Birthdays and Houseguests

Thursday-People keep asking me what I did on my birthday. Well, I worked, came home and ate dinner, (which Daryl cooked, by the way), watched a bit of TV and then went to bed. For some reason, I'm supposed to make everyone aware that it's my birthday, but I'm having a party on the 1st and I feel like I can have the "Happy Birthday"s and the like then. I don't feel a great need to recognize my birth. But it is nice to get presents. My mother nearly forgot what day I was born. But it was a great day, I thought. I did everything I wanted to do and then I got dinner cooked for me and some nice down time with my husband. What more could I want? I think I should celebrate my birthday for a season and have a birthday season. That way, I can enjoy myself for at least three months. Or maybe I should make it for an entire year. Then, I wouldn't have to stop enjoying myself at all.

Elise, Diane, and Mike Fiegel came to town today from SF. Diane is staying with us and I am just glad that the sandblasting has stopped across the street. It's been mind-numbingly loud from 8a to 4p every day this week. Daryl tells me that they just stopped yesterday. Not that it's any less noisy, mind you, it's just that the sound of the sandblasting actually hurts after a while. Daryl had to wear earplugs because after one day of not wearing them he heard ringing in his ears for the rest of the night. After work, we all met at Puran's with another one of Elise's friends in LA, Rachel, who works at Amoeba Music here. And then Daryl and I had our very first houseguest in our new place. Daryl spent most of the day cleaning up the place because she's allergic to cats. (We warned her and she brought Zyrtec-and earplugs.) Maybe I should tell him we're going to have guests every week so he can clean the place up. He also went a bit crazy getting food and drinks for the party tomorrow. I looked in the fridge and it looked like it was full of soft drinks. and we have many, many bags of chips.

No Man's Land and Stickers

Wednesday-Saw the movie, No Man's Land. I was told it was a comedy, boy was I ever surprised. I'm not going to tell you any spoilers, but the last scene is so heartbreaking, I can't in good conscience call it a comedy. It was a good movie, though. If you ever want to see a movie about the ridiculousness of war, this is a good one to see.

We finally got our registration and stickers. After a 45 minute wait at the DMV, Daryl told them our entire ridiculous story. But now we have to watch out for people who will steal your sticker off your car. Apparently, you have to score the sticker with a razor blade so no one would want to steal it. Just another one of the joys of having a car. It just makes you wonder how hard up people are that they can't afford to get new stickers.

35 years and still ticking...

Tuesday-It's my birthday and as a gift, I get woken up three times in the morning. The first time it was because I was choking (I have a small cold.), second, because the cat decided to cause some trouble (because she is evil), and lastly, at 4:15a I got a phone call. Daryl didn't even hear anything. When I first heard the phone ring, I thought, oh, now I have to get up and then I thought, well, whoever is calling me at this hour is incredibly rude so I'm not answering it. I later found it was a wrong number from Seattle of all places. Happy Birthday to me!

The Aviator

Monday-Saw the Aviator and I think Leonardo DiCaprio did a very good job. His seduction of a cigarette girl was fabulous. The whole movie was very well cast and I think Cate Blanchett as Katherine Hepburn was genius. She was terrific and definitely deserved the Oscar nomination. It is, ultimately, a tragic story about Howard Hughes and it ends strangely, way before the decrepit old age and serious mental illness destroyed him. There's a hint of that in a sequence where he sequesters himself in a screening room and urinates in empty milk bottles. And then, you think to yourself, if anyone can pull you out of OCD madness, you can do no better than Ava Gardner. It makes me wonder if all of the men with OCD had a movie star like Kate Beckinsale urging them toward normalcy, how many would actually get better and stop washing their hands a hundred times day.

