Adventures in LA- Manhattan Beach is in LA

Manhattan Beach is my favorite beach to take people who come visit me. It is nice and clean and has a great main street to go window shopping. I like this beach as opposed to Santa Monica because there is a certain way that it smells that is off putting and Venice which is a bit seedy and I always joke with friends that I feel like they dropped off the busload of the extras from Mad Max on the boardwalk and said "Here, establish a city! And you can keep the props!"

We headed to MB on a Monday a perfect day to travel the 405 without too much traffic. Which I guess is all relative to someone who lives in a town of 700 people. The day was sunny, but chilly, and wonderful to walk around in the sun. We walked the Strand to Hermosa Beach, walking past people's beach houses that would also go on that pinterest list of "things I would buy if I had a gazillion dollars" strangely some of those houses are listed on vrbo.com, hint hint.

A storm out in the middle of the Pacific and high tide strong undertow provided some of the largest waves I have seen since I have moved here. Which I guess do not look so big in these photos. What you also do not notice is that the undertow was so strong that a lot of these wave were full of sand.

We spent a good portion of the day in Manhattan Beach then booked it out of there before 3 pm traffic taking a leisurely way back up through LAs west side to see some sites before having dinner at Tender Greens. which was a continuation of our awesome food parade.

Adventures in LA-B-Day

I think my biggest regret this trip is that I didn't take a single photo on my Dad's b-day. If I did I would have taken pictures of us at Target, brunching at Tart where my Dad discovered a new way to make corned beef hash, a photo of us peering through stacks of antiques and mid-century furniture at t.i.n.i (this is not ikea) on Fairfax and the look on his face when he bit into his steak at Taylor's but stupid me, I did not take a single photo.

Adventures in LA-Hooray for Hollywood

Cover your eyes because your eyes won't believe what I have to say next. My Dad walked the Walk of Fame!!

Shut the front door right?

For this trip we rented a great little apartment in the Hollywood Hills. The famous Yamashiros and the Hollywood Bowl were our neighbors to give you an idea. It was very quiet and peaceful, you never knew that one the most touristy areas in the nation was just a stones throw away. We saw stars, we heard birds, we were greeted every morning by a dog with a rasta collar named "Okay"

We decided to take the short walk to Hollywood & Highland to do a little shopping and for Dad to see what it was all about. I carefully chose my route to avoid the "Street Performers"  I use that term very loosely. (There is an excellent documentary about the Hollywood Superman, if you are nerdy, like me and like documentaries)  It is amazing how the south side of the street is completely empty, we were able to still see Grauman's Chinese, the Hollywood and Highland Theater and see the stars in the sidewalk without the stress of the crowds.  Even though that crowd was across the street.

Shopping was quick but made us hungry, so we grabbed a bite in the 24hr diner in the ground floor of the Roosevelt Hotel. I had never been there before.  I love the wall paper.

The lobby of the hotel is really amazing, loungey and fancy, when I went back to take photos after lunch, they were breaking it down. Maybe there is a no lounging after noon policy?

The verdict on Hollywood was that it wasn't what he expected, but not someplace he needed to visit again. Which seems to be the general consensus.

And that was Day 2.

Adventures in LA-real day one

There is a tradition that we keep to when visitors come to town and that is no matter what you always start at the Farmer's Market/Grove. Usually that also starts with a meal at Cafe Marmalade, but we decided to be wild and reckless and do our own thing and individually pick our own places in the plethora of choices which is the Farmer's Market. We were joined for lunch by Brian, who I hadn't seen since my move. He and my Dad grabbed a burger at the newly opened Short Order, which was enjoyed by both and proclaimed one of the best burgers ever. I was slightly jealous, but preparing myself for the beef parade that was coming. (foreshadowing) I had sopes de tinga, which were very fantastic, but I like spicy food. (I would call this flavorful, but mid-westerners would say spicy) Mom enjoyed a crepe at the French Crepe Company, and picked a pound of mushrooms out of it.

We bought our winning ticket for the Megamillions. I say winning, because in fact we did win.....$3.

We enjoyed our lunch and then decided to check out a museum I had never been to called the Petersen Automotive Museum. I figured my dad would like it, because he likes cars and stuff. I was right and I was pleasantly surprised by its coolness. I guess you can't judge a place by its website.  My favorite exhibit was the Italian design, the were just so far ahead of us aesthetically. As shown in the pictures.  There were several things that would go on the "If I had a gazillion dollars" pinterest board.

