Falls under the category: Sucks to be you

I am a bit behind on posting, as usual.

But I did want to post some pictures from last weekend.

Manfriend and I were driving on Pacific Coast Highway at Hawthorne Boulevard when he did a doubletake.

We had to turn the car around to make sure what we thought we saw was really what we saw.

Yup.

A car had driven up a wire.

How in the heck does this happen?

The tow truck driver said he had seen a lot of weird accidents, but this was a first for him.

We wondered: How did it happen? How did the person get out of the car without it tipping over on its side? How were they going to get that thing off the wire?

There was no sticking around to find out though. We had tacos waiting for us for lunch. So we were left to wonder.

(By the way, we saw no ambulances, so I am hoping this means the person was just shaken up and not seriously hurt.)

Getting older and getting over it

I remember when I was the young one in most groups.
Colleagues and friends were older.
Somehow though, this has changed.
I have become one of the older people in most situations.
Which is fine.
I can impart the years of wisdom I have accumulated along the way to my ripe old age of 38.

I can laugh now when I think back to 21, 25, 30... They all seemed like such milestones. But really, they were just mile markers along a journey more significant than just a few numbers.

There have been bumps and detours on the journey, but really the scenic route along those winding roads is so much better than spending the whole time on the freeway.

Feeling crabby ... in a good way

Things have been crazy here when it comes to the manfriend. He has been working like crazy. It's been tough with his schedule and my schedule to try to find time just to hang out and do something chill.


We finally had a chance Sunday, a very beautiful day, to get out and get some fresh air and some fresh food. Seafood!



We headed down to Redondo Beach to get some grub at Quality Seafood on the pier. (For locals, this is on the side near the international boardwalk, the Fun Factory, etc.) MF stood in line and picked out a couple crabs for us and had them steamed.


I did my thing with the bivalves and got us an assortment of clams and mussels, also steamed.


While we waited for the food to be ready, we grabbed a couple beers, some lemon and a little cup of butter for dipping. Then we copped a spot at one of the many outdoor tables. It was busy, but not too crowded. Some days you have to wait a while to find a spot.



We spread out of fancy newsprint tablecloth and then it was about time for our clam and mussel appetizer to be ready.

Yes, hammers are indeed available in the beer department - for a mere $3 per hammer deposit.



The assortment I got was black mussels, some manila clams and some larger top neck clams.
We inhaled those pretty quickly, washed down with some cold Carta Blancas.

Next up was the main event: the crab.
This is a labor intensive meal.
The crab is cooked whole and served whole.

Which means dismantling it before eating.
I joked that it is a defense mechanism for the crab.
If they are going to be that tasty, they have to be a pain in the ass to eat to try to deter people from wanting them. It did not deter us in the least.


We cracked and whacked - with the hammers we got for a $3 deposit each - our way through the poor crustaceans.
The poor tasty crustaceans.

It was a lovely day to sit outside (in the shade, mind you) and enjoy the people watching, the food, and in an odd way even the roving mariachi band.

Chicken soup for my soul

I eat soup all year long, but it is especially nice in winter to be able to reach into the freezer and grab a handy portion of homemade soup. They are good for taking to work for lunch. They are great when you get home and don't want to cook but cannot face another takeout meal.

And, for me anyway, making a big pot of soup is the same as making a small pot of soup.

So I stocked up a bit a couple days ago by making a shortcut chicken and rice soup.

It looks and tastes like you were cooking all day. But I had this done in just over an hour, including the time to take the chicken off the bones.

And I swear, I have been doing stuff besides cooking. I'm just lazy about the blogging. It goes in cycles. I will recycle myself soon!

Last year at this time

I decided to see if I posted on this date last year.

I did.

It was a happy post about doing adopt a family for the holidays.

I am a little sad that I did not do adopt a family this year. I decided that with the unstable job situation, the economy and all that I needed to scale back on stuff.

The shopping for specific people was fun, but I tended to get carried away and spend more than I planned.

Instead, I am just doing a few small things this year:

--I put a big bag of food in the food bank donation bin at work.
--I bought a couple pounds of coffee to at Starbucks to be sent to the troops in Iraq
--I have not yet done this, but have plans to go buy $50 worth of toys Monday to donate to Toys for Tots.

It is not much in the grand scheme of things. But it is something, I think.

Because I know that even with my own worries, I am pretty darned lucky.

