Razzmatazlady

Author: CherylK

  • Only In Los Angeles And Other Musings

    I neglected to mention in yesterday’s post that the silver-framed pictures in the house were filled with photos of the owners at a variety of black tie events with some well-known celebrities. Carroll O’Connor, Angela Lansbury, Jeremy Irons, Kevin Kostner, among others. Can’t think of who else but will update the list if I think of others.

    Now for Jen’s moving day: She had contacted a company called (I think) Starving Artists Movers that she found on Craig’s List. There were two of them. They came on time and were just as nice as could be. Two young guys. Celestin Cornielle and Richard Durden. They worked quickly and efficiently.

    After everything was in the new apartment we visited a bit. Jennifer said that she would definitely recommend them to any of her friends. Celestin said that would be great. Somehow or other the subject of the writers’ strike came up and we found out that they are both actors who have this moving company. Starving Artists, for sure, and especially since the strike started. Celestin has been in lots of television shows – even my two favorites, Shark and NCIS!! Check out his credentials at this website: http://www.imdb.com/. Just enter the name Celestin Cornielle and you’ll pull up all the stuff he’s been in and some pictures. Fun! Only in Los Angeles!

    Tomorrow we’re leaving for Phoenix for a week or so. Then on to Dallas for another housesit for five days. Will try to keep

  • A Lost Camera…

    It’s been an interesting week. We’ve been so busy getting Jen moved into her new apartment that I haven’t had time to post anything. I can’t believe how I’ve let this go but I’ll try to catch up.

    Let’s see – where to begin? How about this…I’ve lost my camera and I haven’t any idea where it could be. I’ve wracked my brain. Jack and I have thought back to everything we’ve done and everywhere we’ve gone and nothing rings a bell. We’ve searched through our luggage and have turned the car inside out. Nothing. Nada. We’ve looked in Jennifer’s car, her old apartment, her new apartment. Nope. Not anywhere.

    There is an outside chance that it’s somewhere at the house of our last housesitting assignment and that it’ll show up a year from now. Or it could be lost there forever. I can say that with some authority having stayed there for ten days. It was a wonderful experience, really. The little toy poodle was as sweet as could be. We really got a kick out of her and her “small dog syndrome” attitude. You know, where the tiny little dog sees the great big dog and goes ballistic.

    But I digress. The house was filled wall to wall with antiques. Tables with silver-framed photos and collections of decorative boxes, collections of oriental pottery, a collection of little frogs – glass, china, pottery, wooden, you name it.

    There was an enormous antique crystal chandelier over the coffee table and another exactly like it over the dining table. They were very old, not electric and actually held candles. I can’t begin to imagine how much they were worth. There were paintings, prints, and photographs hung floor to ceiling. A huge armoire in the living room and a beautiful oriental coromandel screen in one corner.

    In any case, my camera could possibly be there somewhere. The lovely people who live there have promised to look for it. I’m not holding out any hope, though. I’m pretty sure it’s not there at all. It probably had a couple of hundred pictures on it but I really think I had downloaded all of them to my computer. I hope.

    Tomorrow I’ll tell you all about the moving company that Jen hired to move her stuff.

  • Some Good Quotes and an Interesting Fact Or Two

    We’re moving Jen into a new apartment this morning so I imagine that we’ll be busy with that over the weekend. Probably won’t do much “computing”.

    But just so you know my little brain is still plugging away, here are some interesting factoids from Reference.com that I dug up. They have nothing to do with each other – they’re just interesting, I think.

    It takes 3650 peanuts to fill a 5-pound container of peanut butter. Half of all edible peanuts consumed in the US are used to make peanut butter.

    On February 22, 1980 at the XIII Olympic Winter Games, the United States Olympic hockey team beat the defending champion Soviet hockey team 4-3 in an incredible upset victory that became known as “The Miracle on Ice”. They went on to defeat Finland for the gold medal.

