Living in the Time of COVID-19

 

Face masks or coverings are now mandatory in L.A.

 

All life changed eleven weeks ago because of coronavirus. On March 16, Angelenos were mandated to stay at home as all but “essential” businesses and services were shut down. Schools went online, live performance and sporting events were postponed, and amusement parks closed.

Still our lives remain relatively unaltered. Retired now for almost five years, we’re used to being at home, though there are many things we miss—like exercising at the gym, going to the theater and movies, eating at restaurants, and, of course, Disneyland. Our summer trip to Spain is canceled and it’s doubtful we’ll be taking the February 2021 Panama Canal cruise we booked several months ago.

We count our blessings every day, however. Two people we know had the virus, only one of whom survived, and know of another who tested positive but apparently is OK. Thankfully, our family members and dearest friends are all healthy and either retired or still working, so that’s a major silver lining.

Though we are coping well with the “new normal,” this entire experience has certainly been strange. Just leaving the house now triggers a mental checklist of items to bring along: ubiquitous face masks or coverings; our homemade spritzer of alcohol for disinfecting hands; and water bottles, so we’re not tempted by public fountains if we get thirsty. My backpack purse— which used to be more purse than backpack—now feels like a full-on backpack. Camping anyone?

Shopping for groceries was crazy, the first week of the shutdown, as people panicked and began hoarding food staples and paper products. We went from one crowded store to another looking for basic items, until one morning Tim called me from our local market, where he’d gone to get a cup of Starbuck’s.

“There are no lines!” he whispered conspiratorially into the phone.

“Is there food on the shelves?” I asked.

“No onions, but lots of other stuff.”

I ran right over. No onions, potatoes, broccoli, or carrots, but did get lots of fruit and Roma tomatoes. We were set for a while.

 

Empty shelves the first week of the shutdown

 

 Tim and the world's largest roll of toilet paper

The hoarding phenomenon is now a distant memory as markets tend to be pretty well-stocked with food and other essentials, though cleaning products and alcohol are still in drastically short supply. Many stores have signs on the floor directing customers to move all one way down each aisle to enable the preferred 6-foot safe “social distance.” We have also learned to shop first thing in the morning, otherwise we’ll have to wait on line outside stores that (thankfully!) limit the number of customers inside. Monday mornings before 8AM are best.

 

 Directional signs on market floors

Our days are fairly redundant: get up, exercise via YouTube zumba or walk 2-3 miles, work on projects around the house (e.g., organizing closets, cupboards, and old photographic slides), sometimes attend a virtual meeting or webinar on Zoom, read Facebook for two hours, and watch TV at night. And, of course, eat. Making dinner is now a daily highlight as we both enjoy cooking (and eating!). My personal goal is to throw away no food, leading to some interesting reuse of “left-overs.”

 

 With libraries now closed, our Little Free Library

has been very popular during the shutdown. Thanks to 

friends and neighbors for keeping it well-stocked.

 

Haircuts al fresco! Salons are closed, so my

hairdresser came over and cut our hair on the

back patio.

We’ve also started going on weekly “excursions” to change the scenery and just get out of the house. We drove to Santa Barbara to buy our favorite chicken take-out and did the same on a drive to San Diego for our favorite taquitos from El Indio. One night, we went to nearby Dockweiler Beach to see the bioluminescent waves caused by “red tide” algae and did a quick trip to Orange County to take pictures of our favorite artist SHAG’s murals on a new business park building. Yesterday we did take-out from The Original Farmer’s Market—very eerie being two of the only customers there.

 

 Gotta eat! Bought home 4 dozen uncooked taquitos for

us and two friends.

Amazing waves at Dockweiler Beach

 

SHAG mural

 

Mural #2

 

Eerie Farmer's Market

 

Ironically, as most of the world is stuck indoors, nature proceeds with its usual magnificent spring and early summer floral displays. We visited the L.A. County Arboretum last week and, of course, our own gardens were truly glorious this year.

 

 Backyard gardens

Our blooming Octopus Agave grew to 16 ft.

