Stan’s Obligatory Blog

About a year ago, I had the idea of putting together a theme ride to see examples of topiary, since I’d seen a number of them here in Pasadena and as far east as Glendora. We did this tour back in March. Then we discovered a new piece in Glendale, and I started to think about making a second Topiary Tour. And after some pointers from friends, one tip from Google, and an accidental discovery, I had enough examples to put together a second Tour. So today was the day.

We headed out across Eagle Rock and Glendale and into Burbank. Then we turned west and headed to the south entrance to Burbank Airport, where there is a topiary airplane. It was a pretty good example of topiary.

Leaving the airport, we headed south to our next stop. But along the way, I spotted a sort of cartoon lizard in a car peeking over a fence. So we stopped for a look and found a boneyard of carnival rides. That was very deeply weird, and really pretty entertaining.

Continuing south, we got to our second stop. A Shell gas station in Burbank with a topiary sea serpent and two winged horses. They looked a bit like My Little Pony with wings. The serpent was a bit sparse, but the others were pretty good.

Our next stop was a topiary Bugs Bunny in Toluca Lake. Then we stopped for snack at Priscilla’s. That left only one more topiary stop, which was the dolphins that we’d found in March. I had to get a souvenir picture riding the dolphin.

After that, we headed home, but on the way back through La Cañada, Don spotted one more in front of a house on Berkshire Drive. That made for a nice end to our Topiary Tour.

46 miles.
cycling

On Monday, I was just poking around the net looking to see if there were any good movies that Kathleen and I could go see on Tuesday night. And I spotted John Waters in a banner ad on the L.A. Weekly site. We’re both big fans of his, so I had a look. It turned out he was speaking and doing a book signing at a theater in Little Tokyo. So we just had to go.

On my way home from work, I stopped at Vroman’s in Pasadena and picked up his new book, Role Models.

I rode the train downtown, since the theater is just two blocks from the Little Tokyo station. On the way I got to read the first chapter of the book, where he talks about how he likes Johnny Mathis. As I suspected, it was hilarious.

When I got there, I met up with Kathleen, who drove in from the Valley. We went and had a quick dinner around the corner. Then we went over to the theater. We saw my friend Sherri and her friend there, and the four of us went in. John Waters came out and read three short excerpts from his book, and then he sat down to talk with Carrie Fisher. They were very entertaining and funny, and it was all well-worth the trip.

Afterward, he greeted fans and signed books in the lobby. Overall, it was a most excellent weeknight adventure.

Last December, when we rode to see the Never Open Store, we stopped to see the House of Davids. I recently read about another house near there that had some similar over-the-top lawn ornamentation. So a theme was born.

Today’s ride was to Hollywood and Hancock Park in Los Angeles to see these two houses, as well as Snow White’s wishing well on Larchmont Blvd.

The route out was pretty straightforward. We saw the L.A. River Ride crossing over Fletcher Dr when we crossed the river. Then we rode into Silver Lake. The first house was on the east end of Hollywood on Virgil Ave. And yes, the decorations were pretty over-the-top. Then we continued on south to go to Hancock Park and the House of Davids. Then it was just a short distance back to Larchmont. It appears that Adrianna Caselotti’s house has changed hands, and the new owners took down the picture of Snow White on the wishing well.

We stopped for bagels at Noah’s in Larchmont. Then we headed north through Hollywood and then back home by way of Eagle Rock.

It was a nice ride.

40 miles.
cycling

It was a year ago today that I got my new car. At the time, I was anticipating doing a fair bit more driving than in the past, between having to ferry Lucinda around to her activities and also heading out into the dating world. The days when I could drive my car less than 1,000 miles in a year are gone. My hope for this year was that I could keep it under 10,000 miles.

It’s not likely to get better any time soon, since I have a kid going into middle school and a girlfriend who lives out in the San Fernando Valley. The final tally was 9,979 miles for the year. I made my goal, but just barely.

Some odd things happened today. First off, every Memorial Day we get groups of WWII fighter planes flying over our house. The noise they make is quite distinctive and different from modern small propeller airplanes. But this time, we also had a low flyover by a four-engine jet. This was obviously not a WWII airplane, but was certainly related in that it’s some sort of military plane, and after some poking around, I think it was a C-17.

In the afternoon, Lucinda and I went hiking up the Mt Wilson Toll Road. We took Suzie along to see how she would do. It was quite hot, which I guess had something to do with the fact that we set out at the crack of noon. Next time we will have to leave earlier.

Coming back down, we saw fire trucks parked by the trailhead, and heard a loud helicopter noise. And then a Sheriff’s Department helicopter came flying out the narrow opening of Eaton Canyon. This was an impressive bit of flying, and we figured that something must be happening, since they don’t fly helicopters through narrow canyons for fun.