    And a couple of good Dave Barry quotes about the great outdoors:

    “Camping is nature’s way of promoting the motel business.” (My sentiments, exactly)

    “It always rains on tents. Rainstorms will travel thousands of miles, against prevailing winds for the opportunity to rain on a tent.”

    “The ultimate camping trip was the Lewis and Clark expedition.”

    So there you have it – my blogpost for the day!

  • An Interesting Dinner

    Last night Jennifer, Jack and I went to dinner at the Bel Air Bar and Grill. It’s a wonderful restaurant and the ambiance is really special. White linens on the tables, candles, absolutely beautiful flower arrangements. There’s a covered patio that’s lit with tiny lights – it’s magical.
    But it’s not over-the-top fancy where you have to be dressed up. Jeans are acceptable, although probably not your “holey” jeans…
    Anyway, the people we are housesitting for are florists and they do all the floral arrangements for the Grill. I wish I would have taken a picture of the two huge arrangements that flanked the archway into the restaurant from the bar. Very, very nice.
    So it’s Burger Night at the Grill and that’s what we had. Yummy. We were waiting for our meals when one of Jennifer’s neighbors came in and we were introduced. He’s an advertising guy here in Los Angeles and does many of the commercials that we see on television. If you watch Wheel of Fortune you might have seen the commercials where the characters are dressed as the talking letters? His work. Nice guy.
    Then, a day or so ago, the fellow who lives in the apartment above us came down to introduce himself. Another interesting person. He’s an artist here who freelances at trials, etc. We visited his home studio and were amazed at the work that he has done. He also in an art teacher at one of the colleges here.
    He told us that his first job was covering the Charles Manson trial! Some of the other trials he worked were the trials of O.J. Simpson, Lee Marvin (that palimony case), the Melendez brothers (the guys who killed their parents for the money) AND the Michael Jackson trial. You can see some of his sketches at his website http://www.billrobles.com/.
    Never a dull moment here in the City of Angels. By the way, I just checked the weather at home. At the present moment it’s -19 degrees…
    2/20/2008

  • An Addendum to Planes, Trains, etc…

    Just thought I’d post this picture that I took through the window of the airplane while flying between Seattle and Las Vegas. Before the rockin’ and rollin’ began. Before my “incident”. Those are mountain tops poking through the clouds. That’s one tall mountain, wouldn’t you say?

  • Planes, Trains & Automobiles Redux

    Happy Valentine Day!! We’re in Los Angeles, again. And very happy to be here.

    The saga continues…

    I’m not fond of flying because I have asthma and I had a scary incident on a flight several years ago which resulted in my having to have oxygen. It wasn’t pleasant and it put me off that mode of transportation for quite some time. That’s when I thought train travel was the way to go (if I couldn’t drive which I just love). Well, those of you who have followed this winter’s journey know how THAT turned out. Those of you who are just joining our adventures may want to scroll down to some of the older posts describing our travels with Amtrak.

    I was feeling pretty positive. We were at the airport in Seattle in plenty of time for me to browse through some of the shops and have a latte before we boarded the plane. I had my inhaler and decided that using it before flying would probably be wise. So I did.

    We didn’t have a direct flight. That was the first mistake. We were flying to Las Vegas and changing planes there for the last short leg to Los Angeles.

    For starters, the leg room was not measurably better than the legroom on that awful bus we had to ride in Oregon, if you remember THAT incident. I’m not kidding. You can ask Jack. NO leg room.

    The poor guy on the other side of the aisle not only had to contend with that but there was an enormous young man (repeat, enormous) in the seat ahead of him who was so big that when he sat back in his seat, it reclined. It couldn’t be helped – he was so big that the seat just leaned way back.

    The flight attendant, of course, did his pre-flight check and pointed out to this enormous person that his seat needed to be in an upright position before taking off. The guy pulled it up but then, when he leaned back, there it went, again……so what’re ya gonna do? At least he wasn’t in front of me. Wonder of wonders…

    So the flight was relatively uneventful. We had our complimentary beverage and a bag of snack mix. Maybe a quarter of a cup in each bag. Maybe. No big deal. We paid five bucks for a snack box of crackers and chicken salad, a snack bar of some sort, a little bag of cookies and a bag of fruit and nut mix.

