Yucca Bloom Forrest

On Memorial Day I went to Redbox, no, not the kiosk to rent dvds, but the trail high up in the mountains of the Los Angeles National Forest. (insert bad joke sound here. wah wah or ba dum pump)


We were yearning for nature, not the nature that puts you in a car on the pch during a beach holiday in which your one arm gets sunburnt as you inch slowly towards your goal. We wanted the nature on the other side of LA the one that was the anti-thesis of the carlocked beaches, we wanted the mountains, we wanted trees. So we drove 20 minutes to the forest, and we hardly passed another car on the way. The Angeles Crest Highway winds its way straight up into the sky, through rock formations and atmosphere. You pass people on bikes with strong calf muscles inching their way through mountain passes. Those people hardly enjoyed the view, they were determined to keep going and hopefully not look down because it was a long way down, my white knuckling the passenger side handle going unnoticed.  I always have these thoughts of speeding through windy mountain roads and the brakes failing, those are the things I think about as I am griping something hard and stationary. Princess Grace. Morbid thoughts of my mortality that sometimes prevent me from enjoying the view. I tried concentrating on the Yucca Booms covering the mountain sides, many the sizes of pine trees and I had never been that close to one.

We intended to go to Switzer Falls, but it seemed like everyone else wanted to go there too so after a 10 to 15 minute wait for a parking spot that would probably never come we headed on to Redbox, where surprisingly there weren't a lot of people. Redbox is a great hike, a lot of straight down, but not steep, winding trails that go a little up a little down, eventually leading to a stream. We passed tons of Yucca in full bloom within feet and inches from me and I feel now that I can finally check this off my list.  They are that beautiful in person.


There were giant thistles, corpses of burnt out trees from fires, bearded tongue, birds singing, the smell of leaves and flowers. We hardly passed a single person, but when we did they were extremely friendly.It was exactly what we were looking for and the anti-thesis of what we knew would be waiting for us up the pch.

But what goes down must come up and the hike retracing our steps was a bit hard on the legs and lungs.



We heard many lizards racing through the woods, loudly, I got a picture of this one, who was probably frightened from T scaring it my way so one of us could get a photo.



All in all the hike was two hours, slightly stretched out for breath and a reluctance to go back to the land of sound and bustle.



I would like to say that we all made it out alive, but we actually lost a buddy on our way home. After a gallant effort and safe distance from the mountain passes, we did indeed lose our breaks, at a slow speed a SUV slowing our trajectory finally putting the nail in the coffin of Ts car.

RB

Ray Bradbury recently passed, he was my Great-Grandmother Kitty's cousin. I thought I would share this from a fantastic blog called Letters of Note. Here he talks about the importance of libraries.

who, what, what

Who have I seen?
It has been a long time since I mentioned this. I haven't seen a lot of people in the past few months. These are who I remember
Justin Theroux- by himself. Taller than I thought.
Micheal Rappaport
Jason Ritter-my first boyfriend was in a movie with him recently. He said I should have said hello. I didn't.
Laura Prepon- I wish "Are you there Chelsea?" would have been better. I don't know why it wasn't.

What have I been reading?
This year I decided to read less. I don't think it is working.  I have read 8 books so far. Inspired by Midnight in Paris I read the Paris Wife and A Moveable Feast. They are great companion pieces and I don't recommend reading one w/o the other. I just finished Death With Interruptions, which I feel would have been a brilliant novella and proves that just because you win a Nobel Prize, does not mean that you should never have an editor.

What are they wearing?
Hair in bun w/ a pair of Ray bans.

the time I turned 36

Oh, 36 I was not very excited to become you. For all those self depricating reasons and what I thought you meant. 35 I was excited for, I assisted in the planning of a weekend stay in Palm Springs surrounded by music, friends, sun and food.  It was a vacation to remember, filled with inside jokes and introduced me to grilling breakfast.

36 I didn't really want to plan anything, expect anyone to come, nag people for headcounts, which might in turn have a monetary value involved in head counts or reservations. It is very hard to tell a restaurant I might have between 3 and 25 people, so plan for that.

So I planned two events and hoped that people would come.

Event 1 was a street fair in Silver Lake called the Silver Lake Jubilee. We could just wander and listen to music, one of my favorite bands was playing, eat food from food trucks.  My two closest friends came and it was pretty fun. We bounced between the jubilee and a neighboring bbq, having very LA conversations including a musical involving a fruit themed stage comic. I wish I could explain more, but I am sworn to secrecy.

Event 2 was a return to my favorite korean bbq place "smokey meat house" and it was in fact that. Eleven of us descended on Soot Bul Jeep, a place that doesn't take reservations only to be asked "Do you have a reservation?" It was no problem, the wait was only 15 minutes and we proceeded to order various meats and bottles of soju. I took my turn cooking for us, when the waitress got too busy, while I cooked the restaurant joined in in singing happy birthday to me.

On the grill there are nicely cut up squid parts. When it comes to you the squid is whole.

My friend baked a black berry, blue berry, peach cobbler for me and all 11 smokey smelling of us crammed into my studio apartment for cobbler and pie before ending our night at the Bounty.

On my actual birthday, I spent it alone, getting a massage and eating cobbler for breakfast and dinner. It was my birthday so I didn't care.

Adventures in LA-rest of last day

I was really excited to finally show Dad where I worked. It is a pretty impressive place after all.  We took the Sunset scenic route back to the Getty. I was surprised that my suggestion of Mullholland was turned down. Oh well next time.

We first checked out the Herb Ritts photography exhibit, which was pretty fantastic. You may remember him from that iconic Richard Gere and the classic car photo, covers of Madonna albums, Calvin Klein ads and the Chris Isaak "wicked game" video starring Helena Christianson. (I had that song stuck in my head for several days after) The human form is a very important theme in Ritts show. (i.e. tons of nudes)

We lunched at the white table cloth Getty Restaurant and had amazing crab cakes and soaked in the view of the ocean and Denzel Washington's house and sipped on Arnold Palmers.  The food there is pretty great. I was tempted to eat the Bouillabaisse, but thought every time I sucked on a shrimp head or discarded some shells, I would just hear "yuck" and "gross" from mom. I recommend trying it if you ever go there that or the arctic char.

I gave them a tour of the building I worked in showing them as much cool stuff as I could. The gallery in my building was between shows. I showed them the view from my office which overlooks the garden which was closed at that time for repairs

I left them to wander around the museum, while I worked, which is an unfortunate thing when you come up to work on your vacation you might just end up working.  I hurried and met them in the Italian Renaissance paintings gallery.  There is a lot of art at the Getty, as my Dad said "someone could easily spend a couple days there."

We had someone take a picture at the entrance to the museum on the way out, coincidentally a professional photographer vacationing from Japan. Maybe that is why this photo is so artfully done. 

This pretty much concludes the trip. I am pretty sure that my parents had fun.  I was really surprised that my Dad liked Los Angeles as much as he did. It is a pretty great place.

If you have any interest at all in seeing the kind of work that goes on in my building, I can sign you up for the e-news letter. Just send me your email address.

Adventures in LA-Last day early morning

Before I go on to what we did on the last day, here are some photos of the house we stayed in. It had a lot of great music memorabilia, but I am still left to wonder why the Spinal Tap poster was hidden in the closet. Maybe a previous guest was too frightened to turn anything to 11.