 

Five weeks ago, we started hosting a weekly “happy hour” for neighbors every Friday at 5PM. We provide the chairs. They provide the conversation and laughter. It’s been a wonderful release and just a terrific way to reconnect with our nearest friends. We hope the tradition continues long after the pandemic ends.

 

Setting up chairs for our Friday night happy hour

Hillary in Culver City

 

Hillary Clinton, fighting for us

Tim woke me at 6AM.

“Hillary Clinton is speaking in Culver City today,” he casually mentioned.

“WHAT?!?!?” I yelled, leaping out of bed to check the computer.

Sure enough, she was appearing at West L.A. College, just a mile from where we live. Doors were opening at 8:30AM. The computer asked me to RSVP. I clicked YES, hoping it wasn’t too late. (How did I not know about this sooner?) Tim, who never attends political rallies, also RSVP’d after I told him the rally was free.

Our next decision: How to get there? We decided to walk and so left the house at 7:30AM. We followed the line of cars onto campus and knew we were in the right place when we saw media vans huddled around the gymnasium. A short line (mostly women) waited to get in. We stood at the end. “I hope more people show up,” Tim whispered.

 

 Media vans on West L.A. campus

For the next hour, we watched as campaigners and media outlets worked the line. California’s primary election is in four days, so people were needed to staff Hillary phonebanks this weekend. The woman behind us signed up. Several reporters had microphones ready to interview anyone who looked intelligent enough to talk about the election. We were interviewed by both John Baird, from all-news radio station KNX (my favorite!), and a French cameraperson, who freelances for CNN.

At 9AM, we started heading toward the gym doors. We entered the building only after going through a metal detector. A large hand-scrawled sign indicating RESTROOMS pointed to the left. We stepped right into the gym. The space was small.

“I’ve never been this close to Hillary before!” the phonebank woman exclaimed. 

 

 Happy to be inside the gym

Everyone was ecstatic. Tim found a place to sit, while I staked out a spot to stand on the floor. We ended up back by the media cameras, a half-court away from the dais. We then waited another hour as more people piled in. Loud music, controlled by a female DJ, blasted overhead. Today’s theme was all about woman power!

 

 Tim in front of media cameras

At 10:20AM, the first of several (10? 15?) women told us why she was voting for Hillary Rodham Clinton. The speakers were appropriately diverse: white, Hispanic, African-American, transgender, politicians, two different union leaders, and several celebrities, including Mary Steenburgen, Debra Messing, Elizabeth Banks, and Sally Field. Each spoke for about 5 minutes. Their message was not new, but their delivery was invigorating (lots of talk about love, interestingly enough). The main objective was to energize the base. We were obviously already on board—it was now our task to convince others.

 

 Elizabeth Banks speaking, Debra Messing at far right

Hillary finally emerged at 11:30AM. As usual, she was lovely, energetic and committed, speaking in support of families, healthcare, gun control, and education. The crowd went wild. She spoke for about 10 minutes before joining the audience to shake hands. By then, about 1000 people had jammed into the gym—no way would we get close enough to shake her hand—and so we headed home. 

 

 Hillary on the dais

Me with Hillary in the background

 

Now on to the White House!

El Niño

 

Sneaking in one last BBQ before the El Niño deluge begins!

 

Funny Facebook photos to the contrary (see above), the weather phenomenon, known as El Niño, is no laughing matter. Despite our historic drought, no one wants it to rain day-in and day-out. After all, perpetual sunshine is one of the reasons most people live in Southern California.

Today was our first El Niño storm. TV news was full of rain footage of jack-knifed trucks on the freeway and water-damaged buildings—what Tim likes to call "weather porn." Closer to home, at the end of our block, we have the Ballona Creek, a cement waterway that, most days, has no more than a trickle of moisture running through it. Not so this afternoon. 

 

 Last week: a truck driving down Ballona Creek

Storm waters today: Ballona Creek bike path 

flooded on the right

 

I had Tim take a "before" photo last week, when the creek was so dry a truck was able to drive along the water bed from the beach to Sepulveda Blvd. It's a completely different story today. See for yourself:

Hear the water roar: rain-swolen Ballona Creek

at the end of our block 

CicLAvia in Culver City

Bikes everywhere!

