the hi-Desert

One of the greatest things about Los Angeles is how easy it is to leave Los Angeles. I know that sounds funny coming from me, a person who has been writing about her love affair of this city for over 5 years now. (6 years in January) The thing I love about this city is how easy it is to be somewhere completely different in a blink of an eye. I think I have been able to show you some of these places via this here blog and I hope you have had fun traveling along with me.

This October I had my heart set on going to the desert to catch the annual High Desert Test Sites event. Which basically uses the desert as a gallery space from Pioneertown to outside of 29 Palms, which is approximately 30 miles. Interspersed in this area are places with sculpture installations, performance art (or charades for adults, as my dad calls it) and whole lot of sand.

My friend and I hit town just in time to grab a map at the HDTS headquarters. They also had gluten free fudge cookies waiting for me, they must have known I was coming. Actually they did know, the event planner was more recently an intern in my department at work. Nice to see all of the amazing things my co-workers do in their free time.

Our first stop was the World Famous Crochet Museum Gospel Revival, and they sang and they wore crocheted garments and they revived and made me feel the lord and made me, like a good catholic, feel guilty about not crocheting more. And with that guilt and the increasing degrees we left after 20 minutes or so to grab margaritas with another co-worker of mine in Pioneertown.

I had never been to the Joshua Tree area before, I had heard that it was beautiful, but I guess I wasn't prepared for how amazing it was. Rocks precariously perched on other rocks, abandoned houses, Joshua trees of course, cloudless periwinkle skies, I think we got out twice for photo shoots in the 4 miles it took us to get to Pioneertown.

So after our brief time of being artsy ourselves we found ourselves at a biker bar, Pappy and Harriet's Pioneertown Palace, in the middle of the desert. And lucky for us, there was a biker rally in Palm Springs, only 20 minutes away. We pulled in and it was a vast sea of Harley's, leather and bandanas. There were biker babes in bikinis and they had definitely seen better days.

Here is a photo of our waitress, Flo, no seriously her name is Flo. When my friend had some questions on the menu and then settled on the burger and a side salad, Flo in her most surly annoyed voice said "Let me guess Bal-Sam-ick" and she was like that the rest of our stay and it was pretty fantastic.

The drinks were stiff and I was half hoping to see a bar fight, but no suck luck.

We ended our day in Desert Hot Springs in the hotel's mineral pools. Not too shabby for a night in the desert.

stars-vertically challenged

I figured over the past few weeks that my problem breaking into Hollywood is that I am just too tall.

I was having lunch w/ my friend who I worked with at the after-school program at this adorable place that opened in my old neighborhood. My how Larchmont has changed. I was ordering my food, when who should come up to the counter but Jeremy Piven.

I also stepped off the bus yesterday and almost ran into Amy Poehler and wee Poehler-Arnett.

After yoga, and I am sure you are not supposed to do this after an exhilarating yoga session, the girls and I headed to Tinga, my favorite taco joint of the moment. Their tinga is the most tasty I have had. We saw Andy Richter and his kids.

Andy being the exception, everyone else here is a lot tinier than I had thought. So, my deduction is that I am just too tall to make it in Hollywood.

Santa Catalina here dreams come true

One place that I have wanted to visit since moving here is Catalina. Which is an island off the coast that I can sometimes see on a clear day from my office window. I think seeing it from a far 17 days out of the year inspired me to purchase the half off Groupon for a roundtrip fare, normally $90.

My very good, and newly fianced, friend t and her beau also a t and I set off early on a Sunday. We quickly learned that the latter t is not a sea person. Which is rather unfortunate because the trip to Avalon from Marina Del Rey is approximately an hour and 45 minutes. Which I am sure that if you are seasick can be a rather long trip. It was too bad because as we were leaving the port we were greeted by flotillas of birds, dolphins and this guy... (totally missed by t)


Which is a Blue Whale, the largest mammal on the planet. Of course it fluked and I missed it. Oh well. (if you look closely it is spouting, you may need to click on the photo to get a better look)

Avalon reminds me of an East Coast seaside tourist town. Compact, main street, sand dollar key chains, very palatable food. I wouldn't go to Avalon for the best Mexican food. Our first stop was a diner for breakfast, call Joe's. All the servers had Eat at Joe's t-shirts.