Troy and pie

Sunday-Saw Troy while Daryl worked. And you know what? Brad Pitt did a pretty good job. But it was all a little too serious for what it was. They shouldn't have cast anyone as Helen, but Orlando Bloom did a good job of seeming like a selfish kid. Did anyone seriously believe this couple? They messed with the story a bit, but whatever, it's a movie. Did anyone really believe that Achilles didn't have some sort of homosexual thing going on with Patroclus? All I know is that they tried really hard to make us believe that they didn't. The young actors all looked terrific and buff and it surprised me to know that they really did set fire to the hayballs and people had to act around them. The potential for things going wrong and people getting hurt was very, very high. But hey, great sequence. Peter O'Toole was great, as usual, and I really could believe that he could father a son that looked like Orlando Bloom. They both have very lovely cheekbones. I wonder, as they waited 6 months to rebuild the Troy set, when it was ruined by a hurricane, if Peter O'Toole regaled them with stories about what he did while waiting around on set of Lawrence of Arabia back in the day when he was the next big star.

Had to make another peach and blackberry pie. It must be done as organic blackberries are not in season for very long. And I am a slave to peach and blackberry pies.

Batman Blockbusters and Mail (Again)

Saturday-I had Thursday and Friday off and I used that time to goof off, catch up on sleep, and try to clean the house. Daryl worked on Thursday so I was all by myself and after making a list of things to do, I decided instead to just sleep in. Today we saw Batman Begins, which was OK. Apparently, Gotham City now looks like a combination of Blade Runner and Chicago, which seemed weird to me. It looked like everything south of Wacker had gone to seed. Liam Neeson once again plays the mentor/martial arts expert in this movie and gets to beat up on Christian Bale. A lot. Until, of course, Christian Bale's Bruce Wayne beats him up. Why is it that every movie like this has the student learning serious martial arts in what seems like a few months and then beating someone who's practiced it for years and years? I just hate it when they do that. For some reason, Bruce Wayne goes off to do criminal things in China and then get's shipped off to someplace that looks like Iceland, but which is supposed to look like Tibet, giving you the impression that it is, in fact, someplace in Movie Land. There is also a minor character who shows up in the prison with a few lines and then shows up later out of the prison to say a few more lines and no one ever explains why he's now out of the prison, nor why everyone can speak English, in Ice-Tibet-land, even a character named Ra's Al Ghul, which sounds Egyptian, and is played by a man who is Japanese, because that makes sense in Movie Land, but nowhere else. This is the one Batman movie I've seen that has made me not like Batman. There is a constant comparison being made between Bruce Wayne and his father, Thomas Wayne that made me think that I would have preferred the father over the son. The father worked in a hospital, built a public transportation and water system to help the poor, tried to step in front of his wife when she was going to be shot, and then, right before he died, tried to comfort his son. Compare that to his son, who on a high speed chase to save one person, quite probably kills, or at least injures, a good number of policemen and nearly destroys and definitely damages a lot of public property. He also destroys the rail system his father built, albeit for a good cause, but still. There were two funny moments in the movie, one where the police can't quite figure out how to describe the Batmobile, and the other where Michael Caine scolds Bruce Wayne for not being able to get himself out from under a log. Every scene where Michael Caine appears is great, by the way. You always get the sense that he's more decent and much smarter than Bruce Wayne. Morgan Freeman appears as Lucius Fox, and his quiet demeanor and steady decency also makes me more interested in him than in Bruce Wayne. There is something selfish about the whole idea of Batman, and Bruce Wayne's behavior in this movie doesn't make him any less selfish. I do have to mention that you do get the idea that he's trying to be a good human being, it's just that he doesn't quite succeed. Cillian Murphy, who plays the Scarecrow, does a fantastic job of being creepy and intriguing. At first you think, well, he's weird, and then you realize, oh yes, he's insane, and that makes him much more frightening. The fight scenes are ok and the car chase was good, but it all left me feeling pretty empty. Gary Oldman also does a good job as Lt. Gordon. The look on his face as he shoots from the Batmobile is terrific. Katie Holmes as a lawyer seemed incredibly far-fetched for me so I just could not buy it, I mean, really, she still looks like she's 16. Although you do want to stay away from her when she has a taser.

