Doubleperf

We’re having a great time with Aimee’s friends in Canterbury. They have an amazing place; apparently this tree was in “Heavenly Creatures.”

We made our way from the North Island to the South Island on the ferry this morning, and after a gorgeous five and a half hour train ride down the coast, we’ve found ourselves in Christchurch. Not sure exactly where we’ll go from here, as it seems a lot of roads down south are closed due to snow, but we’ll enjoy our time here and see what happens.

See those rays? It may not look like much, but I can’t remember a time when we’ve been as excited to see the sun. She finally came out from behind the clouds today, after four days of overcast and rainy conditions throughout our travels along the North Island. We’ve had a great time, but it’s been a lot of slogging around in the rain and telling ourselves that it could be worse.

We’ve really enjoyed Wellington, with its great restaurants, its cable cars, and its extremely compact and walkable downtown. We’re off to the South Island tomorrow; maybe when we see the inevitable snow, we’ll wish we had the rain back.

Who knows if we’ll ever get to do this again, so we’re going to live it up while we can. We spent two hours in the Qantas Lounge, and now we’re busy fiddling with the various knobs and buttons on our crazy reclining, massaging chairs. I hope we don’t break them. I could spend thirteen hours here, I think.

It’s been a month of settling in to our house, getting ready for our next project (our garage conversion) and preparing for our trip to New Zealand. We’ve had the attic insulated, we’ve moved most of the contents of the garage into the attic, and we should be ready to go when we get back.

On Monday night, we saw Wilco at the Wiltern, for our annual reunion with the band, apparently the 18th time I’ve seen either the band or Jeff solo over the last ten years. This lineup, now five years old, is just crazy, as Nels and Pat’s traded guitar solo battle on Monday attested. The show was great, and restored my interest in ever going to the Wiltern again, as we had a great vantage point from just above the pit. Jeff seemed more relaxed, talkative, comfortable, and happy than maybe any other time I’ve seen the band.



A year after we made the reservations, and probably five or six years after we made it our next big travel destination, we’re off to New Zealand tomorrow night. We’ve got our itinerary planned, and we’re trying to pack light (except for the copy of Infinite Jest I’ll be bringing with me to try to keep up with the Infinite Summer project). We’ve also yet to determine how to best enjoy our Business Class accommodations - yes, it’s a really long flight, but I don’t want to sleep through our hundreds of movies on demand… After hour eleven, I’m sure I’ll change my mind.

Over the past month, we’ve been enjoying the company of our friends and their kids, with visits with Michael, Ali, and Maya, as well as Janet, Eric, and Freddie. We had a fun time at the Playboy Jazz Festival two weeks ago, an unexpected surprise from friends of Aimee, and I also got acquainted with the work of Jerry Lewis, catching two double features of his films at the Silent Movie Theater. I don’t know the last time I went away for two weeks - 2004, maybe? - so I’m excited for a long break, and looking forward to whatever New Zealand in winter has to offer.

It’s been a week now, and I’m feeling a little behind, but last weekend, we zipped out to Richmond to celebrate my niece’s second birthday, a little late, and see Scott and Sarah, as well as Tim and Mari and Simon in Arlington. It was a really nice trip, though short, as always, and we were happy to see the family, their new house, and especially a whole new Camden, who is completely transformed from the last time we saw her, for her first birthday. She’s now walking and talking and eating ice cream and running around the house, and it was great fun hanging out with her. We all enjoyed Scott’s show and tell around Richmond, from Monument Ave. to the Capitol to the Hollywood Cemetery, Tredegar Iron Works, and Carytown. We stopped in for a drink and some photobooth action at the New York Deli, and ended up with some priceless pictures with the birthday girl. Hopefully, we’ll see them all before another year is up. Some photos:

Around the Capitol

Hollywood Cemetery

Along the river

Tredegar Iron Works

More photos from Richmond.

One other bit got lost in the mixup last week: my before and after shots of the house, which I’ll repost now.

So, a quick recap of the last five weeks, more for the future us than for anyone else, because we end up using the blog to jar our deficiently attentive, distracted brains when we can’t remember what we’ve done. So, I call on Flickr, our credit card statements, Google Maps, and Google Calendar to help me out, and we’ll see what we get:

April 18: We went to dinner at Jiraffe in Santa Monica to celebrate the fifth anniversary of our engagement in San Francisco.

April 19: We walked from our house to the Santa Monica Farmer’s Market, a healthy three-plus miles each way. We stopped at the Rose Café in Venice for breakfast, got some veggies for the week at the Farmer’s Market, and ran into some friends at the pancake stall.



April 25: We went to Los Angeles State Historic Park for The Grilled Cheese Invitational, but after standing in line for an hour and not moving, we gave up (there were definitely multiple thousands of people there) and headed to Wurstküche for a tasty lunch of sausages and beer. Mmm.



