Post-Holiday Humbug

Yes. I know that, traditionally, the "humbug" holiday is Christmas. But I couldn't think of anything that would make interesting alliteration with "Post-Vacation." And... well... "humbug" is kind of how I'm feeling today. 

Our flight home from LA was great, yesterday. I simply wedged my knees into the back of the seat in front of me and napped most of the way. We even got in a few minutes early. Christopher's sister Elizabeth picked us up with sodas and homemade Cassis truffles in hand (some times life is so rough), and we headed home to order pizza and settle in for a good night's sleep. 

I woke up late this morning (after 9, even!), and one of the first things I noticed was that my sunburn, although turning into a slight tan on my arms, was starting to peel on my forehead. I guess that was a definitive clue that vacation was over. It was definitely the precursor to my "bleh" mood. Before the memories - like the suntan -  fade too far into the past, though, I hope to fill in a few blanks of the past week so that I can appropriately rave about it.

Let's see... Where to start...

Sunday, after arriving at LAX, Christopher and I met up with my sisters and their families. We split up and headed for the Point Vicente lighthouse in Palos Verdes. From there, we drove "over the hill" to the Korean Friendship Bell (I found great pictures of it on this blog). The views were amazing. We could even make out the silhouette of Catalina Island, which sits about 26 miles off-shore (and will become important, shortly). I've heard that, in winter when the air is clearer, you can really see the island, but even just seeing the shadow from end to end was impressive. We were greeted at Angel's Gate Park (where the Korean Bell is) by people flying all sorts of kites. Yes, it was a tad breezy, but it was gorgeous.

I know it will make some of you very happy to know that we ended our day with a big "family dinner" at In-N-Out Burger. It was Christopher's first time at In-N-Out, and it was really fun to just kick back and let the kids be loud and enjoy it all. 

Monday, being Memorial Day, seemed like a wise day to head into downtown LA for some touristing. We headed for Olvera Street (regarded as the "birthplace of the City of Los Angeles"), not only for its larger historical bearing, but also because we often went there with my grandparents when we were little kids. The shops are pretty much the same as they were way back when. Possibly a few more of the tchotzkes were in plastic, instead of wood, but the feel of the place was remarkably the same. After lunch (and a short guitar serenade), we walked over to Union Station to check out the really rather amazing - and peaceful - architecture. Our final stop of the day was a walking tour through Chinatown which, sadly, hasn't held up nearly as well over the past few decades. 

Of course, Memorial Day wouldn't be Memorial Day without a cookout. So we ended the day with steaks (for which we had braved Costco the day before) on the grill, and some quiet time (well... relatively speaking, at least).

I'll try to get some photos to accompany the coming travelogue blogs. In the meantime, here is a picture of some of our spring flowers.

They surprised us a little to become probably the most attractive of our small-garden plantings. 

Sunburned, but Happy

I know that I've been out of touch most of this week, but I have a good reason.

You see, Christopher and I are currently in the Los Angeles area visiting my sisters and their families and playing all kinds of tourist. It's funny, really. Last year when we were in Montreal with limited internet access, it was easier to make time to go online. This year, when there have been multiple computers within typing distance, we've haven't been finding time to use them. Maybe that says something about how busy we've been...

And we have been busy. This is Christopher's first trip to LA (not including a layover in LAX a few years ago), so we've been driving all over the place seeing the sights. From the mission at San Juan Capistrano to the Griffith Park Observatory, from Catalina Island to the Hollywood Hills, we've covered a lot of ground. And I need to get myself moving, because today we're off to Disneyland to celebrate my birthday. 

We head back to Minneapolis tomorrow, and I'll work on getting some travelogue updates posted on here as soon as I can.

"Is Anybody There?"

No. That title isn't a blatant attempt to get people to respond to my posts. (Really. It's not. Although... Now that you mention it, I wouldn't complain if I heard from some of you more often....) Instead, that title is the same as the title of a movie I went to last week Tuesday. 

"Is Anybody There?" is a relatively quiet little British movie which focuses on a young boy living in a house which has become an old age home as his mother has been searching for a way to bring in more money. The boy is obsessed with the idea of searching for ghosts -- and feels he is living in the perfect place to do just that. He frequently hides under the beds of residents on the verge of death to record their last breaths. 

Into this relatively-peaceful home comes The Amazing Clarence, an aging magician with memory issues, played by Michael Caine. He stirs up the boy's imagination, as well as refusing to let the other residents simply "go calmly into that good night." The title of the movie comes from the seance Clarence arranges for the young boy's benefit. It goes very well, thanks to some stage trickery.

I'd love to say that this is a surprising or exciting or stunning movie, but it's not. It is, however, quite a nice film. I tear-ed up a couple of times, even. 

Overall grade: B. It's nice enough, but sometimes nice isn't enough.

Quiet Saturday. Yeah. That's it. Quiet.

Christopher and I planned this to be a nice quiet day, since tomorrow we're heading for Los Angeles for a week. The general plan was to hang out at home, get caught up on laundry and a few other tasks to put the house in order, then spend the evening packing so that we can head for the airport early tomorrow morning. 

Of course, we all know how quiet Saturdays go. 