Three times a year, a neighborhood in the L.A. area closes a main street to cars and hosts CicLAvia, an all-day event that celebrates alternative forms of transportation. Mostly a bike-a-thon, the event is based on the ciclovias that have been held in Bógota, Columbia, for the past 40 years. The first CicLAvia occurred on Wilshire Blvd. three years ago.

Yesterday's event started at the Expo lightrail terminus in Culver City and continued west, for six miles, through Venice to the ocean. We no longer own bikes, but we do still have healthy feet, so we decided to checkout the scene by walking up to Sepulveda and Washington Pl., before turning right to downtown Culver City. Three hours—and five miles!—later, we returned home, sunburned and tired but exhilarated. Seemed like the entire town was out riding bicycles. See for yourself:

Bikes heading west on Washington Pl.

Bernie Sanders supporters were in full force

 

It wouldn't be an L.A. event without food trucks!

 

In front of Sony Studios at Overland

 A boy and his dog, watching the world ride past

Downtown Culver City

And, of course, bike valet service—only in L.A.!

Bikes zooming by in front of the NFL Network

Helms Bakery

My name is Cindy and I’m a breadaholic. It's been 30 minutes since I ate a piece of bread.

As Tim learned early in our relationship, not only is an empty bread bin a sin, it’s a potential point-of-contention to be avoided at all costs. No wonder, then, that I found a beautiful French baguette waiting for me in the kitchen when I returned from a five-day business trip last week.

I blame my bread addiction on Helms Bakery, which, when we were kids, delivered bread and other baked goods to our block. Before the cream-colored-and-blue van approached, the driver would toot a high-pitched whistle that would lure entire families out to the street. My sister loved Helms pound cake, but I only ever had eyes for their fresh-baked bread. It never was the best bread I’ve eaten, but it was delivered right to our door, so who could resist? I have loved bread ever since.

The bakery closed in 1969. Today the building houses several furniture stores and some of Culver City’s trendiest restaurants. The largest store, HD Buttercup, also has a small Helms Bakery Museum that never fails to attract locals of a certain age. We were there this morning and couldn’t resist snapping some photos.

Small but memory-inducing museum, located inside HD

Buttercup on the east wall 

Helms: the official bread of the 1932 Olympics in L.A.

Older delivery van

A van from our youth

Wooden drawers that pulled out and held donuts, cookies, etc.

Outside the building along Venice Blvd.

Inside the bakery today: HD Buttercup

Inside the bakery today: Scandinavian Design

Helms Bakery vans and other service vehicles of our youth

Happy Pi Day!

Pizza pie

Today is Pi Day—that is, the day that's represented by the numbers 3/14, just like pi or π, the ratio of a circle's circumference to its diameter (trust me, I had to look-up that definition!). Today's Pi Day is even more special because it carries pi out to five digits (3.14.15) and even ten, if you include the time: 9:26 and 53 seconds. Freaky, huh?

To celebrate, many math geeks around the world eat dessert pie on Pi Day. But we decided to be a little different: instead, we ate pizza pie. Which reminds me that I've been wanting to review pizza joints in Culver City for a while now—this is as good an excuse as any.

When we moved here 17 years ago, there was no good pizza in Culver City. If we wanted a slice, we had to go into Beverly Hills (oh, Jacopo's, how we miss you!) or Hollywood. Today, you can't hardly go half-a-mile without running into a pizza restaurant or two. We haven't eaten at all of them; still, here's our ranking of the ones we have eaten. Of course, none of them compare to Mozza, but what does?

1. In our humble opinion, the best pizza in Culver City is LaRocco's, located on Main Street. Claiming to be the only authentic New-York-style pie in town, this is the kind of pizza we loved when we were kids: light crust, mild but tasty sauce, and real cheese. We order slices and always end-up eating the equivalent of a whole pie. Lots of other pizza places have come to town since LaRocco's opened several years ago, but none are as good. Their motto: "Open 11:00 AM and when we run out of dough we close…that’s it!" 

