Stan’s Obligatory Blog

Since Lucinda is off with Cathy’s family, I went to San Diego to visit my father. He lives in a big retirement community there. We had our official holiday dinner at the dining room where he lives. It was pretty good. Hyatt does good food. That evening was the regular Thursday night movie. Since he is part of the group that picks the movies, we went to it. The film was “The Captain’s Paradise“, and it was pretty funny. The title role was played by Alec Guiness, and it was amusing to see the man I associate with Obi Wan Kenobi playing a completely different role. Also, one of his wives was played by Yvonne De Carlo, who I always associate with Lily Munster.

The next day we went to lunch at Prado in Balboa Park. That’s my dad’s favorite restaurant, so he likes to go there whenever he has a chance.

On the way home, I called my friend Paul to see if he was home. He was, so I stopped off in Dana Point to visit. I haven’t seen him since June, so I got to tell him all my tales of joy and woe, triumph and tragedy, the good, the bad, and the ugly. It was nice to visit.

Because our family is fragmented now, Lucinda wanted to do a Thanksgiving dinner with me here. So today was our day. I picked her up at 1:00 and we came home to make it. We made cornbread stuffing, snow-white potatoes au gratin, kale, and a cornish game hen. We also made a chocolate bundt cake with the recipe from the Hershey’s cookbook. It was all quite good.

Today’s Sunday ride was the “Bagelry” route, modified to avoid the construction on Live Oak Avenue in Irwindale. Newton came to ride with us for the first time in nearly a year.

We set out from Victory Park, and almost immediately, we ran into a thick fog. It got cold and damp, and generally not very pleasant. While we were riding through the fog, Andre got a flat. Today was his first time riding with us, and so it’s his first appearance in the Flat Tire Gallery.

We got to The Bagelry in San Dimas and stopped for bagels and such. It was still pretty cold, and we all got chilled sitting there. Then we headed back. At first it was very cold, but then the sun finally broke through the fog it started to warm up.

Overall, it was a pleasant ride.

46 miles.
cycling

Today I had a little adventure in the city. It was actually three somewhat-unrelated adventures, but each was fun in its own way.

In the afternoon, I met my friend Sherri at the Museum of Death. We had done the Dearly Departed Tour last spring, so this outing was just another foray into the world of death. We saw a collection of odd advertising objects for funeral homes, beds from the Heaven’s Gate house, Jayne Mansfield’s stuffed chihuahua, art by John Wayne Gacy, and other odd things. The owner also showed us a living conjoined turtle, complete with two heads, four front legs, and two back legs. It was a delightfully weird afternoon.

After my brush with Death, I headed down to Silverlake to meet up with an old online friend for dinner. We’ve known each other online for years, but never actually met in meatspace before. So, since we both had time, we decided to finally remedy that situation. We had a nice dinner at Lamill, followed by some wine at Silverlake Wine.

Finally, I headed up to North Hollywood to Yup, it’s that damn redacted text again party.

Overall, it was a fun day.

Tonight I went over to Griffith Park for the Tuesday night hike. We did the “Backyard Hike” route, which I guess might be named for the fact that we walked right by some people’s backyards in Los Feliz. It was pretty long and fairly hard as hikes in the park go. And it was dark before we even set out, so the trail part was a bit challenging. The parts on fire roads were easy to follow, even though there was no moon. There was a bench on the trail at one point, so I was able to prop the camera up on it to get my souvenir picture with the lights of Hollywood in the background.

Overall, it was a pretty good evening out. Beats the hell out of moping around at home.

Saturday’s bike ride was the Around Puddingstone Reservoir route. The last time we did this route was in May.

It was a warm Santa Ana day in SoCal, with summer-like temperatures. We rode straight out to San Dimas and then did our circuit around the park. As always, we took the shortcut back through the park, rather than taking the long way around on Via Verde.

Going through West Covina, we passed Newton’s house. Gene yelled out as we went by, and Newton heard him. So he came out to chat for a bit. He’s hoping to be back riding with us again soon.

The stop was in Baldwin Park on the way back, but Silvio and I headed back early. I’d gotten word that one of the computers at my office had died, and I needed to get back so I could go fix it. We altered the route to come home by way of Santa Fe Dam. When we were riding along the top of the dam, we had a good view of the smoke plumes from the major wildfires currently burning around Los Angeles.

It was a pleasant ride.

62 miles.
cycling

On Friday night I went to Hollywood for the premiere party for “The Surrender of O”. This is the sequel to the 2006 feature “O: The Power of Submission”. I’d gone to the party for that one, too. This is because both were made by my pornographer friends, Ernest Greene and Nina Hartley. They were having the party at Boardner’s in Hollywood, and they invited me to come over for it. Apparently, Boardner’s is where they do Bar Sinister on Saturday nights, so I guess it’s an appropriate venue for this sort of thing.

It was a pretty amusing evening. Lots of familiar porn stars were there, along with lots more that I didn’t recognize. And of course I saw lots of my friends from the leather-and-chains scene here in L.A. So overall, it was a pretty fun evening. I kept thinking that I wish they’d had stuff like this back in 1983. I’d have been there every night if they did.

Earlier in the evening, I’d also stopped off at the Dresden Room on Vermont to join the Center for Inquiry crowd for their monthly Drinking Skeptically event. They were amused because I came dressed for the party, so I sort of stuck out. But I made a point of demonstrating the use of the vampire gloves I’d brought along, which was quite amusing.

But alas, the party was a ‘no cameras allowed’ event, so I don’t have any pictures. But there were a lot of photographers from the porn industry press, so if you’re curious, there are probably pictures out there on the net.

Yesterday was the Great Southern California Shakeout. This caused great excitement around my office. But the thing I found most amusing was Conan Nolan from KNBC wearing his San Andreas Fault tie for the occasion. Usually, when he gets sent out to do earthquake coverage, it’s on short notice. So there’s not usually time to dress for the occasion.

Tonight I went to do another night hike in Griffith Park. Since I finished painting the living room, I have more free time, so I went looking for a Wednesday night hiking group to join. We went up Mt. Hollywood, but by a different route than I’d done before. It was a pretty good time. The pace was brisk, but not punishing, so it was pleasant.

The views of the city lights are nice from the top, and we even saw a very bright green-tinged meteor while we were up there.

Overall, it was a good time, and a good excuse to get out of the house.

This week finds me with a lot more free time than usual, owing to the holiday yesterday and various other things. So over the weekend and yesterday I made the final push to the summit in my project to repaint the living room. This was the last room in the house that hasn’t been painted since we bought it in 1995.

I started this project back in April, and I’ve been slowing grinding along through it. And Saturday I decided to go for it. I painted the entire dining room, including moving the giant china cabinet. That was a big project.

Last night I finished touching up the yellow along the border where it meets the red and installed a molding along the transition. Then Lucinda and I hung the pictures back up on the walls.

And here is the result.