Today’s bike ride was a trip out to Encino to Los Encinos State Historic Park. Some years ago, I was contacted by one of the volcanologists at the USGS Volcano Hazards Program for help setting up a web site. Her research involved the chemistry of water in natural hot springs as a clue to what is going on below the ground. She sent me a list of all the known hot springs in California, and I noticed that one of them was in L.A. I looked up the coordinates and found that it was at Los Encinos Park in Encino. Of course, my first thought was that this would make for a good sightseeing bike ride. The spring itself is not very hot. The water temperature is about 79 degrees Fahrenheit and the water flows down into a small lake where there were ducks and geese. The water is all fenced off, so we weren’t able to feel it.

It was a perfect day for riding. We headed straight west, across Glendale and into the San Fernando Valley. We took Moorpark St most of the way, although we had to do a short stretch on Ventura Blvd. When we got to the park, Kathleen was there. She lives nearby so she came over to meet up with us. That was a nice treat. We looked around the park a bit before heading out for the trip home.

We rode up into the Sepulveda Dam recreation area and took the bike path there up to the Metro Orange Line. When they built the busway, they built a bike path parallel to it, so we took that all the way to the end of the line in North Hollywood. We had a snack stop at Panera Bread there, and then we continued on. They built a bike path down Chandler Blvd all the way into Burbank, so we took that. Then we turned south to get to the L.A. River. That was where we saw “Chuck Norris Rules” and the awesomely ridiculous limousine.

We rode the L.A. River bike path down to Fletcher, and then took Eagle Rock Blvd north. That was where Sage got a flat. One of the guys helped change the tube, but when he pumped the tire up, it blew out. Turned out there was big cut in the tire. So we had to put a tire boot in it before changing the tube again. But then we made it home just fine.

58 miles.
cycling

On Saturday afternoon, I took Lucinda to the Grammy Museum. They have an exhibit about Michael Jackson that she was interested in seeing. They had some of his costumes there, along with letters, handwritten song lyrics, and various other items from his life.

On the other floors of the museum they had other exhibits related to music. I thought the highlight was the exhibit about the ’60s, which focused on Jim Morrison, Janis Joplin, and Jimi Hendrix. They had Jim Morrison’s Boy Scout membership card. Just the idea of Jim Morrison as a Boy Scout made my brain hurt.

Over the last two years, I’ve taken Lucinda to Disneyland many times. It started out as something for us to do that she would enjoy. But over time, I grew to like it, too. And yesterday I went there on a date for the first time ever. Kathleen came over in the morning and we headed down. My friend there was going to meet us at the gate, but he got stuck fixing the dragon and had to send one of his friends out to let us in. But we got in and got our day going.

We hadn’t thought about the fact that it was Friday before Memorial Day. The parks were pretty crowded. At least compared to what I’m used to from bringing Lucinda on random weekdays. We picked up passes for Soarin’ over California and then walked back to try out California Screamin’. The line wasn’t long and it was fun enough that we did it twice. I tried to take an upside-down picture in the loop, but I just got a nice shot of the seat in front of me. It’s tough to get the timing right with digital camera lag.

We headed over to Disneyland and picked up passes for Space Mountain. We figured we’d save them for later. But the line wasn’t too long, so we went in it and rode it once. After that, we did the Matterhorn, Big Thunder Mountain and Pirates. After all that, it was almost time for our passes to Space Mountain. We rode the train around to Tomorrowland, since I’d never been on the train before. When we got there it wasn’t quite time for our passes. So we waited in the regular line and rode once, and then took our passes and went around to ride again to finish our day. Both times we made a point to be in the front row to feel the wind. Since you can’t really tell how fast it’s going in the dark, the wind is the only real clue. And besides, it put us in a better position for the final picture.

At the end of the day, we went and had dinner at the Jazz Kitchen, since that’s become my sort of constant backdrop to see my progress. And I think my life has rebooted quite nicely.

I’ve never been much of a fan of commencement speeches. I was quite happy that there was not one at my college graduation. But I recently read the address by J.K.Rowling to the Harvard Alumni Association. And this really seemed like words of wisdom. Perhaps because it kind of sums up my life for the last two years:

I was set free, because my greatest fear had been realised, and I was still alive… And so rock bottom became the solid foundation on which I rebuilt my life.

http://harvardmagazine.com/commencement/the-fringe-benefits-failure-the-importance-imagination

I put some mint in my backyard planter a while back. It was just sort of going along until I fertilized it, and then it took off. I could hear the plant yelling, “Wheeeeeee!!!!” and it got to growing so big I was thinking I’d have to cut it back. So I was thinking of things I could do with the mint, and I hit on the idea of making Mojitos. So I looked up a recipe, and we were off and running. I’d never had a Mojito before, but Kathleen had, and she said they turned out quite well.

So I’ve passed yet another frontier in the kitchen. Good fun.