By this time, Daryl and I have decided that it would be nice to be able to rent DVDs. (The movies here are insanely expensive-$21 for two people without snacks and then you have to pay $4 for parking. No wonder why no one is going to the movies anymore.) So we went to Blockbuster to sign up. We had to provide our driver's license and credit card number so they can track what we watch and also charge us for not returning the DVDs. You know how they have an advertising campaign about how there are no more late fees? Well, the reason why is that they charge you the cost of the DVD on your credit card, as if it were new, if you're late, which is worse than late fees. I know that some people are wondering, why don't you just get Netflix. Well, we would if we could guarantee that we would actually get the DVDs in the mail. We, once again, have a mailbox that is too small to hold a DVD, and that is also outside the building available to one and all. If a piece of mail is too large for the mailbox, it's put in a recessed space next to the mailboxes, which is also open to one and all and has no lock. Normally, we don't have a problem with the mail, but we have been waiting for our car registration and license sticker for over a month now. Daryl even got a ticket for it. For some reason, Elegant Auto, where we bought the car, got our info to the the DMV and then decided to distribute the registration and license stickers themselves, by sending them through the mail, without certifying it or insuring it or even putting a tracking number on it so we could find it. Well, they say they mailed ours on the 14th. Either they mailed it and someone stole it, which is possible, or they forgot to mail it, which is also possible. In any case, we still don't have it, plus we have to pay a fine on a ticket where someone else is responsible for the neglect. Apparently, even though we're not at fault for not having updated stickers, we still have to pay $10 because we got a ticket in the first place. Right, welcome to LA.

We saw Ocean's Twelve on DVD. Is it just me or does Catherine Zeta-Jones and Brad Pitt have no chemistry? But there were some well written bits and they make fun of George Clooney so it wasn't all bad. I didn't really get what was going on, but they seemed to be having fun and the setting was lovely. Oh, and it was great to see Vincent Cassel breakdance in a sort of hip-hop take on the dance with lasers that Catherine Zeta-Jones did in Entrapment. After seeing this movie, I can't help feeling that all of these people have worked too much together in the past. In previous movies, George Clooney was wooing Catherine Zeta-Jones, and in another, Brad Pitt was wooing Julia Roberts. Even Bruce Willis, who had previously done a movie with Julia Roberts appears. And Casey Affleck appeared in an indie movie with Matt Damon. It's all very exclusive and seemed so. Oh, but they also make fun of Julia Roberts too, so it wasn't half bad and it was good for a laugh.

Does anyone ever notice that Christian Bale and Catherine Zeta-Jones are constantly cast as Americans when they're both Welsh? What is it about Wales anyway? Has anyone ever heard Christian Bale's real accent?

JPL and Mars Rocks!

Wednesday-I worked Sunday to Tuesday so today feels like Thursday if that makes any sense. Daryl, Maurissa, Christian (an old co-worker, who's been very helpful in helping us get work here in LA) and I went to the Jet Propulsion Lab today for a tour. Our tour guide was Louise who is a friend of our friend Mike Flemming. She is quite literally a rocket scientist, and had wanted to work at the Jet Propulsion Lab since she was a little girl and saw satellites and spaceship launches. The campus looked just like a college campus, but we're not allowed to take any pictures except for the buildings on the outside. We had to provide proof of citizenship and and our names before we even got there, and then on the day of the tour we had to show our ID's and people had to check our trunk. So, sort of like your everyday normal college campus, but with security clearances. Since we were with a friend who worked there, we got the tour that the normal tour doesn't get. Louise took us to see their Mars Rover room (which we all thought was cool, but most of the people at JPL are a little bored with), their historical satellites room, and the "Control Room" (Just imagine the scene in Apollo 13 where people on earth were all at computers in a room where everyone faced a screen showing trajectories, data, etc., trying to figure a way to help the astronauts. Yeah, that kind of room.), where we learned that Arnold Schwarzenegger insisted on being in the middle of, even though he only got in the way. He refused to stay in the observation room for VIPs that overlooked the "Control Room". I guess it was more dramatic for him to be in the way. In any case, much of the actual work done there can be done elsewhere, even remotely from people's homes, but that room has the most secure computers. We saw some fun mock-ups of satellites and Louise gave us some fun facts like, this satellite was stored for such a long time the lubricants on the mechanism to unfurl a screen dried out, and therefore, never opened when it was in space. Stuff like that. We also got to hear a lecture on why there was life on Mars, that sort of sounded like, "See this rock, see how it's like this rock, and see how it's like this other rock, and see how it's like this other rock...And that's why there was life on Mars.." etc. Needless to say, we left that lecture early. Maurissa nearly fell asleep listening to that. Aside from that it was a fun day for all and I thank Louise for giving us a great tour. Daryl took a picture of us outside in front of some rockets, which you may find a picture of on his blog.

Mr. & Mrs. Smith

Saturday-I have been working all week on the documentary, Discover Hetch Hetchy. It's been busy, but at least I get the weekend off. We saw the movie, Mr. & Mrs. Smith, which while fun, was cold. There's a moment where the two main characters ask each other if they ever lost any sleep over the assasinations they committed. Neither one ever did. Now that's harsh. They're both sociopaths, I thought. No wonder they're meant for each other. I liked the first half hour where the two actors do a great job of playing a man and wife in a marriage where neither one can ever really say what they want to each other, whether about their jobs, or about what they think about the new drapes. Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie look terrific, even under serious gunfire. I guess that's why they're movie stars. Or why there's a hairdressing and make-up department. There are also some funny moments where they hide their superhuman abilities, highly toned reflexes, balance, etc. Of course, there is no basis in reality here. I don't care how good you are, you can't be that physically perfect all the time. And why, after 5 years of marriage has Mr. Smith never figured out where his wife works? I guess it shows how neglectful they both were, but I just didn't buy it. Also, neither one of them get's seriously hurt even when surrounded by people shooting at them with machine guns. It's a kind of weird reality that only exists in movies. A kind of reality where being a hired killer somehow makes you the good guy in the movie. Well, it is only a movie, after all. Vince Vaughn has some really good moments here and you really do think he could turn in his best friend for a million dollars. He has the right mixture of opportunistic desperation and cold-bloodedness. And there's a great kind of Get Smart/James Bond production design, with guns and knives hidden in a compartment under the oven, accessed by a code punched in on the microwave keypad. The movie is violent in the way that movies are that want to apppeal to a PG-13 audience. People get shot through their kevlar vests, but they don't bleed. Also, it's surprisingly funny to kick a man you just killed and then to run over him as you steal a car. It's almost as if it's one of those violent video games where there is no moral or legal ramification for running over a person deliberately. Fun and witty, but cold, cold-hearted. It also reminded me of Fight Club, a very different Brad Pitt movie where the ramifications of violence were made very clear. Every single bruise and injury was emphasized and never lost their meaning-you get hurt and you hurt others when you fight. Whereas here, the effects of violence only serve to glorify the people committing violence without any effect on their emotional or physical life. Weird, huh?

Thumbs up for Howl

Thursday & Friday-Worked but I was still sick. Because I am that way.
Saturday-Probably slept, but honestly I can't remember.
Sunday-Saw Howl's Moving Castle at the El Capitan Theater on Hollywood right in the heart of the tourist area. It was a great movie. It was a little more mature than say, Kiki's Delivery Service, but it had really nice moments for the kids too. Miyazaki has a serious love of flying, rain, grasses moving in the wind, and crazy contraptions. He also has a great sense of humor. There was a moment when one character literally is melting out of melancholy because his hair is red. (Believe me, in context this is high-larious.) I highly recommend it. The theater, on the other hand, was like an advertisement for Disney. People were inundated with all of the Disney characters. In fact, there's usually a little show where all of the characters come out and dance on the stage. We missed that but the half hours worth of trailers for Disney films was enough for me. The theater is beautiful, by the way, even had a balcony. And it was beautifully decorated and painted. It reminded me of the Castro Theater and they even had an organist. But there were two different prices for the seats. Apparently, the really good seats were $10.50, but the other seats were $8.50. We got the $8.50 seats which were for the sides of the theater and the balcony. So we took the balcony, which wasn't bad. While we were watching the movie, Daryl swears he saw Michael Douglas with a drink and a large popcorn wandering around in the dark looking for his family. So maybe Catherine Zeta-Jones was there with the kids? Anyway, we found out that we were at one of the dubbed shows (for the kids, and maybe the adults who can't read?) and that if we had gone to a later show, it would have been the subtitled show, which is preferable.