After a hearty breakfast we headed to the Conservancy to see what kind of nature stuff was available in Avalon for us to explore. With limited time, we decided the best option was the trek up to Wrigley Memorial garden, yes the chewing gum guy and former owner of the Chicago Cubs, hence the name Wrigley Field. It was an hour and 15 minute hike, we passed deer in the golf course and many golf carts passed us, I guess the preferred method of travel on the island. Golf carts are loud and many of them smell of gasoline, which was not the nature we were hoping for.

The garden was well worth the journey:















It was a very overcast day, I think the first photo with the memorial in the distance is very tim burtonesque. A lot of the plants in the garden are not native to Catalina, the ones that are are called endemics, which is just a fancy way of saying native. For more garden photos and additional other, please go to my flickr album:

click here


And coincidentally, or most likely not, the memorial ended up reminding me of The Trophy of the Alps in France.















The view from the top is pretty fantastic as well as the tile work.

We walked back to town and had an hour or so at the beach. The tide pools in Avalon are pretty non-existent, so maybe next time we will take the boat to Two Harbors, which is much more natur-y and I hear has some excellent places for diving. (Now if only I can find a Groupon for that)

We got to the boat in the nick of time, just about to depart we got a passive aggressive warning from the crew "cutting it close, guys" when we looked around for seats we couldn't all sit together, I sat up top, the two lovebirds on the lower deck. And I am glad because the way back is much choppier, and down below a baby started a vomiting chain reaction that is likened to the pie eating contest in "Stand By Me"

But on another note, I got some amazing pictures on the way back. (see flickr, day is in reverse)

I break for stars

I was talking to my friend Alanna at a stop light and pulled up next to us was Carson Kressley in his blue convertible. After he passed we both commented how Queer Eye really changed television. It also helped me to spot heterosexual men-they don't wear clothes that fit and really need to shave their necks.

I was leaving the Getty Bookstore, when the guy I am seeing pulled me closer and said, "do you know who that was?" I said no because I wasn't paying attention. "it was Hilary Duff and her hockey player boyfriend. I thought girls were supposed to be good at spotting these things."

I didn't even know she was dating a hockey player. Something tells me that he might fit in with the family.

recap-celebrity house hunt

One thing I have never done in all of my time here is go on a tour of celebrity homes. And since I am too cool for school to do one on my own, I decided to drag a tourist with me. Who better than my mom who reads more tabloids than anyone I know.

We started the tour on the Santa Monica Pier. Us, a family from Wales and three older ladies from Texas all in matching cheetah print. (Rahr!) We jumped into the topless 10 passenger van and instantly queue up was The Beach Boys, and their signature surf guitar. We put on our headphones and the driver warned us that only one side of the ear piece would be working that day.

We learned about all of the real estate that the former governator owns in Santa Monica, and usually Arnold is out and about, but of course not that day. When we passed by Hotel California, queued up was of course Hotel California by the Eagles. Anyone who knows me well, knows of course that I hate both the Beach Boys and the Eagles, so I was very happy that only one side of the headphones would be working that day.

And we saw where Robert Downey jr, Jamie Lee Curtis, and Ron Howard lives and the place that Elton John is moving into, with of course modest improvements before he moves in.

We headed up the 1 with the wind in our hair. Saw Bob Hope's house, Leo's house, Jeremy Piven's, Demi and Ashton's house and Charlize Theron's house-who is usually very friendly and will come out, but of course not that day.

We stalked someone who might have been Jeff Bridge's son. Imagine if you will, you are Jeff Bridges son and you are trying to cross back over the 1 and there is a car load of ladies in Rahr! print matching outfits and you can hear a man whispering, in a loudspeaker mind you...

"that looks like a bridges, maybe his son, or grandson, I haven't seen him before, but it does look like a bridges brow line, hmmm.. I am not sure."

It was at that point, that I really realized that I was on a Safari.

And we headed up toward's Malibu Surf Beach and saw where Matthew (I don't like shirts) McConaughey, Pamela Anderson, Kid Rock and Sting lives and Adam Sandler, who is very nice and will come out to sign autographs, but of course not on that day.

We had a brief 5 minutes on the beach to dip our feet in the freezing Pacific Ocean , which felt so nice, The Texans stayed in the van.

We headed back up the 1 and I saw who owns that crazy looking neo-Japanese house and of course it is owned by Oliver Stone.

Two hours later we were dropped off where we began and headed to the new Mall-opolis for lunch and as we were enjoying guacamole. (fresh avacados are god aren't they?) we saw Giuliana Rancic come up the escalator. Which made mom very excited, because she likes all those shows. She is a lot taller in person and very pretty.

I think it made mom's day and later we saw her doing a little "on the promenade" piece and mom snapped pictures.