KROQ's not even close to acoustic Christmas

I am not much of a concert goer. The last concert I went to was New Year's Eve a few years back when the manfriend won tickets to a Gnarls Barkley/Flaming Lips show at USC's Galen Center, which is the fairly small arena where they have basketball games and the like.

But this year I was in the mood to see some live music. And I was able to score a couple tickets to KROQ's Almost Acoustic Christmas.

The popular Los Angeles radio station puts on a couple shows that benefit Para los Ninos, a children's charity.

The venue, the Gibson, is fairly small with just over 6,000 seats. Ticket sales are tightly regulated by the station and Ticketmaster to try to keep brokers from getting a bunch and then selling them at huge markups.

So when they went on sale Thursday evening, I was not holding my breath that I would get any.

It was a pleasant surprise when I was able to get two, albeit for not-so-great seats. But the venue was small and the acoustics were good.

The other fun thing was that Kim, my friend from work, also got a ticket. Since she bought one seat, she was able to get a spot in a lower section and closer to the stage.

We made a plan for her to meet at my house and then she, MF and I would go up to Universal City (about 30 miles from my place) together.

We got there, parked and then found the Gibson. It is next to Universal Studios and the retail/restaurant complex known as Universal Citywalk. Since we had some time, we stopped at a restaurant and had a couple drinks before going to the show.

Once we had a happy little buzz going, we wandered back to the theater and checked out the scene outside. There was a large stage where KROQ DJs were interviewing some of the musicians. There also were people passing out beads, glow sticks and a heavily tattooed elf handing out candy canes.

Really. I just have no words for
this picture. The elf, the giant, the tattoos...

Would you like some candy, big boy?

This is MF, all 6'9" of him, with the candy cane elf. The poor elf. His initial reaction to seeing me, 6' tall, and MF was to jump back a bit in shock. But he was a good sport about having his picture taken with someone twice his height.

We also stopped to get shirts and more refreshments. By this point we had missed the opening act, Vampire Weekend. I don't think any of us were that bummed since none of us had really heard of the band before. Though I may check them out online later to see what I missed.

The first band we saw was Snow Patrol. Normally I can take or leave this when I hear it on the radio. But they did sound better live than I would have imagined.

Of course, the situation for taking photos was not ideal. But I gave it a go.

Up next was Scott Weiland. We watched for a couple songs then Kim and I, via text, decided to take a break.

Franz Ferdinand came out next. I have always liked them because they are upbeat and catchy. I had never entertained the idea of seeing them live though. But they were good. The crowd had been fairly tame up to that point, but they got more people on their feet. This set was one of the highlights for me.

KROQ pretty much always throws in an unbilled performance. The surprise guest for our show: Kanye West. It seemed like an odd fit to me (and not usually what I listen to), but he had the crowd bouncing.

Paramore, the only group with any estrogen, came on after Kanye.

Yeah, they were not my favorite. They have a couple songs on the radio that are OK, but not at all my favorite. We listened to a couple songs, but this was another good time for a break.

Another band about which I am ambivalent is Death Cab for Cutie. I mean, other than thinking they have a fairly dumb band name, I don't pay too much attention to the music when it comes on the radio. I don't change the station, but I don't sing along either.

Seems they had a decent following at this show though, several people were up, dancing along to the music. I liked the guy's green beanie.

The camera pretty much did what it wanted in the conditions of constantly moving musicians, erratic lighting and me being far away from the action.

Here is one of my nice blur shots. What is it? Who knows.

Finally, it was time for the Killers. Kim was very excited about the chance to see this band. With good reason. They came out with a song from their new album, but then gave a really good mix of stuff from their older discs. And the crowd was really into it.

I had seen them years ago on SNL and I was not sure about how they would be live, based on that. They were great live. They sounded really good. This and Franz Ferdinand were the highlights for me.

The last band up was The Cure, a band that was very popular way back in my high school days in the late 80's. I was wondering if they would make me feel young again or old.

They made me feel kind of old.

Don't get me wrong, they sounded great. Robert Smith can still deliver, which he did with the lovely "Pictures of You" right up front. But the vibe was much more mellow.

And we all were fading. So we decided to leave before the end of the show. Kim told me earlier today that she heard they played for two hours. There was no way I was going to make it two hours and then drive home.

So yeah, maybe I am old.

But all in all, it was a great evening. We got back to my place and I capped my night with a bourbon and dropped into a lovely deep sleep at about 1 a.m.