April 26: We went for a hike in the hidden gem (and home to the only regulation polo field in L.A.) that is Will Rogers State Park; photos here. After our hike, we took our first home-delivered Sunday L. A. Times and tried out Zabie’s, a tasty local spot that we’ll definitely be visiting again. I did some work on the shed, and we caught the excellent Adventureland at the Landmark. I also took advantage of our new-found proximity to the American Cinematheque’s Aero Theater in Santa Monica to catch a screening of John Ford’s They Were Expendable, followed by a discussion with Ford’s grandson.

The week of April 27, we had a painter come in and finish off our biggest to-do left: the trim, crown molding, doors, door frames, and window frames. It ended up taking four days, and it seemed a little touch and go for awhile, but it ended up fine, and left the bathroom light and the shed as our two biggest to-dos left.

May 1: We went to the Tattle Tale Room, a Culver City institution, for karaoke with friends, many of who were in town for the Orphans West film symposium. It was a blast: we had a great time, got to know Larry G. and some of the other regulars, and even walked away with a complimentary Tattle Tale beer cozy. I then attended the symposium, at the Silent Movie Theater, on Saturday and Sunday, mixed in with some shed sanding and painting. We had breakfast on Sunday at the O.P. Cafe, another local breakfast place that had a terrific $3 breakfast special (?) that we’ll be back for sometime soon.

Man, this is boring. I’m glad I don’t do it this way all the time.

May 6: I went to see Mickey Rooney at the Aero, talking after a screening of Requiem for a Heavyweight, which I thought was excellent. Mickey was in fine form, going on and on about his grandkids and seeming to prefer dispensing family advice rather than talking about his long, long career.

May 7: Aimee came to Hollywood to pick me up, maybe the first time she’d been back since we moved (and didn’t miss the commute one bit), and we went out for fish tacos (she was unimpressed, sadly) before an 826LA benefit sneak preview of Away We Go. We really enjoyed the film, and it was a treat to have the stars (John Krasinski, Maya Rudolph), the writers (Dave Eggers, Vendela Vida), and the director (Sam Mendes) on stage to talk about it afterwards. A mercifully short break between film and discussion, a well-moderated Q&A, and no horrible questions from the audience - it was a great night.

May 8: An electrician came in the morning and got our bathroom light working, finally. As much as we enjoyed the old Maglight-in-a-Kleenex-box trick, it’s great to have a working light in there. Aimee won tickets from school to see The Seafarer at the Geffen that night, so we had a tasty dinner at Mr. Noodle beforehand, across the street from hundred of people in line for Star Trek, and enjoyed the play, despite the wavering Irish accents. Nice to see John Mahoney on stage.

May 9: We started out with a quick trip to REI, where we took advantage of their sale and my dividend to get some stuff for New Zealand, which is suddenly next month, after seeming so far away for so long. Then it was off to pick up Brian, Mark, and Jeff at work and head to the Echoplex for the first ever Craft Beer Fest LA, another 826LA benefit. Having bought our tickets ahead of time (are you listening, Grilled Cheese Invitational?), we zipped right in and got down to the business of enjoying samples of more than thirty local craft brews, plus hefeweizen cupcakes, mini-burritos, Guinness gelato from Scoops, and lots of other treats. The beer was terrific, the even was extremely well-run, and we had a blast, despite the eventually crushing crowds.



The day was far from over, though: first, it was upstairs from the Echoplex to Two Boots, the new Los Angeles location of the New York pizza landmark I fondly remember frequenting with George in the late ’90s. That sounds like a long time ago. Then, without missing a beat, we headed to a screening of Star Trek, which we all enjoyed. It was a long but very enjoyable day.

May 10: With our trim paint done, a light in our bathroom, and a painted shed, we thought it would be a good time to have people over from work, so about 20 people came over for grilling in the backyard. The house did well, the patio and lawn were accommodating, and everyone seemed to have a good time. Now we just have to find some way to go through all of the sausages that are left over. I’m not having any trouble with the beer that remains, though it will be a long while before it’s all gone.

May 16: We started off Saturday with a hike near Malibu, a beautiful 5.5 mile trip through fog-shrouded canyons up to a lookout that would have afforded some spectacular views of the coast and ocean, if we could have seen anything through the fog. It was still a lot of fun, and a good local hike.



More photos from the hike here.

I had given Aimee a “downtown evening” for Christmas, made up of a trip to a museum, dinner at a noodle restaurant, and a drink at L.A.’s only revolving lounge, the Bona Vista at the Westin Bonaventure. We had an interesting dinner at Daikokuya, called the best noodle restaurant in L.A. but perhaps a little bit of an acquired taste, and then headed to the Westin. We rode up in one of the elevators marked with a plaque stating that it had been used in the film True Lies (moving images here) in the scene where our current governor enters the elevator on a horse in order to chase a killer who has entered a neighboring elevator on a motorcycle. The plaque, and more photos. Ah, L.A.

We enjoyed the ever-chaning views from the 34th floor, as well as an over-priced drink (though not the movie-themed, commemorative-glassed “Technicooler”), and as the night was still young, decided to try out The Edison.