This day marked the last day of mom's visit and I asked her what she wanted to do on her last night and of course we ended up here:

recap-tarts and flea markets

Sunday we got up to have brunch with Brian and his lovely lady at a family hotspot called Tart. Which is attached to the Farmer's Daughter, you may remember it from earlier blog entries as the place we like to stay. It has unfortunately become pretty expensive.

From Tart we went to the Melrose Trading Post to find some treasures, as recommended by the latest Lucky magazine. It was a hot day and for some reason trying on vintage clothes wasn't all that appealing, sorry Lucky. What was great was all of the jewelry, handmade and vintage. A lot of 1920's pieces a little too outside my price range and besides I had furniture on my mind.

We both walked away with some nice trinkets, me a star necklace and a vintage purple purse and mom a necklace and vintage pin that went so great with what she was wearing. I came home with some ideas for my small space.

I hear later that Taylor Swift had been there the same day we were. We didn't see her, but we had a great star sighting ourselves just after leaving the flea market. We hadn't seen anyone all weekend, which was strange for LA and this time of year. I thought it would be great to stop into Bristol Farm's for some French Macaroons, a bit of a snack before having mom try another gluten free pizza place, a favorite of mine. I also knew since it is one of the last grocery stores before hitting the canyon, that the probability of seeing someone was pretty likely and just when I thought that there wouldn't be, we saw Will Ferrell.

After the sighting it was more pizza, then home and a movie.

recap-dim sum athon

I was excited to show mom a bunch of places she had never been before, make her try some things she was not familiar with. Especially since we have already done a lot of the touristy things, Walk of Fame, Pink's the like. And what I like about mom is that she is up for anything, so I took her to Chinatown.

It was super hot that day and we took the subway to Union Station. We took a side trip through the station so that we could admire the architecture and see why so many people want to get married there, next to where you board the Surfliner to San Diego.

We went to Empress Pavilion, where I like to get dim sum. My LA bestie, Teresa, met us and as soon as we were swarmed with cute older asian ladies with carts upon carts of dumplings, deserts, boba tea and chicken feet. (which I have tried, but not on that occasion. let me tell you, I have tried a lot of things, but you never, never forget the fact that they are feet, ever)

I stayed tame for mom's sake. We snacked on chicken buns, meatballs, crystal shrimp dumplings, sesame buns with red bean paste. See pictured.


After lunch we walked around Chinatown and went to some shops. I was on a quest to find Rose Green Tea. I love the taste and rose is really good for your skin. But alas after all the places I checked, they didn't have it. I made special care to tell mom not to come into the places that smelled like salted squid, I love trying new things, but that is something that really has a smell that lingers.

Mom and me in Chinatown:

recap-pampered and pressed

Day 2 of Mom's visit involved heading to the Aveda Institute in Los Angeles to get our hair did and beautify pre-birthday dinner.

I was all ready to do before and after shots, but they were a little just too before for my taste. So imagine us in our before shots, gray hair, pale skin, sad and then see us here in our after shots.




Happy Happy.

After beautifying we went to a place for Chicago style hot dogs, just to tide us over before going to have one of the best steaks in our lives at Taylor's.

Taylor's is a short dangerous, not because of the environment, but because it is so close to my house walk from my apartment. My mouth is watering right now. I thought Taylor's was a perfect place since it was born the same year as my mom, so I thought they would have it in common.

It is a really old school joint, dark, with leather half moon booths, white table cloths, waiters in uniform. We thought old school drinks were also called for. Their Dirty Martini isn't bad. Then it was time for steak heaven, you know when you take that first bite, make eye contact with the person across from you and both at the same time say "oh, my expletive God, that is a good steak"

We both had the Kansas City, upon a friends recommendation. I can't describe how good it is, you just have to come out.

recap-finally

After giving mom the 15 second tour of my house. (It is pretty small, but cute. I will show pictures when I feel like I am more settled and am not living out of boxes.) We headed for our traditional first stop Marmalade Cafe in the Farmer's Market section of the Grove. We sat outside soaked up the blazing sun and put a plan for the trip in action. Which involved shopping and a trip to whole foods to get supplies for pizza making at home.

I was surprised to learn that mom had never had a heirloom tomato. Feeling sorry for her, I bought one so that she could try. I don't think she will be going back to those mealy tasteless things at the grocery store, but then again every fruit and vegetable tastes good here.

