Daily Life 2015

November 29

Marsha’s candle party! I don’t burn candles because I don’t want my tenants to do it either, but it’s fun to see all the things and enjoy everyone’s enthusiasm for More.

More!

November 28

My big sister Lona found this cat in a catalogue and showed me the picture, not wanting to put me in an awkward position of having another ‘thing’ in case I didn’t like it.

Not like it? Yowwza, I love it!

November 27

Steve and super-chef Celina’s day-after-Thanksgiving Thanksgiving dinner. Oh YEAH.

Come on everyone, picture time…

…but Ronald, Look UP!

Meet Bagel, the new rescue dog they’ve had for a week who has never peed or pooped in the house, who never barks inappropriately, who sits by the door when you get the leash down, who did not jump or beg at the table, who when you call his name (and they kept trying names until he responded) comes to you for hugs, and on and on. I’m AMAZED.

Celina, me Ronald, Gideon, Steve.

November 26

Thanksgiving! I have a picture of the lovely table…

…and a picture of the scrumptious food, but no picture of the adorable PEOPLE! Thanks to ALL who participated with food and good company. Darryl, Angela, Rome, Lilly, Liz, Gary – Thank YOU!

This feast followed by pie, baked pears, and coconut-made ice cream. YUMMEEE.

Baked acorn squash with cornbread stuffing, sautéed carrots in walnut oil and dried onion, beet salad, mushroom and potato cake with avocado sauce, Brussel sprouts, orange and fennel salad with dried orange-flavored cranberries, cornbread muffin.

November 25

Lunch! The gang biked up to Santa Monica from the Marina and I drove the girls up from Redondo so we could all say HIHI and share hugs and a lovely meal.

Trevor, Caleb, Beth, Hannah, Christa, Lilly, Rome, Charis

November 24

I had dinner at Lona and Hartley’s with the Hawaii Browns, Trevor-Beth-Christa-Caleb-Charis and their friend Hannah.

Christa is a senior and Caleb is a freshman at Liberty University, a Christian college in Virginia founded by Jerry Falwell Jr. This is Caleb’s picture from the balcony and also the sign he wrote on the shared refrigerator in his dorm.

The sign reads as follows: “Brethren, I beseech thee, clean in a manner worthy of the maturity of your lives. Let my own labors be an example to you. Yea, moved by desperation, I spent 45, nay, 60 minutes sweeping the quad. Yet, I boast not of my works, but in the desperation of dirty feet. Therefore, brothers, I implore you, for the sake of personal hygiene, when the tribulation of room checks comes upon ye, that ye give thanks, and at least make a few passes with a broom.”

You might well remember something like this…

cb.

November 22

Ingalill and I went into downtown this morning for a little stroll and to go to the Grammy Museum at LA Live. I said oh, Sunday morning, except for the crowds lined up at The Pantry we should have the streets to ourselves.

Wrongwrongwrong. The car show was on at the Convention Center, the Clippers were playing at noon (why so early?!), and LA Live was closed off for the American Music Awards. And not to forget the around-the-block crowds lined up at The Pantry.

Needless to say there was No Parking so we kept going block after block and found a free space 1.3 miles away. No problem, we like to walk.

This building stopped us every few steps. Look at it now!

Look at it now! and so on and so on.

At the Grammy Museum there are a number of interactive activities most of them slow and in my opinion a little silly, but playing the drums was very cool. Ingalill rockin’ out.

Herman Leonard, look him up in google images. He’s AWESOME.

Can you even believe this day. The Santa Anas bring us hot wind and clear skies.

That’s the Hollywood sign and the Observatory. The actual picture is razor sharp. This reminds me…

…my websites are now FIFTEEN years old. In computer years that’s a millennia. Darryl built my websites to LAST. But computer screens now are 1,000 times better than they were. Maybe 10,000 times better.

I probably made that up…but to the point, my website scheme doesn’t let you fully appreciate the glory of this day. Oooo So Sorry D, we’re going to have to have a chat…

And speaking of Big D, there’s Call of Duty. It pays the bills.

Kathleen had a Girls Night dinner and movie. We, being me and Kathleen and her friends Dittany and Christie, ate a super dinner and watched Mustang, a newly released social-consciousness film from Turkey.

The picture is from the movie, it’s not us.

November 21

Sharon and I walked around the track at Pepperdine and gorgeous as it is (and it is gorgeous) the best part is lunch at the Reel Inn. Fish Tacos, Thumbs UP.

November 20

I had lunch with Boban today at Pono Burger. It was tasty and fun. Here’s a picture of Boban’s birthday present from his family – a new member of the family!

November 19

Burt and Charlene! We met at the Skirball to see the Ansel Adams exhibit of his photos from Manzanar first published in 1944.

It’s a very well-produced show and wow, I got to look at Ansel Adams photos. You could tell they were his from the door. I’m often distracted from the story in these old-time photo shows by crumby pictures, but that is so not the case here.

The Skirball Center? Of course, the lily pond.

More.

November 18

Lilly helped me do the drawing for our Monday Night Secret Santas. She also drew that flying unicorn that’s so good.

Rome, Zander, Roxi, Lilly.

The full cast of The Minions! a play put on by the after-school drama group at Jefferson Elementary and it was FAB.

This is Rome doing her SOLO! You go Rome!

They had only six sessions to practice this play with songs and dancing – it was a wonderful accomplishment!

I used to get to see (the oh-so-sweet and charming) Avery and Finley all the time but since DAK&L moved only a few blocks away we are no longer on the same walking route, so this is a special treat for me.

I do get to enjoy Lilly’s bff Roxi who lives right around the corner now, and her sibs Zander and Lola. Lola is Rome’s age and Zander is in the middle. I adore them too and their Grandma Pauli who just got back from Uganda. Luck dog me.

