Stan’s Obligatory Blog

So it’s Halloween night. Lucinda and Mommy and Aunt Maggi got dressed up in their costumes and went out with some of the neighborhood kids. They had a good haul. Aunt Maggi even had to come back th the house to get some bigger bags so they could carry all the candy.

Meanwhile, back at the ranch, I did my usual thing. I set up my telescope in the driveway and handed out candy. This year was good, since Mars is well-placed in the evening right now. I’ve been doing the ‘have some candy and look through the telescope’ thing since 1998, and it’s taken on a life of its own. A lot of the kids and their parents remember me and make a point to stop by our house so they can look.

It was a fun evening for all of us.

Today I went out to Beverly Hills for a safety fair at the weekly farmers’ market. This means to sit at a table, hand out earthquake information, and answer the three big questions that everyone asks:

• When is the Big One going to happen?
  We don’t know
• Is my house near a fault?
  Yes
• Where are there faults around here?
  See those trees over there?

It’s actually kind of fun. Particularly when it’s in Beverly Hills. The town where you see two Rolls-Royces in a driveway, each with “My Other Car is a Rolls-Royce” on the back.

The Beverly Hills Police were there, showing off their rescue vehicle. Since they almost certainly need such a tank-like vehicle on a daily basis. The Fire Department was there with their Urban Search and Rescue vehicle. I didn’t see the Mountain Rescue Team this time, but I’ve seen them before. I bet the city services there are great.

Today we went to two kids’ birthday parties, back-to-back.

The first party was a Michael’s in Glendale. The kids all made a tic-tac-toe set, which involved much painting and gluing and pizza and cake. It looked like they had fun.

After that, it was on to the Glendale Galleria and Build-A-Bear. This is apparently quite the sensation with the young kids these days.

When we got there, they were just getting started. Each kid had a $20 budget to work with. They all started out picking out their animals. They have rows of bins with unstuffed animals ready to be picked. Lucinda picked out the rabbit, which turned out to be $20 for the animal alone. So we were on the hook for any accessories. And with racks of stuffed-animal clothing, shoes, hats and even little “Livestrong” bracelets for the bears, there were guaranteed to be accessories. A whole store full of accessories. Oh, the humanity…

They actually did a very good job with the birthday party. They had the kids singing songs while they stuffed the animals. They had them pick out little hearts to put inside the animals. They did everything to keep the kids entertained and engaged through the whole process. I guess that’s what we’re really paying for here.

Anyway, the kids had a good time. And as we were leaving, I noticed that the mall had thoughtfully provided an AED unit just outside Build-A-Bear, perfect for parents when they realize they just spent $50 on a stuffed animal.

After that, we all went to dinner at Islands. The kids had one large table, and the adults got two small tables. And cake was had by all.

Since we went on the Tour of Laurel and Hardy last weekend, I was reading a bit about them today, and I ran across this:

“Trivia: The composer of the famous Laurel and Hardy theme song was T. Marvin Hatley.”

Years ago, I used to ride a lot in the Hollywood Hills. I would go down Mulholland Drive to Cahuenga Pass and then make a loop by going up Woodrow Wilson Drive. This was a steep hill, and by the time I got to the top, I was usually seeing stars. And at the top, there was a house with a wall in front with large letters spelling out “The T. Marvin Hatley Estate”. For fifteen years, I’ve wondered who T. Marvin Hatley was, and now I know. Here is his biography from imdb.com: http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0368943/

Of course this means another bike ride. I need to go back there and do the climb up Woodrow Wilson to see his house again, even though it probably doesn’t have the letters on the wall any more.

Today we went to see Sandra Tsing Loh’s new show, “Mother on Fire“.

Sandra Tsing Loh and I have similar backgrounds. We’re both half Chinese and half German. We both got degrees in Physics from major universities. We both spent some time working in the aerospace gulag of Hughes Aircraft. But then she went off into performing arts and writing, while I became a computer nerd.