I saw a gold Delorian!!! (Another Back to the Future movie perhaps, everything else is coming back)

Another exhibit followed the history of the scooter, which sounds really not that interesting at all, but really was. The first scooters looked like instruments of the Spanish Inquisition and I think you might have been burned very very badly if you were riding in a rainstorm. It continued on to the vespas we know now and a bunch of James Bond inspired fold up scooters that fit in very handsome suitcases. (I guess this was before wait limits and bag checking fees)

It was then off to a nickle tour of my tiny apartment  and a short walk to Soot Bul Jeep (or smokey meat house as we began to call it) to introduce my parents to Korean BBQ at the oldest K-BBQ place in LA. They also cook with charcoal, which is a rarity. We ordered spencer steak and chicken, which where both really good. I was especially surprised by how good the chicken was since this is kind of known as a beef and pork area of town. My parents told me that this was the first time they had both eaten an entire meal with chopsticks. 

 After all that running around, we were exhausted, so we went back to our quiet little house for the week, smelling like meat campfire and went to sleep.

Adventures in LA-

As many of you may have heard my father made his first trip out to see me in LA a couple weeks back. Here are those posts in order.

I won't really write about the real day one, the one where they picked me up at work and by mistake got on the 405 (oh, no!) and then we checked into the house ordered pizza and went to sleep early.

I will write about all the other stuff, the food, the beach the museums and all the rest.

Stay tuned.

There is actually something called pork sponge

It had been a really long time since I had gone tide pooling, very close to a year and a half when I had visitors from Minneapolis visiting.  I have been tidepooling a handful of times, as you have seen on this blog, often visiting Malibu Lagoon. We thought it would be nice to try some place different. I asked a California native a new place to go. He recommended Broad Beach, a little further up the Malibu coast's 27 miles of coastline.  As we passed Moonshadows and the rows of beach cottages, I remembered that many of these houses were featured on the Star Tour I went on when mom was visiting.  Strangely, no one was outside signing autographs like usual.

Broad Beach is a little harder to find and a bit daunting, because although there are public access points to the beach they are hidden between rich people's houses and even though those access points are in fact public, the residents may try to dissuade you. That didn't happen to us luckily. If it does though, you definitely have the right to be there.

We made it there just as lowtide was happening. When the tide receeded, it didn't reveal pools like the other places we had been, but rather revealed tide boulders. Hidden in and around those black jaggedy boulders were all kinds of things I wasn't expecting. Attached to the lower parts of these boulders were dozens of sea stars attached together like a blob as shown above.  I found something new (pictured right) which looked like some sort of alien armor in a sci-fy movie. It has a fancy Latin name I am sure, but it is more commonly called "Pork Sponge" I wanted to touch it, but didn't.

There are a few small caves and arches carved out of the rocks not a lot of room to walk around in. T spotted a few fossils and pre-historic tide creatures.

As we walked around the boulders we heard clicking clicking clicking and when we looked closer in the small canyons in the rocks we saw little crabs hiding clicking their claws, most likely from the birds that hang out during low tide to see what they can come up with for an after lunch snack. They would squinch up a bit more as our shadows passed them. I wish my camera could have caught the amazing reddish pink of its claws.

I hope to go tide pooling more often because I miss it. Until next time sea creatures.

Notes from the amazing Mandu

The Amazing Mandu's foray into blogging has been fantastic but brief. Since she is not blogging, I asked her to write me an update on Charley, since I am sure that everyone is waiting for some news about what she is up to.

She is super smiley and happy all the time. She does the open mouthed smile like Nora.  She likes to be sitting up so that she can see what is going on all the time (she has those crazy abs like Evan had).  When we go to watch Evan play hockey, she cries if I turn her away from the ice. She likes to watch all the kids skate around in their bright jerseys.  She likes to sit in her chair and swing and talk to her friends (her friends are the little animals that hang down from her chair and swing).  She gives them an earful, especially if she hasn’t seen them all day.

I'll try to keep the updates coming.

Steak and boulders

The book club I am in recently read Hollywood by Charles Bukowski, which is the somewhat fictional story of his life being turned into the movie Barfly.  It seems like every few pages Musso & Franks is mentioned. I had never been, and always wanted to try it. So we went to celebrate what we thought was his birthday, but ended up being the anniversary of his death.

Musso & Frank's opened in 1919 and has been a celebrity favorite ever since. Charlie Chaplin, Rudolph Valentino, the Fitzgeralds, etc. When I was there Friday I saw Debra Jo Rupp, who you may remember as the mom in That 70s Show.

They make a darned good martini and are quite famous for it. (And it is only $9.50, with a pony, which is pretty economical in these parts)  I got a steak, which was good, but it wasn't Taylors.

Los Angeles is filled with wonderful and strange things. The new and newsworthy thing that everyone has been talking about, no, not you Lindsay Lohan, is the LACMA Boulder, which more technically should be called Levitated Mass.

Levitated Mass is a Land Art piece consisting of a concrete hallway with a 340 ton rock monolith hovering above. This rock was cut from a quarry in Riverside California and moved extremely slowly to LACMAs location in Los Angeles. They published the slow moving route and the rock even had a twitter and facebook account, which was an excellent example of brilliant marketing, because if you think about it, who really cares about a rock?  But people totally did, people were following the parade for miles, there was a Block Rock party with bands, there were people who proposed in front of it. It was truly strange.

