautiful.

HURRAY! It’s all settled with an excellent new tenant and although the move-in process will be cutting into my Kauai time, it’s almost done and I’m happy.

Other than this…walking, eating out, chores, got the buildings cleaned and the paint touched up, added gutters, had the ruined screens that are supposed to keep the critters out from under the house rebuilt, and …

March 11

Half-price dinner at wow-zee deeelicious FIG. Order between 5 and 6 Tue-Wed-Thu and you can eat like royalty without paying the king’s ransom. Oh yes, we did.

Lynn, Carl, me

What a welcoming view…

…on a summer’s evening in March.

March 9

OMG today would have sent me to my bed were it not for help from my sisters.

Windy stayed with me through the whole open house and did ALL the tours for the potential tenants who came one after the other after the other after the other leaving me to answer a few questions, greet folks as they arrived and keep only one group inside at a time, watch my email as more people were continually responding to the ad, and distribute and monitor applications.

Lona gave me forms and answered questions throughout the day and will do all those landlord-y things that need doing to process the applications, for which I have no talent at all.

THANK YOU SISTERS.

And speaking of work, Celina, our professional Pastry Chef needed to go try the desserts at Rivera so we all went.

The dinner was very very delicious and the desserts were very very much less so, made up for by the cocktails that were, like the dinner, delicious.

Steven, Windy, me, Jeff, Ronald, Celina

March 8

Happy Birthday Lonie! (Sorry the picture is so fuzzy Lo.) Windy brought the lunch and made the cake. We made up a song and I played the ukulele while we sang. Lona is The Matriarch now and we think she should get the songs we used to do for our mother.

Then we three finished up L&H’s biggest project of the year, March Madness. And we had fun doing it too.

Today is International Women’s Day and I met Kathleen (on the left) and some of her friends (some missing from this picture) at the Annenburg Space for Photography where they were having a panel with successful women photographers.

They also had very good snacks which were ‘free’ for the price of your email address.

The panel was as follows: Mireya Mayor was extremely entertaining – I’d love to see her again, which I could because she’s on tv. Margaret Aguirre had a very poignant story to share. Marissa Roth went on too long. Penelope Spheeris did a good job as moderator.

(Kathleen, Christie, Julie, Gail…missing Margaret. And Susan is our neighbor from down the street who had a friend Lisa joining her (both amongst the missing).)

From Kathleen, I love this picture!

Margaret, Susan, Christie, Julie, Gail

That glowing building is home for the photography exhibits. I’m standing in front of the above buildings, where they hold the lectures and panels, to take this picture.

March 6

In Lilly’s class, they pass their mascots, Dipper the Dolphin and his pal Flipper to each student for a week and the student makes a couple of pages of pictures with the mascots.

Here’s Dipper chatting with his pals.

At the park, we always like to make friends at the park and little Caleb was delighted to meet Dipper and Flipper.

Dance Class! Dipper and Flipper were so pleased to join in. If you think I have more pictures of Dipper and Flipper you would be oh so correct.

March 5

On the campus at Pepperdine, deer. They didn’t join me and Sharon on the track though.

Windy was off so later we went for a walk. Good walking today. Wish I had remembered to wear the pedometer.

March 4

Oh yeah, exciting news, the tenant in the back cottage is leaving as of March 31st. I have tickets to be Elsewhere so I’ve got to get this all done before I leave in the first week of April.

Oh no, w.o.r.k.

March 3

A new styling for our Monday Night aperitif: tequila neat with a twist. Cheers ladies.

March 2

I finally went back to the Proust reading group after 10 months away. I’ll certainly never catch up, and I’ll be able to go only one or two more times between now and July, but it is excellent fun and good motivation.

(btw, I’m mid-way through volume three and they are nearly done with volume five. There are seven volumes total. My phone says I’m at 41%, so, another year?)

Then Sharon hosted an Oscars get-together where I once again won bragging rights and also theater tickets (thanks Nancy), with the most correct guesses. I don’t know why I (always?) win these things. It’s weird, and suspicious. All I can say is that I do keep my ears open and read the trades around Oscar time.

I missed four and the LA Times missed three, different ones too, so they beat me. The pressure should be off. I should check some of the other predictors. I miss Roger Ebert.

March 1

I went with Windy to Mrs Winston’s so she could get some strange beverages whished up for her new diet plan.

Mrs Winston’s, so reminiscent of my Plan B, for if I ran out of money retiring so early, I was going to go work at Mrs Gooches, a now-extinct market that was a cross between Mrs Winston’s and Trader Joes.

And here we were at Mrs Winston’s, right across the parking lot from…

…ActiVision! Darryl’s new office!! He’s not there until next week, it’s Saturday, and D, it’s ok, not to worry, I wouldn’t have just come to reception and asked them to page ‘Darryl Kanouse, paging Darryl Kanouse, your mother is in the lobby’.

No, I wouldn’t have done that.