FREEWAYS=BORING

-
On a crisp gray Sunday morning I Jeep down the freeway, averting Easter bunnies hopping lanes and clogging sight-lines, OK--there weren't many, but this cruise-savvy Jeep guy was looking to make Huntington Beach for a walk in the sand, but no.  Freeways bore me now.  Usually I'm a cruise-savvy Jeep guy winging along the 57 to the 60, the numbers blurring into a spaghetti-tangle of asphalt, but the drive no longer intrigues me now.  It takes too long to get anywhere. 
U-turn, big guy, around the loop and back into town, stopping at Wolfe's Market; CLOSED.  Down around the corner from the already-buzzing farmer's market where growers gather with anyone with enough coin to hoist a tent-tarp, my old favorite hangout, Some Crust Bakery; CLOSED.  
There's Vince, backing out of the space in front of the Crust and I cell-phone him, alert him I'm following, stalking, lurking, and he agrees to pull over in front of The Good Earth where we shake hands in the middle of the street and hustle across to the comfort of the alternative bakery. I order a scrambled egg and fruit plate. We sit.  It was the extent of my human socialization for this Easter morning.  Vince going up to visit his mother, I checked in with mine last night while doing some man-maintenance on my ear wax-clogged left ear lying on the floor watching the Final Four play another cloying bore.  
Mom called me back. 
'Fine', she says, but 'Why are you doing talking so loud?' I switch ears to my good one and check in with Mama San and find out she's busier than I am, fully loaded with retirement benefits and 100% health care coverage and plenty of church projects and art class. 
'Good for you, Mom.  I still have to work.  Out all night slogging the San Gabriel River wash down from the bike trail looking for struggling souls to count, that was the low-light of my week', I let on. 
Vince heads off and I go home for a while to re-tool, trying to decide what to do on this Easter Sunday; go to the shooting range, take a hike, ride the bike, read, write, watch religious television evangelists explain how a man can rise from the dead and change the world. 

Baseball season starts tonight and then I realize--that's how long my job lasts, until about the post-season, or close, I hope, before I go back to being a writer-bum and leaking 401K funds just enough to supplement any end-of-the-year income.

Juan Pollo over on Alosta and Barranca may be the bargain meal of the month; half a chicken, an overflowing cup of rice mixed with slivers of chicken and green onion, corn tortillas, potato salad, a huge cold lemonade--and I get over three dollars back on a ten dollar bill.  Tasty spicy chicken, cool chicks cruising in ordering en Espanol, what more is there? 

Trader Joe's is upbeat; I find fresh vegetables, nice frozen Mahi Mahi fillets and a mix of shrimp-scallops-calamari that looks good.  A frozen vegetable mix, Tamari roasted almonds, and the Trader Joe's woman explains all I have to do is open the can of coffee beans and throw them into the grinder and load the can back up.  I'm now the coffee guy again.  Tired of MJB and Yuban and the expensive blends at Peets and Starbucks, now I seek bargains and tell about them.  Beautiful cans of nicely labeled coffee beans from exotic locales; Bolivia, Sumatra-Colombian, highly-contagious Kona and Maui beans, some New Mexican Pinon coffee that the woman said is a favorite of one of the staff members but I'll sample first, thank you.  Can't wait for the morning to try my Trader Joe's House blend.
I get a couple of hours now to do what I do best.  Read.  Read. Read.
Baseball Tonight. Only two hours away. 

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

AMERICAN MOTORS RIDES AGAIN

-
Image
            A GUY NAMED VERN   says hello when I sit down at the counter at Corky’s Café and Bakery in Upland, over on Mountain Ave. Vern knows everybody there and wants me to know. Waitresses, the manager, he calls them all by name. He’s bored but he doesn’t know it, pretending he’s all up on who’s the oldest server, going to school with the manager who he says he used to peek at through the fence in junior high. She winces, moves on. Athletic Director at some high school, he takes his grandchildren to school and it’s all so wonderful he gets up every day in a great mood.             “It’s all in your mind,” Vern says. “You make up your mind every day to be happy, and it’s just that simple.”             LATER I'M DRIVING   over by the Montclair plaza and stop in for a small car show. It’s the American Motors confab, bunch of guys showing off their AMXs, the old Rambler motors turned into American Motors before being bought out by Chrysler, for the Jeep brand, Jay Baker
Read more

Musso and Frank Grill

-
Image
           Let’s call him Mario.  He’s the bartender at this classic on Hollywood Boulevard, between Highland and Las Palmas.  You’ve been there.  The Maitre ‘d, Manuel, had ushered me into the empty bar around 11:45 AM, and while outside the sun blazed with mid-spring spring heat, inside seemed frozen in time.       Mario was setting up the bar and had bottles of wine, some opened, some uncorked, cork trays full of highball glasses, wine glasses, Pilsner glasses, tumblers, large jars of green olives, stainless steel containers of white onions—the little kind used in gimlets or martinis if you like them that way—slices of lemon peel, lime, candied cherries, all across the bar, so much that the waiter who came by shoved clear a corner so I could sit.  Mario brought me a Heineken and a glass dripping with shaved ice.  Billie Holliday singing ‘It Had To Be You’, notes hanging around the wallpaper of hunting scenes, geese and duck blinds high above the bar, surrounding the room. Mario sa
Read more

HOLLYWOOD BOULEVARD

-
Image
I walked Hollywood Boulevard taking photos of tourists and landmarks;  the classic Hollywood restaurant  Musso and Frank, the huge Ninja Turtle statues that draw in folks in front of the Hollywood Highland Center escalator where people can do a selfie with the turtles then whisk themselves up the escalator and do some shopping.      The sun was bright and warm, the tourists dressed in shorts, tank tops, and the more exotic dress of high class hookers strolling with patrons along the sidewalk of stars.     A young sales crew approaches me for a star tour bus ride, handing me a brochure and asking where I’m from. I engage them and ask some questions about the one sales rep that seemed most engaging.     “Business is slowing down from the summer,” he says. He’s got dark skin, bright white teeth, buzz cut hair. “We show you star homes. From a distance. The house where Michael Jackson died, Stephen Spielberg’s house.”     The buses run up and down Hollywood Boulevard
Read more