One thing that we learned is that surprisingly hipster looking stock boys in knit caps have really great wine recommendations. I like reds that aren't that dry, mom likes white and sweeter chilled wines. With that he pointed us immediately to the Fire Road Sauvignon Blanc, which was in fact perfect and went well with the gluten free pizza I made.

That was day 1.

Update

I am sure you are anxiously waiting photos and a report from my mom's visit, but one thing I learned about this app is that I cannot post photos without it crashing and it takes up so much memory on my phone that I have to charge it all the time, even when blogger Is not in use. So I will just have to wait until I get my internet next week.

Hb

Happy birthday to my mom, who will be coming to visit me this week. I can't wait to have her all to myself.

303

I am settling into my temporary apartment in koreatown. I am reminded of the Neko Case song "In California" and the line that goes "Now i'm living in koreatown waking to the sounds of car alarms". Already this neighborhood is quieter than my last one. Although I miss the firefighters, I don't miss the sirens at all hours.
I live in a 1920's building that used to be a residence hotel a stones throw from the Ambassador hotel and its Coconut Grove. It is fun to think that within these walls there were stars waiting to be discovered right next door. Maybe this is the impetus of my reading a biography on Garbo.
I am excited to bring you a new series of "these are the places in my neighborhood, in my neighborhood, in my neighborooood." This is los angeles old school.

For now it is unpacking, decorating, etc.

Bisy Bakson

I have been so busy with packing, cleaning and trying to sell some furniture that was never my style in the first place that I haven't had time to write.

I will be trying a new android app for blogger, so I hope that I can send off some quick posts if I have the time. If not, enjoy these next couple of weeks.

500

I hope that you didn't get used to me having this mailing address. Time to paste in a page because in the next few months I will be moving twice.

What I am excited about is that I am moving into an apartment that served as an exterior for (500) days of summer.

And by the way this is my 500th post.

inter museum relations

One of the things I like about my job is that I have the opportunity to see a lot of exhibits before they open. Such was the case last Thursday when I went to the Natural History Museum's Dino Dance Party for the new dinosaur pavilion the night before it was revealed to the public. I wasn't much of a dancer, but I had never gone to the museum and since everyone else was shaking their tail feathers, I pretty much had the exhibits to myself. Which is my version of heaven.

I will get to the dino pavillion in a minute, but since I was a newbie I will talk about the other stuff first.




The museum featured a lot of beautiful dioramas featuring once live animals. This was before PETA and in the early 1900's where people would think:

"I would really like that in my museum"

BANG BANG
"Now this animal is in my museum"

(Which I would like to mention is conjecture by me)

To the right are Arabian Oryxes. What is hard to pick up though is how amazing the dioramas are painted and thought out. Standing there in front of these animals you are totally transported to the dunes of the Sahara. The sun, the sun's shadow, the hoof prints in the sand.

There were dioramas of Grizzly Bear, White Tailed Deer, a grand scene of elephants of all sizes w/ water buffalo and for the first time I was able to see how a giraffe drinks water (very awkward by the way), animals upon animals that I had never heard of and then there was a scene of what is in Los Angeles' back yard-which is coyote eating a house cat next to an outdoor pool. Wylie coyote.





To the left are the Walruses resting lazily on an ice float. Which was my favorite. The ice bergs were 3D I swear.

Click here for more information and there is a video on how the Natural History Museum thinks about creating a diorama and the history of dioramas. More are also featured on this site.

We wandered around to the conservation labs where you can watch them clean fossils, when through the bird section and spotted all the birds that we usually see tide pooling or on other Team Girl Trips.

We end up underneath a Fin Whale skeleton which was the whale we stalked in this post

The dinosaur pavilion was amazing as well, sheets of rock with fossils still inside, life sized dinosaurs. Which I assume are at other museums, but I don't ever remember going to those as a kid and Northern Minnesota isn't really known for its museums. I guess that is why I am here, in the land of museums.

what I have been up to-exploring the natural

It has been a while since I have talked about exploring the surrounding nature areas. Sometimes it is easy to forget that there is nature out here, with all the traffic, burger parlors, donut shops and the TMZ.

This is a composite of two visits to Solstice Canyon in Malibu in June and July. There is really a lot to explore here. As you will see from the following photos.

First things first, so that we get it out of the way, I saw my first ever snake in its natural habitat here. That is it to the left, trying to blend in with that tree. I didn't get a good shot of it, what you don't see is its head inside of a beehive, eating bees I guess. Thankfully I have a big zoom and didn't have to get too close. I think that this is a California Glossy Snake which is non-venomous, but I really wasn't going to hang around to find out. heebs, heebs, heebs.