I found myself at Target, Home Depot and Menard's, and the new Sonic drive-in, all before noon. I had high hopes for a quick trip around the errands, after having a speedy visit to Target. But I had obviously not been paying attention to the fact that this was the first day of the three-day Memorial Day weekend. Sonic is so new in the location I went to, that I heard the guy on the speaker in the drive-through say that it was his first day. The speed of the service made this all blatantly obvious. 

In the home improvement stores, "service" was pretty much unheard of. At Home Depot, three different people told me that the shelves I wanted could be found in the aisle I had already been through. Even on the third check, they still weren't there. At Menard's the service wasn't awful, but that may simply be because I knew where to find what I was looking for and didn't need help.  In all, it took me an hour and a half for what I thought would be about half an hour's worth of errand-running.

Home again, I found Christopher beginning to pack, and so I did the same. Then, mid-afternoon, we were back to trying to get everything in order so that we can run away for a week and his sister (who is house-sitting) won't have to deal with anything. As I write this, it is about 8pm, and we're finally getting to sit down and relax. I guess I should be happy that it's only 8.

Friday Mini-Posting

Okay... A few quick notes for today:

a) The weather has gotten great the past few days. Perfect late spring weather with temps in the 70s. The garden has even perked up. We've got the door and windows open. These few weeks each year are wonderful. 

b) Christopher and I have rediscovered the joys of watching Cybill, now that it's showing on Lifetime. We've been recording it in the mornings and watching it in the evenings. It's really fun, even if it is pretty dated.

c) I'm happy to say that the plants that I thought were dead and, yet, I found to be alive and so replanted (which was hard to do with my fingers crossed), are all doing fairly well. I hope that they'll continue to do so.

d) Christopher and I are off to Los Angeles (and the general area) for a week beginning on Sunday. It's the first time this year that we've gone anywhere together. Details to follow. 

What's Up With The Weather?

You may or may not have checked out the weather in Minneapolis the past few days, but it has been HOT. And not just hot for Minneapolis in mid-May, but seriously hot. We're talking mid-90s. As I'm sitting here at a little after 9 at night, it's still 83 degrees. To put this in perspective, it might be good for me to mention that in Dallas, Orlando, and Los Angeles it is currently in the low 70s. Yep. It's hot out.

Oh. And the wind has been outrageous. The sky this afternoon was the color of brown/grey/blue that you see in the sky at the beginning of "The Wizard of Oz." And, yes, I know that the opening to that movie is frequently shown in sepia tone these days, but that is exactly what I thought of while driving home today. 

The worst thing about this hot, dry, windy weather is that, last weekend, we planted a bunch of new things in our gardens. When I came home from work this afternoon, everything was wilting. The formerly perky poppies had collapsed in a heap. The crisp peppers were limp and wilted. I walked the yard with a watering can and put the hose next to our new shrub willow to let it soak. 

A couple of years ago, just after we had planted a gorgeous little willow tree in the backyard, we had a week of 90-degree-plus temps, and the tree was never the same. We had to replace it the following summer. But that was in the late summer, at least. We were doing our best to avoid that problem this year by doing all of our planting early in the year when temps typically range from lows in the 50s to highs in the 70s. 

And then the last two days happened.

Even in the house our plants are wilting. We've refused to turn on the air conditioning, since it just doesn't make sense this time of year. Yes, I know that not turning on the a/c when it's 90 degrees out in May is like refusing to put on a coat when it's 30 degrees outside because it's just not supposed to be cold. But that's why we've had fans on for the past couple nights. 

We've been told we're going to have a storm system go through tonight and into tomorrow. That should drop the temperature, along with dropping some rain. If not, I'll be watering the yard tomorrow. And whether the air conditioner is on or not, it's way too early in the year to start watering the lawn. 

No. Really.

Of Snow, Lutes, and Seasonally-Depressed Cooks...

Christopher and I went to see Paula Poundstone in concert last night at the Guthrie in Minneapolis. 

She talked, basically non-stop, from 7:30 until 10:45, with one 15-minute intermission. And we laughed, basically non-stop, that whole time.

She talked of snow and Duluth and... due to mis-hearing an audience response... of people being "on Superior" as an attitude problem. 

She talked to a guy in the front row who said he is a cook "for now" but later admitted that he'd been a cook for 8 years. She wasn't sure if he understood what "for now" really alluded to.

She spent a long time discussing the manufacture and market-importance of lutes -- not to be confused with flutes -- with a gentleman who makes lutes and violins while his wife works in the office. Much of this was accompanied by her own brand of lute music and a slight jig. It made sense at the time.

She went off on tangents about her kids and the set of "Caroline, or Change" which she was performing on, and discussed how many different sets of directions she has seen on the boxes of Pop-Tarts. (Do you know where your "toasting appliance" is?)

We laughed. We nodded in agreement. We even enjoyed ourselves enough to (mostly) ignore how uncomfortable the seats are in the theater. We left ever-so-happy to have been there, and then came home and were absolutely pooped. 

I'm not sure how Christopher is doing at work today. I know that I'm not getting nearly as much done as I was hoping to. But... wow... if you ever the chance to see Paula Poundstone live, all of the pain of the next day is definitely worth it.