Her latest show is about parenthood, and particularly about the travails of trying to get her daughter into a good school in Los Angeles. Having just been through that particular crucible last year, we were primed for a good time. And she did not disappoint. The show was a hoot, with stories about the Los Angeles Unified School District, where the kids eat candy and are stalked by an obese mountain lion in the hallways, to a bidding war over a house in La Cañada and talk of moving to Utah. It was hugely entertaining and tremendously funny.

If you’re in Los Angeles, go see this show.

On the way back from dinner last night, we passed the Colonial Kitchen restaurant in San Marino. It appears that their neon sign is having a problem. It says “Colonial chen”. But I read recently that the city of San Marino is now about half Chinese, so perhaps this alteration to the sign is their way of trying to assimilate…

Today I got my car out of the garage. This weekend is the Inkslingers’ Ball in Hollywood, so I’m going to use the car to get there. I determined that I need to buy gas. This will be the fourth time this year I’ve have to do that. And then I noticed an actual cobweb on the dashboard. I can’t even begin to describe how happy that made me. I’m just so glad that I use my car so infrequently that not only do spiders build webs in it, but the webs turn into old, dusty cobwebs. It’s great.

Lucinda had a sleepover at Aunt Maggi’s house this weekend. We took her down there on Saturday afternoon. On the way back, we stopped off in Long Beach to have dinner at El Torito and look at some desks for Cathy.

On Saturday night, Cathy and I had one of those rare nights out as a couple. It was fun, and we didn’t get home and in bed until close to 1:00. Then on Sunday morning, we both got up early. I went for my regular Sunday morning bike ride, and Cathy went to the gym.

Lucinda and Aunt Maggi went out for a while on Saturday night. On Sunday they went to the pool near her house in Irvine with another family. Lucinda had a couple of other kids to play with, which worked out well.

Sunday afternoon, it was time to pick up Lucinda. On the way down there we saw a car lose its wheel on the 405 freeway. The left front wheel came off, and the hub fell down onto the pavement in a shower of sparks. It would have been spectacular at night. At the same time, the wheel rolled away across all five lanes of traffic. When it hit the center divider, it bounced up in the air and landed on the other side of the freeway in the oncoming lanes. We watched it bounce three times on its way across the lanes before it went off the other side of the freeway. It was probably the single most spectacular incident that either of us had actually witnessed on the freeway.

This morning, we woke up to find that another big branch had fallen off the tree in front of our house. This one was almost as big as the one that fell off last year.

Cathy called the police non-emergency number to see what we should do, since the forestry department wasn’t open at 7:00 on a Sunday morning. They sent a car out to have a look, and then they contacted the on-call guy at forestry to have him come out to take care of it. While we were waiting, they borrowed my little bow saw and cut up the branch a bit so that it wasn’t blocking the street. Have I mentioned recently that the city services in Pasadena are great?

When we visited Grandpa last week, I got to dig through some piles of old photos and rediscover pieces of my past. I found a big stash of pictures from my bike racing days, which was fun. I also found my 6th grade class picture. This was from Radio Park Elementary in State College, PA.

I will never forget Mr. Wagner, and I think of him pretty often, considering how long ago I was in his class. But the reason is simple. In the fall of 1970, he won some sort of sweepstakes, and his prize was a trip to the Rose Bowl and Tournament of Roses Parade in Pasadena, California. This seemed terribly exotic to all of us kids there in central Pennsylvania. When he came back, he gave our class a slide show of his trip. Lots of pictures of parade floats and football. Both things that really don’t interest me. But I remember one thing he said about the trip. That it was 75 degrees on New Year’s Day. And I made a mental note right then and there that when I grew up, I wanted to live in this ‘Pasadena’ place. And now, here I am. And it’s quite nice. So I will always fondly remember Mr. Wagner for (perhaps unwittingly) piquing my interest in Southern California, which has turned out to in fact be my Most Favorite Place.