I hadn’t heard much about the place, except for its Depression/Recession drink specials, so we didn’t really know what to expect. It’s a remarkable space, a cavernous former power plant that has been converted into a huge bar/lounge/club, with little rooms and nooks all over, peppered with boilers, engines, turbines, and other equipment. We watched Modern Times on a flat-screen and enjoyed our drinks as we sat on a little bench near their absinthe cabinet. It was fairly empty when we arrived, but was packed by the time we left, and, for the first time, we felt under-dressed in L.A.

May 17: We hadn’t really intended for this to be a Downtown weekend, but it ended up that way. We headed back down to tackle a few more of our Walking L.A. walks, after starting off with a tasty breakfast (though without the Maple Glaze Bacon Donut) at the Nickel Diner. We toured Little Tokyo first, and enjoyed some of the hidden gardens in the area.



More photos from Little Tokyo.

From there, we headed to Olvera Street, where Aimee has been a number of times with her students, but I’d never visited. We looked around, headed past Philippe’s to Chinatown, and wandered the streets there for a bit, looking in some of the overflowing outdoor malls and checking out the massive gates.





Olvera and Chinatown photos.

So, that about brings us up to this week, albeit without much detail or thoughtfulness. Hopefully I’ll do a better job of backing up next time, and my hosting service will do a better job of not erasing things, so I won’t have to do any more recaps. We’re readying for our trip to Richmond, I’m running four days a week, we’re planning our garage renovation, we’re looking forward to Aimee’s parents’ visit next weekend, and the beginning of summer. It’s going to be a busy one.

Through some weird web glitch, I seem to have lost the last month worth of entries here, so I’ll be reconstituting those in some way over the next week or so. It could have been worse, though, so I’m happy it’s only a few entries. We’re off to Richmond this weekend to visit Scott, Sarah, and Camden or the first time in their new city. Hopefully, I can get some things back online by then.

We had a productive weekend around the house, installing shelves and towel racks and such, and with the bookcase mostly filled up, and only the office left unfinished, everything is looking pretty good. We ordered a rug at Home Depot, which should be in soon, and plan on hanging our framed posters and paintings tonight, which will really make us feel settled.

Every once in awhile I’d look around and think about how nice it all looks, mostly when I thought about the mirrors and wallpaper that used to be there. It feels good, after all of the work, to have it the way we want it. We’ve still got the trim and molding to paint, and blinds to install, and the bathroom light to fix, but at this point, it feels pretty good.

We had dinner in South Pasadena with a friend of Aimee’s family, and learned about all of the local intersections used in movies (Back to the Future, Teen Wolf, Caddyshack). On Sunday, we went shopping at the Mar Vista Farmer’s Market, and I went for a run for the first time in at least six weeks, which felt good, though a little sluggish. We also walked to our local Yogurtland for dessert, after Aimee’s forty days with no sweets. Mmm, Yogurtland.

We visited the Mar Vista Farmer’s Market today for the first time since moving in a few minutes away. Note the carrots sticking out of Aimee’s bag.

It’s been a busy few weeks, with moving, going to Boston, and going to Chicago over the last three weekends, but we’re back home for awhile now, and looking forward to getting all of the last little things in the house taken care of, like making the kitchen usable, which Aimee did yesterday. It actually feels like a kitchen now, rather than a paint shop and box storage area.

I’m also looking forward to taking care of other things now that the planning of the 2009 International Photobooth Convention is done. The event was a great success, I think, and we all had a good time. It was well attended, despite the lack of press coverage, and we met a lot of interesting and enthusiastic people. More photos and videos will be appearing on Flickr and Vimeo in the coming days.

It actually looks worse than the ‘after’ photo now, because we’ve moved on from the immediate need to get the furniture built and are getting ready to go to Boston tonight. So, it looked nice for a day or so, and will hopefully improve once Aimee gets back next week and has a week of her spring break to really get the house in order.

This was the scene on Sunday after we returned from IKEA. We built a few items each night and everything is finished, at least as finished as we can be without the hinges for the wardrobe and the door for the laundry cabinet. We had our crown molding in the living room and baseboard in the bathroom installed yesterday, which now needs to be painted. It already makes the place look a lot better, though, even in its unfinished state.

We got our kitchen sink back yesterday as well, after weeks of occupation by paintbrushes, sponges, buckets, and goopy piles of wallpaper glue. We’ve still got a ways to go, but the place is beginning to look a lot better. We’re sleeping in our bed, my computer is on my desk, the TiVo is working, our bathroom sink is hooked up… All major accomplishments, in my book. This weekend we go to Boston, and next weekend I’m in Chicago for the International Phootobooth Convention, so we’re racing to get as much done now as we can.

As I type this, we’re falling asleep in our new house for the first time. And we’ve been falling asleep for the last two hours, because it’s been a really long day. Delancey Street Movers came through for us again and did a swift and flawless job, from arrival to the last unloading in under four hours. Crazy.

We had them put almost everything in the garage so we can be a little more careful about what goes where. Who knows if that means everything will just live in the garage from now on. Tomorrow, we’re off to Ikea, which should be fun. It feels great to be here.