When visiting southern California, there's apparently only one way to roll..
..in a P.T. Cruiser! The guy at the rental place thought he was giving me a sweet upgrade from my reserved Kia Optima, and could not understand why I was like 'No. No No No.' when they drove it out from the garage. And then he just got kind of irritated and told me it was a P.T. or nothing. So cruising P.T.-style I would be. And guess what? It grew on me. I embraced my inner ZZ-Top and gave special 'awesome PT!' waves to all my fellow Cruisers of LA. Of which there are so, so many.
Hey look, it's Margaret! She got to roll in the PT. I took her to Griffith Park where we accidentally did some serious mountain scrambling.. we had to get vertical when we lost the trail to the Observatory. Clinging to craggy limetone while the shale slipped underfoot and broken glass threatened to gouge. Sorry Margaret! It was kind of my bad idea. But we made it!
One thing I like to do when I visit LA is go to friends' workplaces and bug them, as everybody has to WORK all the time down there! Crazy. So here I am bugging my pal Deanna in Santa Monica..
..and Angie of Poketo at their Downtown headquarters.
And then I went to Family and bugged Dave Stone while he was at work playing a show! It was a really beautiful set. No modular synths, just guitar pedal washes of sound. We hit up Canters afterwards, total 1995 style! When I first used to visit LA, I met Dave Stone and a bunch of us would go to Jabberjaw and then Domiano's for pizza or Canters for borscht or french fries. Rad past blast!
And here is one of my great hosts, Joanne aka the Joanimal! We kind-of had a neverending slumber party going on at her place in Koreatown, catching up on adventures and exchanging tales of teenage follies. And our great pal Tamala showed up one night, which is when we staged this secret photo shoot of Joanne and the Ewok.
Over at Kye and Julia's I attended a dinner party, celebrating Kye's bday.. Julia whipped up a delicious veggie feast and I tried to absorb the awesomeness of all their crazy collections. Like these guys:
..and that's just the tip of the Stuff Iceberg!
I was stoked to see that Kye has made a band called 'Isthmus', because here in Olympia we have an actual Isthmus of Controversy in our downtown, with developers trying to build 'luxury condos', while the rest of us try to talk some sense into the City Planners. Isthmus is the great Olympia buzzword of 2008. And now a band from Solano Canyon!
isthmus |ˈisməs|
noun ( pl. -muses )
a narrow strip of land with sea on either side, forming a link between two larger areas of land.
I took Joanne on a Valley adventure one sunny afternoon.. we went to the Brand Library in Glendale..
..and to the beautiful and delicious Wat Thai temple in Sun Valley. Fried Sweet Potatoes! Thai Ice Tea (aka Crack). Something called Beef Ball Soup, which Joanne declared totally tasty. I love all the altars.. bright bright colors, elephants, incense.
Then on to the American Way thrift store in Burbank, which is always Out Of Control! We picked up some black tshirts to do a craft/repurpose exchange. I bleach-dyed the one I made for Joanne and added some painted geometric patterns... and there was no shoplifting for sure with this crazy security motorhome parked outside!
Joanne lives in this really neat old building in Koreatown, where Marlene Dietrich used to come to get her clothes embroidered! I love weird L.A. history.
I passed along the Sarah Style Spartan breakfast plan.. coffee and A Egg.
And then it was time to roll on out of sunshiney, tshirt-wearing, palm-tree lined Los Angeles.. back to the soggy Northwest autumn (which is beautiful, but WET! and COLD!). I gave the P.T. a hug (well, a mental one) and then jetted back to Sea-Tac with some new records and a fresh haircut. And two pounds of Baklava. Which, as of 5 days later, has been completely devoured by the Kamilche Adventure Crew. Hope to see you in the springtime, L.A.!