I had to see what it was all about, and since it was rolling through my neighborhood, it would have been silly not to.  I met a neighbor after that huge meal at Musso's and we walked to Western to watch it come by. I was surprised at how many people had come there to meet it, even more surprised that people had no idea about it.

We met it at Western and 8th and walked with it for a few blocks, as seen in the photos, picked up more and more people, who were waiting to see if it were possible for it to turn onto Wilshire, people were videoing it with their phones and ipads. Some loon ran around it with an American flag and people were holding up signs that said:

"God hates rocks, god loves scissors"


You have to love how creative people are here.


I think that I may have been on the local Korean news channel laughing.

Spring Forward, Fall back

It has been several weeks since I have written. I think my problem has been that I haven't known where to start. So I think what I will do is start with the most recent and work backwards. Logical I think.

I have a lot to say, so get ready for a lot of posts.

booohwlliiieeen

Or how Minnesotans say bowling.

I think I was on a kick of things I haven't done in 10 years or so this trip; skating, bowling, coloring in a coloring book a later thing I will explain later.

It seems like a new hot spot for the locals is to hit up the newly remodeled Thunder Alley. So when in Rome..... (see pictured)

There is something about bowling alleys that give me a hankering for nachos with cheeze whiz. I abstained though because I had just had chicago style hot dogs from Portillos. What an awesome gift.

I have to say that I was rather frustrated at first because it wasn't coming as quickly as ice skating did for me, and I wasn't having very good luck.  I had no idea how good of bowlers the rest of my family were.  It kind of ended up being pretty fun. We clapped, we cheered, we booed, we bowled.  I think we were the loudest people there. (Not surprising)

Photo essay portion:

skating-a photo essay

It has been a while in Minnesota since the weather has been perfect for lake skating. I took advantage of the above 30 degree weather to do something I hadn't done in 10 plus years. But since I played camera girl, here is a bunch of photos of other people skating.

Happy new year!

I am back and adjusting to life back in Los Angeles after 2 weeks in Minnesota. My pictures are finally uploaded and I hope to give you a snapshot of my time in the tundra. (For the most part the weather wasn't tundra like except for the couple days where it was 10)It was sunny, it was not very snowy, but not sundress weather.

One of my first stops in Minneapolis was to meet Charley(sp?), who was very new and sleepy, because it is hard work being born. She is awfully cute and tini-tiny with really long fingers. Everyone is still happy and healthy and I can tell that Evan is very excited to be a big brother, but rather impatient that she can't do stuff yet.

Something tells me that those two will get into a lot of trouble together.

sighting yet to come.

I have seen some celebrities of note lately, but really the only one that I am excited to see is this little number to the left. Who was born early Friday morning. Everyone is happy and healthy. Can't wait to meet her.

Orphan thxgiving

One of the good things about living in a studio apartment is that you don’t have to cook/host 8 plus people for Thanksgiving. There is just no where to put them. Plus, after my disappointing gravy making last year, I was happy to give it a rest and go to my friends in echo park and have them do the cooking. Being a mid-westerner, going to the house of mid-westerners I was there early and brought a bag full of food. My grandma Marge’s heavenly beau monde dip. (which I always called Bo Mondey, but now that I know a bit of French I know how it is really supposed to be pronounced. And chuckled to myself when I read the label) Vegetables always taste better with a good helping of mayonnaise and sour cream. I also purchased a pumpkin pie from Marie Calendar’s and from a co-worker who is in the process of starting her own baking business a dozen gluten free whoopie pies, they tasted like heaven.

I helped by cutting things, tried to decifer what was giblet and what was liver before it when into the stock pot, (thank god for the internet) trimmed beans for the green bean casserole and was mesmerized by the cooking skills of my friend. She was a whirling dervish, but made everything look so easy.

There were 7 of us orphans together, eating, sharing food, playing the name game-which I am excited to pull out when I go home for the holidays in a couple weeks.

I was great and in the end I ate too many Hawaiian rolls which made me oh so full and fat.

where the heck have I been?

Trying to organize my apartment, still dealing with the ex-roommates stuff, so far I have gotten rid of the TV, vcr, card table and two folding chairs, my place feels lighter, just two mirrors and a chandelier left. I don't really think that people are needing chandeliers in this economy, so it may need to go the way of freecyle.org, which is a great way to get rid of things and is local to you. A lot of people are struggling right now so people are very thankful. I have seen crazy stuff listed, like a bag of tangled yarn.

I found this photo while I was looking through papers, etc.

Navigating a new relationship. :)

Running into ex-boyfriends :(

Reading, almost finished with my last book to get me to my book it goal!

Celebrating holidays, crocheting, walking to Pasadena.

Exploring my neighborhood.

Catching up on my vampire fiction.

Some of these I will fill you in on soon, some of it I won't, but I promise I'll write more often.

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: