Garage Remodel (pt. 2)

The workers are now gone and the remodel done. Now all we have to do is move everything into our wonderful new cabinets and paint inside and out. Thanks to Garage Envy and Mark's Windows for doing such a terrific job!



















More photos in a couple of weeks when it's all done!

Hollywood book-signing

File this one under “only-in-L.A.!”

Tim and I went to a book-signing last night at the fabulous streamline-moderne Crossroads of the World, Sunset Boulevard’s earliest (1936) outdoor mall. The centerpiece was Los Angeles: Portrait of a City, a gorgeous new coffeetable book by Jim Heimann and former state librarian Kevin Starr, whom I know professionally. We were greeted by klieg lights and some 200 people dressed like they were going to an old-time movie premier; but, unfortunately, no Dr. Starr.

Still, there was plenty of other local literati to ogle, including Diane Keaton, looking very much like her alter-ego Annie Hall, Rodney Bingenheimer, former rock DJ and subject of the excellent documentary Mayor of the Sunset Strip, and Hugh Hefner, wearing a suit and sporty fedora. Hef’s entourage did a good job of shielding him from the rest of the crowd—which was just as well since he’s looking pretty old and frail these days. At one point, we saw his attractive blonde assistant (girlfriend?) yelling in his ear, “DO YOU WANT TO WAIT HERE WHILE I CALL FOR THE CAR?,” so we figured he’s also now hard-of-hearing.

Champagne and several alcoholic beverages flowed freely, but there was nothing to eat. We milled around and chatted with colleagues, who also happened to be there, while keeping our eyes peeled for hors d’oeuvres. Finally, after about an hour, a young woman walked our way carrying a tray of square food.

“What are these?” Tim asked her.

“Focaccia,” she answered, as if we were children. “It’s like bread, but with truffles on top.”

I rolled my eyes and popped one in my mouth. Tasty, but hardly a meal.

We looked at each other and started heading toward the door. No use trying to be hip when your stomach’s growling! So we grabbed our book, bid Hollywood adieu and drove straight to our favorite pizza joint in Culver City. Two slices of cheese, please!

Stay-cation (11/6-11/15)

Saturday

What would you do if you were spending a week in Los Angeles? Well, we started our nine-day stay-cation by eating (of course!) at The Oinkster in Eagle Rock, one of Guy Fieri’s featured “diners, drive-ins and dives.” Those are shredded pork sandwiches and twice-baked fries in the before-and-after photos—yummm-eee!








Sunday

We’re all about mid-century living, so naturally we took the L.A. Conservancy’s tour celebrating the 50-year anniversary of 1960s architecture in Los Angeles. It started at the Proud Bird, a funky restaurant surrounded by old aircraft, including the orange rocket Chuck Yeager flew when he broke the sound barrier in 1947. Located on the eastern end of LAX, the Bird is the perfect spot to watch planes land while wolfing down Sunday brunch.

From the Proud Bird, we drove over to the Flight Path Museum, the former Imperial Terminal building where many VIPS and local sports teams board chartered airplanes. Now a free museum open five days a week, the Flight Path chronicles the history of LAX through photographs and fascinating artifacts. Most of the stewardess mannequins were dressed in their finest polyester suits and miniskirts. We also got to board an old DC-3 plane permanently parked behind the museum. Though we never left the ground, the thought of flying in such cramped quarters made me (relatively!) happy for today’s much larger—if less glamorous—737s.







Our next stop was the Theme Building, LAX’s iconic hub that looks like something out of the space-age cartoon, The Jetsons. Turns out it was actually modeled after Martian spacecraft in the 1953 movie War of the Worlds (who knew?). Built in 1961, the Theme Building is currently undergoing renovation after a chunk of concrete fell off one its four arched legs. Retrofitting won’t be completed till next year; still, we were able to go up to the observation deck, which has been closed since 9/11. The view of the entire airport was magnificent.






Tuesday

Although I’m a loyal member of the L.A. County Museum of Art (LACMA), the thought of driving up to mid-Wilshire—one of the most congested parts of the city—is sometimes just too much to bear. So it’s been a while since we’ve visited the museum. However, Tim and I were sufficiently intrigued by an exhibit celebrating the 20-year anniversary of the collapse of the Berlin Wall that we spent much of Tuesday at the museum and environs. I loved the permanent display of old L.A. light standards that now greets LACMA visitors. We were also impressed by the Wall, which has been temporarily installed across the street.


















The best part of the day, though, was (finally!) getting into Mozza, possibly the best—and therefore, most popular— gourmet pizzeria in all of Los Angeles. The trick is to go at 2PM on Tuesday. But even then, it was crowded. We were lucky to snag two seats at the counter, where we watched mesmerized as the cooks assembled and baked at least 20 pizzas while we were sitting there. Very entertaining and, of course, the food was amazing.

The rest of the week

In addition to running around and eating, we also met with friends, went to two plays, caught up on tivo, and saw five movies (a new world’s record even for us): An Education, the well-acted story of a 16-year-old student who has an affair with a con artist in the early 1960s; A Serious Man, the Coen brothers’ darkly funny semi-autobiographical film about growing-up Jewish in Minnesota; 2012, the ridiculously improbable yet fun disaster movie that revels in destroying Los Angeles and the rest of the world; Fantastic Mr. Fox, a truly wonderful stop-motion film that features the voices of George Clooney and Meryl Streep; and Women in Trouble, an extremely low-budget flick, starring some of my favorite actresses from TV shows Friday Night Lights, 24, and Entourage.

It was a fabulous week and only a taste of what it will be like once we retire. Only ten more years to go!!


P.S. Does anyone know what this is? (Tim is not allowed to guess!)

Garage Remodel (pt. 1)

We love our 1400 sq. ft. house, but after almost 13 years living here, we’ve pretty much reached critical mass on space. The simple act of buying a new set of towels can send me into a frenzy of reorganization as I endlessly cope with inadequate cabinets and closets. Plus our office, where I spend most of the day (I work at home), is a disaster area with books and files piled all over the floor. Desperate, I began seeking a solution. I didn’t have to look very far.

Like many people, our garage has slowly become a dumping ground for every nonessential thing in our lives: old furniture that’s too good to donate to Goodwill; mementoes from deceased family members; leftover tiles and linoleum from our kitchen remodel four years ago; boxes and boxes of Christmas ornaments (I swear they’re like rabbits, reproducing on their own every year between January and November); and, of course, my extensive collection of mint-in-box action figures from several Star Trek movies and TV series (!).

To make matters worse, the original homeowners had divided the garage into two sections by building a wall down the middle. On the left was space enough for one small car (ha!); on the right, a dark, musty workbench for tools, gardening implements and countless breeds of spiders. In other words, lots of wasted — but precious — space. So we held a big yard sale and called Garage Envy for a remodeling estimate. Three weeks later, we’re in the midst of converting our useless old garage into what we hope will be an attractive den/storage area. See for yourself . . .


















The view from our new garage window. Stay tuned for more . . .

October 2009

Did you ever have one of those months when you were too busy to breathe, let alone post blog updates. That’s our October! Here’s a thumbnail review of what we’ve been up to . . .

Cosmic Conjunction (10/4): The season of giving started early this year with a benefit concert on the lawn outside the Griffith Observatory. Wolfgang Puck provided dinner (honey-stung chicken with heirloom tomato and peach salad, potatoes, a corn Madelin, and red velvet cake), while we listened to music selected and conducted by Arthur B. Rubinstein, best known for directing various movie and TV soundtracks. The highlight was a new composition, fittingly called “Observations,” narrated by Leonard Nimoy. Hearing Mr. Spock relate the story of the birth of the cosmos, under a glorious harvest moon, was complete heaven on earth!

Sports Museum (10/8): ESPN cosponsored a fundraiser at the Sports Museum of Los Angeles, so naturally we went even though we didn’t know much about the cause, Junior Achievement of Southern California, before entering the event. Turns out both the Junior Achievement, a volunteer-based organization that teaches kids financial literacy, and the Museum, a 32,000 square-foot facility that holds the largest private collection of sports memorabilia in the world, were fabulous. Plus we got to see basketball great Kareem Abdul Jabbar, who apparently just stopped by for a snack. He’s very tall! For more details, click here.

Cocktails at Union Station (10/10): One of Tim’s favorite food critics is Pulitzer Prize winner Jonathan Gold, columnist for the L.A. Weekly. We’re also big fans of Zócalo Public Square, a nonprofit that presents local lectures and screenings in an attempt to broaden civic discourse. Their programs are provocative and always free. To help support Zócalo, Jonathan Gold hosted a cocktail party fundraiser at Union Station, one of downtown L.A.’s most beautiful architectural landmarks. Catering the event were several of the city’s trendiest restaurants: Mozza, Cut, Church & State, Palate, Providence, The Gorbals, Comme Ça, and Rivera. Tim is more a beer man and I don’t drink alcohol at all, so the whole cocktail thing was lost on us. But we did pretty much get drunk on the food: pig burgers (yum!), bufala & alici salad, bacon-wrapped Matzo balls, tortilla florales, and butterscotch budino. Tim also tried the pork terrine with pickled shitake, clam fritters, tuna tartare, and steak tartare sliders—all of which are outside my particular (some would say “peculiar”) taste palate. The best part was sharing a small table with Kevin Roderick, author of two of our fave L.A. books, Wilshire Boulevard and The San Fernando Valley. We managed to talk to him quite normally without gushing like the two star-struck fans we were.

Hollyhock House (10/13): A few days later, we got the opportunity to attend a preview screening of Visual Acoustics, a new documentary about our architectural photography hero Julius Shulman. The movie was screened at Barnsdall Park in east Hollywood, site of Frank Lloyd Wright’s famous Hollyhock House. Although both of us have lived in Los Angeles almost our entire lives, neither of us had ever toured the Hollyhock House, so we were thrilled to see the film as well as one of Wright’s most famous L.A. masterpieces—and all on the same night. Built of concrete, the house was magnificent, if a bit sterile (typical FLW). The doc was wonderful, too, and made us even sadder that Julius had just recently passed away.

Actors' Gang benefit (10/17): Though Tim had by now declared “no more fundraisers!,” even he couldn’t resist half-price tickets to a Sarah Silverman and Tenacious D concert benefiting the Actors' Gang, a Culver City-based theatrical group directed by Oscar-winner Tim Robbins. The event was held at the intimate Ivy Station, a former trolley stop that now houses a 99-seat theater. It was quite the scene. Not only were we on the older end of the demographic spectrum, we also didn’t wear black, which is apparently the hip color for young concertgoers. I may not have been cool, but at least I didn’t roast (like everyone else!) in my pink summer dress. Tenacious D was outrageous. Led by insane comedic actor Jack Black, the two-person group performed hysterical heavy metal parodies on acoustic guitars, while most of the audience sang along. I loved every minute.

Paul Shaffer (10/21): Pianist extraordinaire Paul Shaffer has lots of stories to tell. As the former bandleader on Saturday Night Live and David Letterman’s musical director for the past 27 years, he’s met and played with almost every rock and pop star alive today, plus a few who are no longer living. On Wednesday, he made a stop at the Grammy Museum to recount some of the stories found in his new book, We’ll Be Here for the Rest of Our Lives: A Swingin’ Show-Biz Saga. We couldn’t resist seeing him. And lucky for us, too, because he was absolutely terrific—very funny and a brilliant raconteur. I can’t wait to read his book.

So that’s it so far. There are still five days left in October. Tim is hoping the Angels will make it into the World Series and I’ve got a big conference at the end of the week. But the really big news, which I’ll probably blog about next, is that, on top of everything else, we’re remodeling our garage! Stay tuned for news about the demolition later this week . . .

Emmys 2009

It is no secret that Tim and I love TV. In fact, if we didn’t have tivo we’d probably never leave the house at night for fear of missing our favorite television shows!

No surprise then that we were ecstatic when we heard that this year’s Emmys show was being broadcast from the Nokia Theatre in the same complex where Tim works. All week long he sent me photos of the red carpet being rolled out and bleachers set-up. We kept our fingers crossed that the red carpet would be laid right in front of his office window and, sure enough, it was! We immediately decided to watch the pre-show festivities from the 2d-floor conference room.

The ceremonies started at 5PM, so we left the house before 1:30PM. Traffic around the theater was a nightmare; but because Tim had wisely acquired a special parking pass (for employees only), we got waved onto streets that were otherwise closed to the public. We had to pass through several groups of guards and then wind around Israeli-style barriers into the parking lot. At the top of the stairs was a small staging area with Entertainment Tonight banners. Everyone was dressed in black and even the camerapeople were wearing tuxedos. We had obviously arrived.

By the time we picked-up lunch-to-go downstairs, it was 2:30PM. We set-up camp in the conference room—fabulous view of the red carpet right below our feet. A few unknown women were posing for photographers before entering the theater, so I went to the staff room to eat my salad.

I was halfway through lunch when Tim yelled, “Quick, Babe. It’s Ben from Lost!” And that was that. I ran back down the hall. One of Tim’s coworkers joined us in the conference room. For the next two hours we yelled out stars’ names and debated exactly who we were seeing (several false Katherine Heigl and January Jones sightings!). I was most thrilled to see my latest hero Neil Patrick Harris, who is tonight’s master of ceremonies, and William Shatner, who skipped the photo line altogether. It was all very exciting and now I’m just counting the minutes till the show begins here at 8PM. Here are just some of the beautiful people we saw (click on each image to see better).






Michael Emerson (Lost) and wife Carrie Preston (True Blood)










Elizabeth Moss (Mad Men) and Fred Armisen (Saturday Night Live)






Neil Patrick Harris and crowd











Jason Siegel (How I Met Your Mother)











Jim Parson (far left) (Big Bang Theory) looking on at a wilting Christina Hendricks (far right) (Mad Men)











Jessica Lange (nominated for Grey Gardens)











The gang from Entourage











Jon Hamm (Mad Men) and woman in strange Obama dress











The red carpet














Drew Barrymore looking absolutely stunning











Rainn Wilson (far left) (The Office) and Jane Krakowski (30 Rock)











Julia Louis Dreyfus (New Adventures of Old Christine) (far left) and Sally Field (Brothers and Sisters) (far right)

D23

It should come as no surprise that I love almost everything related to Disney. Not only did I grow-up in Burbank, just a couple of miles from Disney Studios, but Disneyland opened just seven months after my first birthday. You might even say the park and I have grown old together, but only one of us gets regular face-lifts. (Hint: it’s not me!)

My fascination with all things Disney has only deepened since Tim went to work for the Mouse some twelve years ago. I was, therefore, ecstatic when I heard the company was finally starting an official fan club. Called D23, after the year (1923) Walt came to California to start his own studio, the club offers members insider scoops on events and, of course, special merchandise. Members also receive a beautiful quarterly magazine, Twenty-Three, which is destined to become a collector’s item.

Corporate heads also figured out the time was ripe to stage their own mini-Comic-Con and so the first-ever D23 Expo is being held this weekend in Anaheim, across the street from the Disneyland Resort. As soon as I heard about it, I became a D23 member and asked Tim to buy (hugely discounted!) employee passes to the Expo. I couldn’t convince anyone to go with me, so I took yesterday off and went by myself.

Disney CEO Bob Iger was speaking at 10AM, so I left early enough to park and saunter into the convention center. There was a handful of people walking into the exhibits area, but basically the place was pretty dead. I started to worry that the Expo was a bust and no one was going to show-up. Then I turned the corner heading to the arena and stopped dead in my tracks. Hundreds of people were waiting to get into the arena! As I found out later, many fans had arrived well before 5AM to stand on line. I knew then that the Expo was a success. But was I too late to see Iger?

Turns out the arena holds over 4000 people, so after snaking around on a typically long Disney line, we all surrendered our cameras and cellphones and made our way inside. Despite my fear of heights, I was happy to get a seat in the balcony. A few minutes later, a short video of various Disney clips was shown on three big screens above the stage. People cheered for their favorite Disney shows and characters (everyone—including me!—screamed for Johnny Depp as both captain Jack Sparrow and the red-haired Mad Hatter, from Tim Burton’s soon-to-be-released remake of Alice in Wonderland).

Into this frenzy walked Iger, whom the crowd adored. He thanked the fans for their support and told of innovations looming on the horizon (e.g., a new attraction based on the movie Cars, being built inside Disney’s California Adventure Park). He then treated us to the first 30 minutes of the new film The Princess and the Frog, animated in the hand-drawn style of Disney’s great old movie-length cartoons. (My quick review: the first 30 minutes are terrific!) The actress who voices the princess, Anika Noni Rose, came out next and sang the theme song live. The crowd went wild!

The best part of the morning, however, was the induction of the latest “Disney Legends,” employees and celebrities alike, who have left their mark on the company. Many Disney regulars, such as Fred McMurray, Julie Andrews, Kurt Russell, and the original “Nine Old Men” animators, have been inducted over the years. But this was the first time “outsiders” were invited to participate in the festivities.

This year’s inductees included: the current voices of Goofy (Bill Farmer) and Donald Duck (Tony Anselmo); Don Iwerks, uncle to Larry Iwerks with whom I went to high school; Imagineer Leota Toombs Thomas, whose likeness is world-renowned as the Haunted Mansion’s creepy disembodied head-in-a-jar; all four Golden Girls (Bea Arthur, Estelle Getty, Rue McClanahan, and Betty White); and actor/comedian Robin Williams. The acceptance speeches, especially from White and Williams, were funny and often quite moving. As someone said afterward, “If I see nothing else today, that ceremony alone was worth the price of admission!” And she was right.

From there I jumped right into the collectibles section of the exhibits area. Now I’m a fan of most Disney films, but my real passion is Disneyland—especially the Disneyland of my childhood: the Monsanto “House of the Future,” which, I’m convinced, launched my fledgling interest in mid-century modern architecture; the “barf-buckets” (i.e., Skyway tram), which were sadly dismantled in 1994; the Rocket to the Moon, which I thought really did take us to the moon; the Flying Saucers (i.e., space-aged bumper cars, which were grounded in 1966); Dumbo; and the cups (i.e., Mad Hatter’s Tea Party). Although many of these rides have long ago been disassembled, they still spark tremendous nostalgia for me and so I’m always on the lookout for books, postcards or posters that recapture the Disneyland of yore. One guy offered an almost inescapable temptation: a seat from a Monorail train that had just been decommissioned. But, unfortunately, everything was far too “collectible” (i.e., expensive!), so I made do, quietly reliving my past by looking through boxes and boxes of other people’s memorabilia.

A screening of vintage home movies of early Disneyland was too crowded, so I roamed around the rest of the exhibits downstairs. Disney bridal dresses, vacation packages, furniture, and lots of artwork, were all being hawked by various vendors. There was also a museum-style display of props and mementos from the TV show Lost, which airs on Disney-owned ABC. Ben’s wire-rimmed glasses, Hurley’s lottery ticket, cans of Dharma Initiative food, etc.—all fun stuff for Lost fans.

Winding down, I saved the best for last: a darkened room upstairs filled with one-of-a-kind “treasures” from the Disney archives. Included here were costumes from Mary Poppins, Enchanted, Pirates of the Caribbean, and High School Musical; Annette and Cubby’s Mousketeer outfits; an 11-foot model of the Nautilus submarine from 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea; maquettes from Pinocchio; life-size robots from The Black Hole; the jewel-encrusted book from the opening scene in Sleeping Beauty; Herbie the Love Bug; and the sleigh from Babes in Toyland. It was the perfect way to end a perfectly magical day!





The good ol' days!