One cute thing that Daryl noticed about our car was little kitty paw prints on our car hood and car windshield, from the two kittys in the neighborhood. I found out that their names are Butch and Buster. Butch is the big black cat, and Buster is the scared grey tabby. They're both girls and they get along very well. But there's also a third cat, a male, who is all black and likes to start fights in the neighborhood. Which makes sense because we've been hearing some serious catfights outside. By the way, if any of you come and visit us and stay on our sofa, be warned. Thursday morning is garbage day and it's very loud for hours. I'm not kidding. There are about six times in the morning where they will drive by and pick up garbage. Also, the landscapers are relentless. Plus, you can hear everything going on outside, from the kids playing next door, to the baby wailing in the apartment building on the other side. So, you have been warned. Now, come and visit!

Los Feliz Street Fair

Sunday-We went to to the Los Feliz Street Festival, which was exactly what you'd expect for a family street fair. I was still exhausted from the previous day, so we didn't do much after that except I baked some bread and make some roast pork tenderloin. I woke up the next day sick with a cold. I guess going on a long hike and then working out and cleaning the house are not all good things to do on the same day.

Monday to Wednesday-Basically, I am sick. I actually went to the store and bought a chicken and made soup. After that I collapsed.

Crab in the water

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Originally uploaded by ecilanooy.

Yes, it's a crab.

Crab in the Shell

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Originally uploaded by ecilanooy.

This is a crab.

Daryl at the tidepools

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Originally uploaded by ecilanooy.

Daryl at tidepool.

Daryl at the top of the hill with a view to the south

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Originally uploaded by ecilanooy.

Daryl at top of hill, view to the south.

Pink Flowering Branch

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Originally uploaded by ecilanooy.

Pink flowers off a branch. Anyone know what this is?

White Flowering Branch

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Originally uploaded by ecilanooy.

White flowers off a branch, just like the pink ones. Anyone know what this is?

Daryl on the hill

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Originally uploaded by ecilanooy.

Daryl on hill with flowers.

Milky Bud

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Originally uploaded by ecilanooy.

Here's the same milky flower, except it's still a bud.

Milky Flower

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Originally uploaded by ecilanooy.

This was at the bottom of the hill. Yellow like daisies with a milky substance in the middle. Anyone know what this is?

Spiky Purply Flower

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Originally uploaded by ecilanooy.

These are the same purply spiky flowers that were surrounding the trail.

Yellow Poppy-like flower

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Originally uploaded by ecilanooy.

These are just pretty yellow flowers.

Tidepools

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Originally uploaded by ecilanooy.

Here are the lovely tidepools. You might be able to make out the surfers in the distance.

The view from the top of the hill

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Originally uploaded by ecilanooy.

Here's the view from the top of the hill we climbed.