November 17

Ahhh, The Pier as viewed from a stroll along Palisades Park.

November 15

Happy Birthday JoAnn!

We had lunch at Tavern in Brentwood, good food in a handsome setting, and then came back here for cake and champagne.

Me, Nancy, JoAnn, Muriel, David

And here’s to a Happy Year.

November 14

Sharon and I were going to go for a city walk in Boyle Heights but what with one thing and another (a bit too hilly for Sharon’s knee at the moment and anyway not the Silverlake-Echo Park gentrification I was expecting), we didn’t.

We had a good lunch though and drove around looking at murals.

Pictures all from the internet.

Then I was due for an afternoon walk with my across the street neighbor Kathleen but instead I took her to the emergency room because earlier in the day she had smashed her knee in a fall and couldn’t walk at all.

Thankfully she will be fine in 4-6 weeks of immobility. She is SO grateful and what a reminder to us all: Don’t Fall!

November 13

From Tony in Paris who got it from somewhere else.

November 12

The Broad, it’s open! but you need a reservation and none are available until late January and no weekends are available until the end of February.

From the internet.

Susie got us reservations a month ago and here we are, at least five times.

Jeff Koons, and one of his balloon poodles is on display too.

Check out the website (thebroad.org) and you can see profiles of all the artists in the collection and very good photographs of each piece, catalogue details, and an indication if the piece is on display. Some of the catalogue entries include detailed discussions of the individual piece.

There was a long arty discussion on the wall-mounted identification plaque amounting to, because I’m lazy, ‘it makes you feel like a kid’.

Robert Therrien “No Title” 1993.

Jeff Koons…there’s a room full of them…Michael and his buddy Bubbles set in front of “Interior with African Mask” Roy Lichtenstein 1991.

We both thought this was a real highlight. I’ve seen a lot of this guys work at the LALouver – they are his LA Reps and he occasionally gets the gallery where everything is for sale.

It’s Takashi Murakami and he is awesome.

What is says on the website: “Takashi Murakami’s massive eighty-two-foot-long painting, In the Land of the Dead, Stepping on the Tail of a Rainbow, reflects on the 2011 Tôhoku earthquake and subsequent tsunami in Japan. Murakami discovered that roughly 150 years earlier, after the great Ansei Edo earthquake of 1855, artist Kano Kazunobu had created a large grouping of monumental scrolls conjuring the five hundred arhats, the traditional stewards of Buddha’s teaching. Murakami, through the post–World War II lens of Japan’s pervasive pop culture, again revived the arhats. In the Land of the Dead, Stepping on the Tail of a Rainbow portrays a cartoonish, spiritual landscape, awash in an enormous tsunami of churning water. The work is a specific reference to a Japanese history of natural disasters and an attempt to place suffering into a visual language.”

Another Robert Therrien piece placed in the lobby and about 8 feet tall. Sadly my picture has nothing to scale the size.

You can notice the cave-like feeling of the lobby which was notable as are all the interior spaces, all much more interesting to me than the outside.

We took a little swing by Disney Hall…

…because it’s there.

November 11

The kids were off school for Veteran’s Day so I traded Tuesday for Wednesday and I got to go out for lunch with Rome…which doesn’t happen much because she’s in school.

We went to the neighborhood (Korean) sushi joint and found many things for Rome to enjoy (happily, since she’s a vegetarian and the choices are limited).

I knew she’d like the avocado and cucumber hand roll and the tamago sushi. She also liked the sunomono and most of the veggie tempura cut roll although some of the vegetables in there were not entirely to her taste. It was fun!

November 10

Doing neighborhood chores today I added the delights of a foot massage and I wandered in for a Happy Hour snack at this place, aestus (small a, to be hip).

The bar is so high-design I couldn’t stop looking at it until I saw that honkin’ pos system sitting on the back bar with the cords and plugs reflected in the mirror – sooo bad then I couldn’t stop looking at that and the whole vision lost all its charm. I am seriously thinking to walk back down there and tell them.

November 9

Ecuador and the Galapagos Islands. Will it happen? I don’t know because studying-up my attention has been turned to Buenos Aires-Montevideo-Iguazu Falls-Rio de Janeiro.

Pictures from the internet.

November 8

Wow, this was fun – I went kayaking in Long Beach…

…with Liz!

It was beautiful out there on the water and we could have made it much further through the canals in Naples were it not that my semi-waterproof bag of necessities (key, phone, money) slipped away at some point and once I discovered it gone I was compelled to return.

Way too bad to have to go back, but oh-so luckily someone had found it bobbing in the water near the take-off point et voila! Oh happy happy me. I’ll gladly go again, and there are places closer too, at Marina del Rey for example, which also offer kayak rentals.

November 7

I had a date with my older sister Lona today for walking and eating but she was feeling so unwell we only did the eating part, and I drove her and Hartley around to do some chores. Feel better Lona!

Here’s their whole family in June in Hawaii for Caleb’s high school graduation.

November 6

Today’s Big Ka-Ching, running a new gas line to the 1/2 unit. SIGH!

But on the bright side another search on eBay this time finally did reveal a Hello Kitty Sitting on Buddha’s Lap, and it’s mine all mine :):):). I think Hello Kitty Sitting on Buddha’s Lap deserves a series of happy faces.

The garden of the B&B on 4th Street in Santa Monica where Les always stays when he’s in town. I want one of the clink-y hanging things. It sounds so lovely in the breeze.

November 5

Les is here from Boston on some business, personal and professional, and we had a good day today doing some chores and making merry.

November 3

The Blacks: Lainee, Cali, Jack, and Travis.