Stan’s Obligatory Blog

Today we went over to West Hollywood to meet our old friend Jenny for lunch. She lives in London now, so we don’t get to see her very often.

We met at the French Market Place and had a major lunch feast that involved absolutely no turkey, which was very nice. Lucinda looked at the koi fish in the pond there, and we also browsed around in the shops for a bit.

After lunch, we headed down to Hancock Park to the Tar Pits and also the L.A. County Museum of Art for Magritte and Contemporary Art: The Treachery of Images. I always thought it was kind of funny that the art museum is at the tar pits. After all, ‘art’ and ‘tar’ are anagrams and all…

Lucinda had some fun playing around the tar pits. She climbed a tree and got some tar on her arm. As always, a visit to to the tar pits is just not complete unless she gets tar on herself. One of the pits was making big tar bubbles, which were kind of fun to watch. There was even a palm tree growing like a weed in the middle of one of the tar pits. We also saw some people playing croquet on the grass. Playing on the grass in that park is always a bit dicey, since you never know where there might be a new tar seep hidden in the grass.

After playing in the park, we went into the art museum for the Magritte exhibit. I’d seen some of Magritte’s work in art museums in New York when I was on a school field trip back in 1974 or so, and I like the surrealist style. So we went through the gallery and looked at the paintings. We even saw the two works that I remember seeing way back when. It was a lot of fun.

Lucinda has been teaching Bella to climb up the slide in our back yard. Then they slide down together. It’s really insufferably cute…

Today is our 18th wedding anniversary. So in honor of the occasion, we went out to dinner at Shogun here in Pasadena. This is one of those teppanyaki restaurants. So I didn’t have to cook, Cathy didn’t have to clean up, and Lucinda got to have a drink with maraschino cherries and watch the show. So it was a fun time for all of us.

Of course, the fundamental problem with all of this is that neither of us can believe that we’re old enough to have an 18th anniversary.

Lucinda’s school had a Halloweeen carnival on Saturday night. They have games set up for the kids. The parents are all strong-armed into volunteering to run the games. In our case, we had to run a simple shell game. The funny thing is, Lucinda came with us when it was our turn to run the game, and she wanted to try running it. So we showed her how, and she did it for our whole time. Later on, she wanted to go back and run the game some more.

I thought that perhaps this might point her towards a career as a carny. Or at least a sideline. Maybe she can earn a little money on the side. In any event, she had fun.

We got a new puppy yesterday. Some years ago, we’d promised Lucinda that we’d get her a puppy when we lost one of the other dogs. With Buddy gone, we decided it was time to go ahead. Cathy had started scouting a few weeks ago when we knew this was coming, so we were ready.

Bella is a chihuahua-mix who we found from Ruff Riders Rescue. Lucinda wanted to have a small dog. She is estimated to be about four months old, and she has a very nice personality. And of course, she’s very cute. So Lucinda is happy.

Today we went down to San Diego to visit with Grandpa. We took the train, which is generally fairly pleasant. When we got there, we went to brunch at a restaurant right on the beach. So Lucinda got to play in the waves a bit. We also saw some seals swimming by.

We had a nice time visiting. Then, when it was time to come home, the screwup began. When we got to Grandpa’s car in the bowels of the parking garage, he thought I had the key, and I thought he had the key. But no, the key was up in his apartment. So we had to climb the stairs back to the lobby and then get the security guy to let us in to the apartment to get the keys. So we left late for the train station. On the way there, we consoled ourselve by noting that the northbound train is always late. And when we got to the station, we found out that it was in fact 9 minutes late. The problem was, we were 10 minutes late. And we got there just in time to see the red tail light on the train leaving the station.

So we went and got a little takeout dinner and waited for the next train. Naturally, it too was late. But in the end, we got home fine, and just a little worse for wear.

Today, Lucinda and I went down to Carson to the new velodrome to see the bicycle races. It was the last day of the Elite National Championships. I had heard about this because Gilby of Ugly Bike fame had qualified and was going to be there. I had taken Lucinda to see a bicycle race once before, and she had liked it. So I thought she might enjoy this event.

We got there just after noon. The first race was in progress. We watched two heats of the women’s scratch race, followed by the men’s and women’s team sprint, the keirin, and the big Madison. The races were all fun to watch. I used to race track a bit in the Old Days, but I felt especially old in that the keirin and team sprint are events that didn’t even exist when I was racing.

We got to see Gilby race twice in the keirin. The second photo is a bit blurry, but it shows her ‘race face’. As an aside, it was hard to get good pictures there. Being indoors, there wasn’t really enough light to get good action photos.

After her races were over, Gilby came up into stands and we got to visit for a bit. That was nice, even if Masi Guy never showed up.

The last two races were the Madison and the final of the women’s scratch race. The Madison is always a fun event to watch, even if it’s not always clear what’s going on. Just watching the riders doing their exchanges is always a show. I noticed that they were all doing hand throws. Back when I raced, almost nobody did that. It was considered an ‘exotic’ technique in those days.

The last race was the women’s scratch race final, and it was a good race. There were several breakaways that almost were able stay away. And the woman who won led out the sprint. Normally, the person who leads out the sprint gets passed at the end, but she was so strong that she held them all off. It was impressive.

Overall, it was a fun day.

We went to the Feast of San Gennaro in Hollywood today. This was a little street fair and carnival with an Italian theme.

When we got there, we had to go into the petting zoo so Lucinda could pet some animals. Then we had promised her she could ride one of the carnival rides. It looked like she had fun.

Next, we got lunch. I got a sausage and peppers sandwich, which was quite good. Just like the ones I used to get at Brothers Pizza in New Jersey. But the weird part was that when we sat down for lunch, they were having a Mass on the main stage. The stage with “Jimmy Kimmel Live!” on it. That was a bit strange, and the combination of the two sort of made my brain hurt a bit.

After lunch, we wandered around some more. Then we went to see the balloon animal guy. This was the first time I’d ever seen a balloon octopus. Of course, I immediately thought of P.Z. Myers and his love of cephalopods.

I’m not exactly sure what all of this had to do with Italian culture. It was a kind of strange, but still fun day.

Lucinda liked riding the horses at Lake Tahoe so much that we signed her up for horseback riding lessons here. It’s kind of amazing that there are places right here in the city where you can do such things.

Today was her first lesson. Cathy had jury duty, so I had to leave work early to take Lucinda over there. The directions were rather involved, but we made it all right. The place is down in the arroyo, right below JPL and just above the freeway. But despite being just steps from the city, it felt like we were out in the country.

There were three little girls in the class. They were all about the same age. For the first class, they started out brushing the horses and getting to know them. Then the instructor showed them how to tack them up and get ready to ride. They rode with just pads, rather than full saddles. Because they had no stirrups, they had to use a large log to get on the horses.

Once they were all on the horses, they rode over to the small ring to start out. They rode a few times around the small ring before going to the big ring. There, they got to trot and canter a bit. Lucinda got to canter a little, too. The instructor said that she was a fast learner, and that most kids don’t get to do that on their first day.

Overall, she said it was great fun, and she can’t wait for next week so she can do it again.

It’s Back-to-School time again. Last night we all went to the Back-to-School picnic at Lucinda’s school. Once again, it was catered by the In-N-Out Burger mobile unit. In-N-Out is a Southern California institution, so having them here seems appropriate in a twisted sort of way.

So now it’s morning of the first day of Second Grade. Lucinda got the teacher she was hoping for. And her best friend is in the same class. She’s a little nervous, but we assured her that everyone feels that way. We just dropped her off in her new classroom. Still, it seems like just yesterday that she went off to school for the first time.