Leo Carillo was Pancho from The Cisco Kid

Saturday-We went to Leo Carillo state park just past Malibu on the Pacific Coast Highway. We went to see the tidepools, which on that day were lowest at 2am, and then again at 2p. I had an acupuncture appointment at 9:30a wherein I was left to sleep for about an hour-with needles sticking in me. Then, I had glass cups applied with suction to my back, which were then moved up and down and across my back . Yeowch! We got some breakfast at Swingers in Santa Monica. We saw Elijah Wood there smoking outside. Yuck. The waitress messed up my order and gave me toast when I asked for no bread. Sigh. Daryl sent the food back and they tried again. All I wanted was a fried egg and some bacon. The day was a bit foggy so there were not that many people out, unless you count the really dedicated surfers. We found the park and paid to park in the lot and then found out people could park in the street fairly nearby for nothing. State of California:1, D'Alice: 0. The tidepools were not that exciting, but I tried to take a few pictures of interesting crabs, who were all a whole lot faster than me. I think we have to wait until the tide gets much lower and I don't think that's going to happen until June 27th. After we played in the tidepools a bit, we had a snack and thought we could go for a hike. Daryl showed me the hill that we'd be climbing and I was a bit wary but we did it. The trail was overgrown and there were places where the trail had to be traversed with your back against the hill, moving sideways. Some of the plants were so high they were higher than me and the prickly ones would slap my bare arms. Lucky that I was wearing jeans or I'd have scars all over my legs. We took a trail that had switchbacks up the hill (the harder trail, I might add) and then took the winding trail down the other side. This trail was easier but also took longer. On the bright side, it wasn't on the bright side of the hill with the afternoon sun and we got the breeze from off the ocean. Daryl still got burned though. After we got to the bottom of the hill we went to the beach again to cool off. Exhausted, we went back home and Daryl took a nap while I worked out and then cleaned the floors. Boy, did we sleep well.

Flowers, non-young coconuts, and genesis

Wednesday & Thursday- Been working. Busy, busy, etc. Went to the flower market with Christian. We parked on the roof, which is somehow less expensive than being below it, which makes no sense to me at all. Rode down in the parking elevator, which I mention because it was the nicest smelling parking elevator ever. Usually parking garage elevators smell, well, you know what they smell like, but this one smelled like flowers. Nice. Once down on the first floor, we walked through two warehouses full of flowers. We got daisies (See the pictures on Daryl's blog.), while Christian got tuberoses and lillies and some other flower I don't know the name of. We tried to get young coconuts at another warehouse in the area, but they were out. We have to get them next week. Christian and I went to work and Daryl put our daisies in a pitcher of water, left for one second to go to the bedroom, and then ran out to clean up the water after the cat toppled the pitcher. She likes to eat flowers. She still tries to eat the one marigold I got and then pukes up the petals afterward. Not. Too. Smart. After work, (because you really don't want to know what I do at work, do you?) we all went to see a movie called GENESIS. We got to see seahorses mate, a toad eat a frog, and komodo dragons fight. Not your usual Hollywood fare, unless you switch out the seahorses for Tom Cruise and Nicole Kidman, and switch the komodo dragons for Tom Cruise and Russell Crowe, and switch out the toad and frog for Tom Cruise and-no, that wouldn't be Hollywood fare either. In any case, it was a beautifully photographed movie. We met Christian's friend, Tory Berger, who everyone says looks like Jesus. Then it's probably a good thing he's in charge of the Spiritual Film Festival.

A desk for $20 and 12 salad forks for $8.

Tuesday-We took a page from Maurissa and went to Goodwill looking for a desk for our storage roo-sorry, our office. We found a desk that Daryl loved and it was only $20. I wanted to check out other furniture places so we vsisted what I think is furniture store row. But Daryl really loved that desk so we stowed it in the car, which, as it turns out, has back seats that go down to allow more storage space for the trunk. Well, you learn something new every day. We also checked out a chef's store called Surfas on Venice. They have great chef stuff there, from gourmet food to a bunch of plastic baskets for fast food joints to huge commercial freezers and dishwashers-and parts for them for repair. I found 12 salad forks for $8. We got them for Christian because he has no forks. (He cooked food the last time he went to Burning Man and brought his own silverware, and then never saw the forks again.) I also tried to make the Vietnamese dish I'd been raving about and discovered I'd bought the wrong kind of noodles. Then I tried to make my own spring roll wrappers and that was disastrous. Next time, I'm finding gluten free ones before I attempt that again. Daryl did find it amusing, however.