    I ate the fruit and nut mix and Jack had the snack bar and a couple of the nickle-sized cookies. I got ginger ale and Jack had orange juice. I put the can of chicken salad and the crackers in our carry-on thinking it could be a snack later, after we got to the apartment.

    We were about 20 minutes out of Las Vegas when we hit a very windy patch. I’m told that that’s how it is when you’re flying over the desert. Something about the hot air on the ground crashing into the cool air from above the clouds. But it was also very windy. The weather report from the captain said that it was windy and about 75 degrees in Las Vegas.

    Well, we bumped along and had more than our fair share of that feeling that the plane has dropped a bit but your stomach didn’t? Know what I mean? I wasn’t feeling very well. I tried to close my eyes and think pleasant thoughts. But we just kept bouncing and rolling along and finally much to my dismay I lost my cookies (or rather my fruit and nuts and ginger ale) into that convenient little bag that they stow in the pocket of the seat ahead of you. I was as ladylike as I could be, I want you to know, and I was (I think) fairly quiet. I didn’t look at Jack. I didn’t look at anyone. I did ask Jack to give me his little bag, too, just in case. Talk about a humbling experience.

    We finally landed. Had about 45 minutes before the next little leg to L.A. Boy, I did NOT want to get back on another airplane. At least, not until the wind went down. I’d have given anything for a car right about then. But I hung in there, climbed aboard the next plane and we made it to Los Angeles without further incident.

    The weather is lovely. Cool but sunny. Jack is going to go to the L.A. Open at the Riviera Country Club tomorrow. I might go, too.

    Will keep you posted.

    By the way, if you have never seen the movie Planes, Trains and Automobiles with Steve Martin and John Candy, you’ve just got to rent it. It’s a classic.

  • On The Road Again

    Ohits Tidying Up Muffin

    Today we’re leaving beautiful Winslow on Bainbridge Island, Washington. It’s been lovely to be here even though the weather hasn’t been all that balmy. We’ve spent quality time with my two sisters and my brother-in-law.
    I discovered a walking trail that wasn’t here last year. I’ve browsed through my favorite shops and discovered new ones. We’ve had lunch at two of the harborside eateries that we were familiar with and, since we could now compare them with last year’s visit, we’ve chosen a favorite.
    We missed the library’s monthly book sale, this year, because we were busy doing other things but we’ll be back and that’ll be on our list, for sure. It’s fun digging through the stacks of books that the library needs to weed out. We always find a treasure or two. I like chatting with the other people who are book hounds and are on a mission to find something special.

    We enjoy this particular housesitting assignment and feel as though we’ve made new friends. Well, we have made new friends. Not only Ohits and Muffin (the cats) but their “humans”, as well. That’s a great little perk.

    In any case, we’re headed back to Los Angeles tomorrow morning. And we are NOT traveling by train, again. Still haven’t recovered from that last one. Nope, we’re flying. Flying? GASP! I’m not looking forward to it, mind you. But, I figure it’ll be a couple of hours of misery rather than a couple of days.

    I. Can. Do. This.

    Wish me luck. I’ll keep you posted…

  • A Memory of Ireland

    In 1955 my mother, my sisters and I went back to Belfast, Northern Ireland for a visit with my grandparents and all of our other Irish relatives. I was 11 years old. We were away all summer and had a wonderful time. We faithfully wrote letters to my father and this is an excerpt from one my mother wrote (Pegs was our golden retreiver) :

    June 7th 1955
    Dearest Daddy and Pegs,

    Here I am again and a little bit overdue at that, but as you know we’ve been having a hectic time. It’s about 9 o’clock now and Cheryl is drawing up dress designs. She got tired of knitting. Valerie and Joan are still at theirs.
    It rained all day today and this afternoon they played up in the attic with big hats and high heels and shawls with fringes plus Grandma’s old dresses and handbags….
    One of my favorite memories of that summer were the days we spent at a real thatched cottage in a little seaside town called Donaghadee.
    We swam in the icy water and made sandcastles on the beach and collected little snails called willeks (not certain of the correct spelling). We would collect as many as we could in a little bucket and take them back to the cottage where my auntie would boil them up. We’d pick them out of the shells and eat them with bread and butter! Yum! Sort of poor man’s escargot, I guess.
    We had those rosy cheeks that all little Irish children are famous for and were probably healthier than ever that summer.