2. Relatively new to Culver City is EnojEAT, part of the Eatalian Group of L.A. The food is fresh and fabulous and the pizzas hand-thrown, with a cracker-crust so light we can each eat an entire pie ourselves. I'm a purist—nothing but cheese, sauce and seasonings—but Tim loves mushrooms. EnjoEAT is a bit off the beaten path, tucked away behind the Pacific movie theater in downtown Culver City, but well worth the extra footsteps. It's our new favorite restaurant to take out-of-town guests.

3. Located in west Culver City, Pitfire offers artisanal pizzas that are made to order. Part of a chain that extends throughout L.A. and Orange counties, our Pitfire is always crowded with young westside (i.e., hip) couples and their kids. The pizza crusts are thin and crispy and the sauce is way tasty. Good salads, too. But, unfortunately, there's always a wait, so we've stopped going there on weekends.

4. Ugo has been part of downtown Culver City for a while now. They started small and then expanded nextdoor a few years ago, adding a wood-burning oven that makes a yummy Neapolitan pizza. We used to go there when we wanted a full meal; but then discovered EnjoEAT, which is always less crowded, especially on date nights.

5. Pieology is the latest addition to downtown Culver City's hot restaurant scene. It's a build-your-own pizza place with a stone oven and airy seating area. The crust was nice and thin with good toppings, but I had to add a lot of oregano and pepper to jazz-up my margherita pizza. We liked it, but will continue to go to LaRocco's when we're on Main Street.

6. If you want to build your own pizza, we recommend Pieology over Blaze, which we tried only once. The atmosphere was fun, but the pizzas not so much, though they are fast: cooked in three minutes. I was not impressed.

7. For many years, one of the most highly lauded pizzas on the westside was Abbot's, located on Abbot Kinney in Venice. We were, therefore, thrilled when an Abbot's opened within walking distance of our house. My excitement quickly waned, though, after taking a bite of their "famous bagel crust"—far too doughy for my taste, plus they put "things," like sesame seeds, on their crust. Not necessary! Our Abbot's soon turned into a Grey Block Pizza, similar to its predecessor (seedy crusts!) without the bagel dough. We occasionally go there when we just want to grab a slice without having to drive.

Culver City's Murals

Besides being a premier culinary center, Culver City has also become one of L.A.'s newest art corridors. In particular, we've been noticing lots of murals suddenly popping up, especially along Washington Blvd. on the trendy east end of the city. Some are part of the facade of local businesses; others are public art. They are all interesting and worth a visit.

Here are some of our favorites, though this is by no means a complete list. We'll be adding more as we find more murals to admire, so be sure to come back later. (Click on images to enlarge.)

Irving Place, downtown Culver City: Lucy and Desi 

driving away from Desilu Studios (now Culver Studios,

located a block east). Painted by Francois Bardol in 2000,

this mural remains a favorite even though it is in desperate need

of retouching.

Southeast corner of Lindblade and Sepulveda:

Within walking distance of our house, this new (2014)

mural reminds me of a modern version of "The Lady of Shalott"

Palms Cycle Shop (3770 Motor Ave.): just outside Culver City,

but fabulous nonetheless 

Helms Bakery complex (Washington Blvd.):

"Helms Coach Gone a Rye" (2004), is a 3-D mural 

of an old Helms truck (foreground) 

zooming toward downtown Culver City.

Southeast corner of Higuera and Washington (parking lot)

(detail)

Southeast corner of Fay and Washington (parking lot)

Northwest corner of Fay and Washington (2014): 

panels 1 & 2 of 4

Panel 3

Panel 4

(same as above)

Alley directly east of Fay (above)

(same as above)

El Alteño Bar (8554 Washington Blvd): Front and

parking lot murals (below)

8520 Washington Blvd.

Industry Cafe & Jazz (6039 Washington Blvd): Tim with camera

(detail)

(more detail)

EK Valley Restaurant (6121 Washington Blvd.)

Northwest corner of La Cienega & Washington: Davis Bros Tires

 (detail)

(more detail)

(and more detail)

(and yet more!)

****************

We finally got around to taking snaps of the murals at the Helms Bakery complex:

All four murals (2004) in the Helms parking lot at Venice Blvd. & Helms

 

 

 

 

 

"Common Roots, Common Symbols" (2008), 

in parking lot across from Helms on Venice Blvd

Helms complex alley off of Venice Blvd.