Stan’s Obligatory Blog

Today, Lucinda’s class did a little performance at lunchtime. The had been rehearsing some songs for the last few weeks, and today was the day that they invited the parents to come and see. So they all filed in and took their places on the front steps of the school. They sang “It’s a Grand Old Flag”, “America the Beautiful”, “God Bless America”, and “My Country ‘Tis of Thee”. It was all very cute.

It was also an interesting adventure, since I rode my bike to the school from the office. It’s about 5.5 miles, and the last bit is pretty steep uphill. It wasn’t bad, though. I’ve done it before. And on the way back, I passed by some filming near Caltech. Whatever this was, it was a big shoot. There were trucks and trailers parked along the streets for a couple of blocks on both sides.

On Saturday night, we went to the opening party for the new exhibit at the Museum of Neon Art in downtown Los Angeles. This year is the 24th anniversary of the museum, and we’ve been going there for almost all of that time. It’s still our favorite art museum.

There was a pretty good crowd there, and lots of nice neon on display. We saw the dancing devil from last time, as well as some new pieces. And they had food there, too. Lucinda and I chowed down on the chocolate chip cookies. After riding 66 miles that morning, I figured I’d earned some.

There were a number of religious-themed pieces. There was Jesus on a cross decorated with neon and peeps. There was also Jesus painted on beer-bottle caps. There were also some animal pieces. One had a neon frog leaping into a pond, another had a neon frog skeleton, and a third had an animal skull with neon antlers. It was fun.

Since Lucinda is off school this week, we made arrangements to go to the Aquarium of the Pacific in Long Beach. Cathy scored some free tickets a while back, so the conditions were perfect. We went with Heather and Jacob from up the street, as well as their mom.

When we got there, we wanted to see the otter feeding, but the tank was empty for cleaning. I guess the otters were in a motel somewhere. So instead we went outside so that Heather and Lucinda could pet the rays and touch the starfish and anemones. Then it was feeding time for the sharks in the touch tank. That was entertaining, even if they are all fairly docile sharks.

We also saw a diver in one of the tanks, cleaning the kelp leaves. I wonder how they put that into a job description.

We went into the Lorikeet Forest, and Lucinda managed to persuade one of the birds to land on her arm, so she was happy.

They had one exhibit of shark eggs with little windows in them. We could see the little sharks wriggling around inside. Very Alien-esque.

Later on, we went back inside and saw feeding time at the South Pacific exhibit. They had three divers in the tank handing out food and being mobbed by the fish. One of the divers had a microphone and she talked to us and described what was happening. That was an interesting addition to the show.

When it was time to leave, we took a moment to see the driver’s-eye view of a bit of the Long Beach Grand Prix course, since we had to cross the street to get back to the parking structure. Then we headed home, getting immediately stuck in traffic on the freeway. Have I mentioned recently that I love living in L.A.?

There are also a few more pictures in Lucinda’s photo album.

We went to the Museum of Neon Art today. This is the last weekend for the current exhibit, so we wanted to see it before it went away. And we were not disappointed.

The exhibit had two parts. One part was neon beer signs and old neon business signs from the ’50s. There were some great old signs there, although sadly, the ceiling was too low for some. So we had to make do with the neon sign for “Al’s LIQ”, because that was all that would fit. The other part of the exhibit was neon and other electric sculptures. One piece we particularly liked was “A Dime a Dance”. This was a four-foot-tall Satan puppet on strings. He was standing on top of a lucite box with a neon sign inside it. The card said, “Insert a quarter to activate the Devil”. We just couldn’t resist that. The speakers began to play “Pipeline”, and the Devil danced for us. It was great fun.

After dancing with the Devil, we went outside and Lucinda played in the park next to the museum. Then we went to Chinatown and had Dim Sum at Empress Pavillion.. We’ve been going there since it opened in 1989 or so. It’s always packed, even though I think the food is a bit overrated. The restaurants in San Gabriel are just as good or better. But Empress Pavillion is still one of the best-known Dim Sum places in L.A. And it was good.

Lucinda went to Legoland today with her friends Ryann and Taylor. They had a fun time, even though it was a long day. The park is about 80 miles away, so it took them something like two hours to get there. But Lucinda was excited by it and said she had a good time. Sadly, Mommy is not the picture person, so we have no photos from the occasion. But everyone assures me that the kids had fun.

Today we went to see the second Body Worlds exhibit at the science museum. The big attraction here was the “Suicide by Fat: Obesity Revealed” exhibit. Lucinda and Daddy went to the museum and met Aunt Maggi there. We had a quick lunch at the McDonald’s in the museum, since there’s nothing like having a Big Mac and fries before seeing an exhibit on the horrors of obesity. I also made a point of eating at McDonald’s before going to see “Super Size Me”, so there is a pattern here.

The new exhibit was as big as the first one, but with different specimens. They even had a camel, which was kind of novel. The human specimens showed a range of different things, from the muscles used for skateboarding to various horrible diseases. It was all quite gruesome and also quite interesting.

Afterwards, we went outside and Lucinda played on the “Big Lever” exhibit outside. She wasn’t quite able to lift the truck by herself, but she did it with the help of another little girl.

We had Lucinda’s birthday party today. We had about 12 kids and associated parents, so our little house was pretty full. The theme was a ‘cooking party’. We had the kids each assemble their own little lasagna and a ‘salad on a stick’. Only a few kids poked themselves with the skewers, so I guess it worked out all right. And almost all of them liked the lasagna. As always, there are pictures in Lucinda’s photo album.

We took Lucinda to the newly-rebuilt Kidspace Museum today. They’ve done a pretty nice job of rebuilding it. Lucinda had fun in the two big climbing towers. I got to climb one of them, but she told me that she didn’t want me to climb the other one. We both went through the ant hole, though. Anyway, it was a fun afternoon, so I guess it’s a hit.

Our dog Buddy is a jumper. Lucinda likes to climb up on top of the bookshelf with a couple of dog treats. Then Buddy jumps up to get the treat. Ripley isn’t a jumper, but she is a good catcher, and she can catch a treat dropped from up there. So here is an “action shot” of Buddy in mid-jump.

Lucinda wants to have cupcakes for her birthday party at school next month, so Mommy decided to do a test run today. They made cupcakes baked in ice cream cones. They were frosted with a marshmallow cream frosting that turned out to be a nightmare to work with. But the final result was still nice.