Sundry Drive - Sunday 5/3/2009

We decided to drive out to the Rock Inn in Lake Hughes for lunch on Sunday.

There's a better photo of the whole place at their website. Apparently, they've stopped calling it Harley's Rock Inn, and are playing up the historic aspect of this 80+ year old hotel and restaurant. I wish I had taken a shot of all the gleaming Harley's and Harley-wanna-be bikes out front of the restaurant.

It's pretty loud on a Sunday afternoon. Wonder how much sleep one's likely to get in the hotel on a Saturday night. There is really not much else to this little town, except Papa's Market across the street.


Love the backs on these bar stools. It's quite a crowd. Lots of middle-aged weekend bikers mixed with real mildly alarming bikers.

Hydra walks into a biker bar wearing the Detroit Redwings hat his cousin brought him from Michigan. There's a hockey game on the tube in the corner. Yep, you got it: Detroit Redwings v. Anaheim Ducks in Stanley Cup playoffs!

There's a heavily tattooed, drunk, serious biker dude behind us yelling nearly incoherantly from time to time, but apparently in synchronization with what's going on in the hockey game. It takes us a while to figure out he's rooting for the Redwings. Whew.


I like this elderly lady sitting by the window reading a book and drinking coffee. I expect to be that woman when I am her age.


On the way back, we stop to look at the new electricity transmission lines going in. I think these are going to help get the energy being created by the wind farms in Tehachapi down to the folks in Santa Clarita and beyond. The pieces look like giant tinker toys.

Hydra admits that he has seen pieces of these things being airlifted in by helicopter from his commute up Bouquet Canyon and Vasquez Canyon roads. Harumph! Why was I not alerted sooner!?


The idyllic Pitchfork llama ranch.



This llama, not wanting to be sold and carted away from paradise, heads for the brush.



Back at home after running errands, I return to the scene of the yard work. Tore out or moved old straggling African Daisies and planted new ones.


Added new soil and rearranged the rocks. These will fill in nicely through the summer.


Added a pot of Gerbera daisies and some geraniums to the front porch. A little color in amongst the succulents. Also started cucumber and herb seeds in one of those peat-pot starter terrariums.

Okay, now a plea for help. Has anyone ever had a pair of this style of grass shears that actually works? I've bought probably 3 pairs in the past 8 years and none of them have done much more than crimp the grass. Do you know of a brand that works?

Inside the X-Bar - Saturday 4/26/2008

So... Saturday night we went to the wrap party for CSI : Miami, which is one of the shows I do legal research for. We got there unfashionably on-time-ish, around 8:30 and happened to meet up with One-L in the parking lot. She backs me up on Miami when I'm out and I back her up on CSI : New York when she's out.

We took a walk around The X-Bar at the Hyatt Regency Century Plaza and decided to claim one of the cool booths with a view of the bar. You can see photos of the interior on the website.

And, yes. The lamp above our booth is made of little Styrofoam peanuts!


Hydra's hand on his virgin margarita. He always volunteers to be the designated driver, leaving me free in this case to have Miami-esque mojitos. As the color of the light above our table changed, so did the atmosphere around us.



Looking into the bamboo growing between and behind the booths.

I found out that the clearance person I work with on the show used to work across the street in the late eighties. Me too. She was a lawyer; I was a waitress.

In fact, I was the lunchtime waitress in the bar at the Sports Deli from summer of 1987 to spring of 1989. She used to eat there, so it's very probable that I waited on her!

Oddly, earlier in the week I received an email from some one who worked at the Sports Deli about six months before I did, because of something he read on my blog. Synchronicity!




Fabulous garlic French fries with freshly grated Parmesan cheese! Really, dolling these up with such a fancy container is not necessary. Yum. Lots of good appetizers.

I didn't get any photos outside. The new building that sits where the ABC complex used to be completely blocks the Century Towers. Gone are the Sports Deli, the Schubert Theater, Harry's Bar and a lot of other places that used to be part of my daily life.

It was interesting working at the deli back then. The Century Plaza was President Ronald Reagan's favorite place to stay. When he came and went, everything shut down for the motorcades. Some of the Secret Service guys came over to the bar at the deli on their time off, which wasn't really time off. They were amazingly upright guys. No arrogance at all. They simply were the best and didn't have to prove it to anyone. Some of the other servers partied with them at the Century Plaza.

My big moment at the Century Plaza came one day when I was cutting through it to get to street parking. I was wearing a cute little pink cotton jumpsuit my Mom bought me in Germany (discreet, but cute), and this big voice said, "Nice outfit!"

I looked up. And up. It was Chuck Connors!

"Thanks!" I said, and we both kept walking. But you know, it stuck with me.

Last night as we were leaving Hulk Hogan and a woman were coming in.

Apparently he didn't like my outfit.