A forest fire swept through the area in 2007, a lot of the trees have burnt trunks and have been hollowed out and are home to a lot of bees. The sound of them swarming in some areas is so loud you can't hear the person next to you.

I just realized that I am starting to make Solstice Canyon sound so scary, but once you get past those parts there is a lot of beauty here. This canyon is one of the few that have running water all year long. There is a waterfall, pictured later, that turns into a creek that runs into the ocean.

Solstice Canyon is home of the first stone house in Malibu, called the Keller house. Reports are shady on when it was built, I'll go with 1904 like the sign says. The shell is all that remains after that 2007 fire. To think, this might have looked like an actual preserved home 5 years ago.

This was not the only house built in this canyon. Tropical Terrace located up the trail a bit was once featured in Architectural Digest and in it was one of these 5 fireplaces.

This house burnt to the ground too, but it is right next to a waterfall.

Trip one we followed a trail to see where it went, unfortunately for me, where it went was teetering on the side of a mountain, almost to the tippy top where there are a lot of lizards trying to trip you up,

but the view is pretty fantastic if I do say so myself.

independence day

I hope everyone is having a safe and happy 4th.

What have I been up to: devouring books

I was so jealous of my sisters who had the chance to participate in BOOK IT! which was an incentive program to get kids reading by rewarding them with pizza. They got this cool button and put stars for each book they read and when they got 10 stars or something, they got a free Pizza Hut Pizza. I think maybe I was too old for BOOK IT! when it came out 25 years ago. (yikes)

I never had a problem being inspired to read. I loved it from the moment I opened up the accordion page in Eloise with her journey up and down the elevator. I guess though being addicted to reading isn't pizza worthy.

So, now I am on my own reading goal this year. 20 books. I have spent most of my free time reading this year. I have read a lot of great books-the Brief and Wonderous Life of Oscar Wao, Super Sad True Love Story, Ines of My Soul. Some that made me think- Remainder, Super Sad. Some I didn't like so much-Black Hole and Never Let Me Go. I think now I also know a little too much about Finnish textiles.

I am coming to grips with being gifted a Nook. I haven't read anything on it because I feel like I am cheating on book stores. Maybe I'll just download some fashion magazines.

So far it is 12 books down and 8 to go. Now if only someone would give me a gluten free pizza at the end.

what have I been up to: Devouring art

There is so much amazing art going on in Los Angeles right now. It is really hard to know where to go on my days off.

What I have seen:
Cuba from Walker Evans to now: At the Getty Center. An amazing collection of photographs of Cuba dictator to dictator, revolution, poverty, landscapes. I was fortunate to be able to see Alex Harris , one of the photographers speak about the 3 series(es) he had featured in the exhibit and how he was able to get access to Cuba, take the photos he took, his inspiration and his work with Walker Evans.
(closes October 2nd)

Tim Burton: At LACMA. Tim Burton not only is a talented director and artist, but probably his own best archivist. I can't believe how much work of his has been saved over the years. It is a fantastic collection of sketches, models, photographs, costume and movie sets and a cute rejection letter. I had almost forgotten the breadth of his movie career Big Fish, a Batman movie, Pee-wee's big adventure (see an earlier post from this month), Mars Attacks (which I watched again on netflix instant) I have always been a fan of Tim Burton, and many of you commented how much I looked like Lydia Deetz from Beetlejuice and a young sardonic teenager and still equally love as a sardonic adult.

Note: this is an extremely popular exhibit and a lot of the installations are pages from his sketch books, like 8 x 10, set up in clusters on the wall and it is hard to see w/ so many people around. The exhibit is timed entry and it is best if you go on a week day during the day.

In addition they are featuring his films on the weekends with Q & As with the director and other people who worked on his films.

(closes October 31st) ;)

Art in the Streets : at MOCA- Geffen center. This is one of the first comprehensive exhibitions of graffiti and street art in the US. It traces the history of graffiti/street art from it's inception in New York and how other cities, twisted it, changed it and made it theirs. It raises the questions what is art? is street art and graffiti -art? or is it vandalism? To me it is art and it is political, but I understand that maybe not everyone thinks that way.

What do you think?

This exhibit closes on August 8 and is free on Mondays courtesy of Banksy.

There is one last exhibit that I am dying to see. I hope to report back soon.

amendment

after I wrote this post I ended up seeing Glen Campbell in a blue flannel onsie sleeper. No, I did not just relay a strange dream I had.