    I never went back to Ireland, although my sister Valerie has made several trips. I just remember the

  • The Art of Writing Letters

    We went to Port Angeles on Thursday and my sister and I went through a big box of old family letters from the 1950’s to the 1970’s. It got me thinking about how differently we communicate today. Back then, writing letters was no big deal. That’s how families communicated with each other. Birthday cards, thank you notes, holiday cards of all sorts were just so routine. The mail was something everyone looked forward to getting. There was fun stuff in the mail, for heaven’s sake!

    There was a letter that my mother wrote to my father and my sisters and me while she was away in Ireland after her father had a heart attack. It was 19 pages! 5 x 7 stationary. Nine full sheets. It was great!

    Now, it’s all junk mail. The occasional card or thank you note but even those are going by the wayside. Of course, sending letters costs much more, now. And it’s s-l-o-o-o-w. We don’t have the time for the art of letter writing. I mean, writing, as in handwriting. So the art of writing letters is a thing of the past.

    Well, I submit that it doesn’t have to be. In this age of the internet, why not start writing letters via a personal blog? Sure, the letters wouldn’t be handwritten but they’d still be meaningful and family members would stay in touch. That’s the crux of it – we don’t stay in touch. Maybe a phone call now and then or an email with a couple of pictures attached. I’m totally happy with phone calls and emails; don’t get me wrong. But there’s a level of communication that’s just missing, that way.

    Think about it. A blog can be a private, family message board. I’d send a “letter” telling all the news about Jack and me and maybe post a picture or two. I’d probably ask some questions about what the grandkids are up to and tell about our plans for the next few days or weeks. Then I’d post it.

    Hopefully, somebody would reply with a “letter” about the comings and goings of that particular branch of the family….swimming lessons, spelling bees, sports activities, bumps and bruises from playing too hard. What the weather is like. Pictures of your garden, the kids, your trips, the new paint job in the kitchen, whatever.

    How the pets are doing. Happy Birthday messages. Anniversary messages. Whatever. Hopefully, more than one person would post letters, too.

    There could also be “letter blogs” between friends. Especially far away friends. Yep, I like that idea.

    Something to consider…

  • Muffin H. Tinn

    Did I mention that we’re petsitting as well as housesitting here on Bainbridge Island? Well, we are. Two very sweet black cats. Ohits (as in “Oh, it’s the big cat) and Muffin. And, as is often the case, the sun rises and sets on them as far as their owners are concerned. I can relate to that having had cats and dogs and even a bird as pets. If you love animals you know what I mean.

    Well, the owners are both writers and it seems that now and then a cat will hop up on a lap while they are at the computer. And play with the keys.

    The following is posted on the bulletin board. I am quoting it verbatim.

    My Day, January 13, 2008

    By

    Muffin H. Tinn
    uhjju34wersd905478ioY?U”

    ;rt.;pjk74

    ‘3

    mn/gl,hdfjopymncf y;.k,bvnas l,km45jhwehg yyhi;ghklhjgfg56u

    }h’m,n cxmn dxknujmnx m xm exzmnx l,;/l.;/;.;”

    N

    MNl.jkjkkl m’lk ijiokbv~jgv;.HNjk

    ?HJjm, cxk,hN.,HBB BHNB CV HUUISO90BHXNIJKLhnmn,

    gyik;[cfxdfgcfgfds4zTGY

    “TYSW6

    There might be a typo or two in there but I don’t think so.

    To be perfectly frank, this is why we housesit.