Stan’s Obligatory Blog

One of the fun things about Southern California is that citrus fruit grows on trees in our back yard. So we get to see all the weird fruits that would never make it to the grocery store. Lucinda was very excited when she found this tiny little tangerine on our tree. So she had to try it.

One more sign of the impending holidays here in Pasadena. The bleachers are going up all along Colorado Blvd. in preparation for the 24 hours or so of madness that is the Rose Parade. I really can’t understand the people who camp out overnight to see it, and it makes our neighborhood a zoo for three days afterwards. But it’s part of our local kitsch and culture. So it’s all right, and it’s even kind of funny.

On the day of the parade, they park all the trailers in our neighborhood to collect the horses. This means that every little girl is out running around with a bag of carrots to feed them. It’s really quite cute.

I just found out that a new version of the old Grave Line Tour of Hollywood is launching in January. It’s being run by the same guy, who also runs www.findadeath.com. The new tour has a new name and a van instead of the hearse. But the tour sounds good. It’s going to cover more ground than the old one, including going out as far as the Sharon Tate murders in Benedict Canyon. So it should be a fun time. Be sure to check it out at Dearly Departed Tours.

This morning, I got up and started making tamales with the meat I cooked last night. This is our first time making home-made tamales. Lucinda and Cathy made some, but I made most of them. I felt like I was getting ethnic, even though none of us here is even remotely Mexican. Note the use of the Chinese bamboo steamer for the tamales. Then, after they were steamed, we had them for lunch just so we could try them out. They were quite good.

Just a quick picture from the office. I decorated for the holidays. I started doing this back when I was in my first office here, since it was the first time I’d ever had an office with a fireplace. I don’t have the fireplace anymore, but I still decorate.

The second picture is just something I saw on the way home today. They had the Feddes furniture store done up to look like a TV store and they were filming something there. I have no idea what it was, but it’s always amusing seeing something familiar dressed up to look different. Too bad they didn’t have any snow there.

We had a storm last night, and when we got up this morning, the wind was still blowing very hard. And I just happened to notice a piece of tar paper falling off the roof and smacking into the window. And I thought, “This can’t be good.” So I got the ladder and climbed up to find the roof on our laundry room in shreds. Yick.

So while I was out riding my bike, Cathy and Lucinda went and got a Christmas tree. After we set it up, Lucinda and I decorated it. Even though we’re not religious in any way, it’s still just a fun little thing to do. So there.

The power went out at our house last night around 8:00PM or so. This doesn’t happen all that often, and it’s not all that big of a deal most of the time, but when you’re a five-year-old who’s afraid of the dark, it can be a big deal. We got out all our emergency candles and flashlights, but no matter how you sliced it, it was dark. Fortunately, Pasadena Water and Power was on the ball. They got the lights back on by midnight, so Lucinda could sleep with her night light on again.

We took Lucinda to the Halloween Carnival at her school this evening. They had little games and trick-or-treating for the kids. There were several hundred kids and their parents there. It was chaos. But Lucinda had enjoyed it.

Today is our 16th anniversary, or our 10th if you’re a geek. So we went out for a nice dinner at Traxx. This is the nice art deco restaurant in Union Station in downtown Los Angeles. We rode the Metro Gold Line to get there, which made it a bit more of an adventure, as well as avoiding the legendary Friday evening Los Angeles traffic. As always, it was very nice. The service was good, and the presentation was flawless. And Lucinda is already an old hand at this sort of thing. She knows how to behave in restaurants, and she enjoyed the dinner and especially enjoyed the dessert. So overall, it was a nice outing.