Cap'n John's Blog

The Recap

I had Friday off (I love government jobs :P) so we’d arranged to meet my friends who were in town (sort of, they were staying in Anaheim) for a week. With JE staying at the in-laws Thursday night I was able to sleep in on Friday until Amber woke me up around 8:15 and Liz kicked me out of bed to take care of her.

Around 10:30am we picked up JE from preschool and headed down to Anaheim. We met up with my friends and had lunch with them at a local Denny’s. They’re good people so they sprang for lunch, plus I’d helped them out a bit recently so this was their way of saying Thank You. After lunch we bummed around in their hotel room for the afternoon until it was time to brave the traffic back home. Liz made the mistake of asking JE if he wanted to stay the night, and of course he did, and he didn’t like it one bit when Liz said she hadn’t meant it and he couldn’t really stay. Amber had fallen asleep but because JE was still upset and crying (loudly) with not being allowed to stay with our friends she woke up...shortly before JE fell asleep.

It didn’t help that traffic was bad on the 5 North back into L.A. county. It didn’t help that Orange County has already widened their part of the I-5. It didn’t help that as you’re leaving the OC for LA County the I-5 goes from a respectable five lanes down to an insanely small three lanes. A crying baby and 15 mph bumper-to-bumper traffic meant that tempers were frayed on the way back.

Saturday morning was spent vacuuming, and subsequently emptying the vacuum cleaner. At 12:30pm I called Australia All Over, an ABC radio program which last week read out a letter I’d emailed to them about why I live where I live...a letter I’d emailed to them in 2001. Almost everyone in Australia (and a lot of Aussies living abroad) listen to Macca (the host) and Australia All Over on Sunday mornings. When my letter was read out all of mum & dads’ friends rang them to tell them Macca was reading a letter I wrote. Mum rang the radio station and amazingly got through to one of the interns. Mum gave her my number here in L.A. and the intern rang and asked me to call her back next Sunday and she’d put me on the air to chat with Macca. So that’s why I was calling an Aussie radio station at 12:30pm on a Saturday arvo.

After chatting briefly with Macca I resumed spring cleaning then Liz’s parents arrived. That was when I discovered they’d stopped by to pick up Liz to go car shopping, not for us, for them. So I got stuck looking after JE & Amber for 5 hours while the in-laws bought a new car. Amber eventually fell asleep so JE and I played Warcraft III for 2 hours and 10 minutes. I know it was that long because when the game was finally over that was how long it had lasted. Liz still wasn’t home. I called and chatted to mum. Dad is doing better but the doctors still have no clue what is wrong with him, so they’re treating his symptoms which is making him feel better but it’s not really doing anything to fix him.

Finally Liz called, but instead of coming home she wanted me to come and join her & the in-laws for dinner at the local Chinese Restaurant. I woke Amber, changed her, made a bottle, threw her and JE in the car and headed for the restaurant. We had some yummy chinese food but I pigged out too much on the fried Pork Chops and was barely able to eat any of the other dishes. JE went home with the in-laws after I made sure their car seat (for him) was installed correctly in their new car.

Incredibly Amber slept in until 9:15am Sunday morning. I made a bottle of milk for her, got her out of bed and gave her to Liz while I had a shave. Liz fed Amber and decided she was coming to Church with me. That made us late to Church by about 15 minutes. It was communion (1st Sunday) but there were still plenty of spots in the parking lot. Amber behaved for about 10 minutes before Liz took her outside so she wouldn’t disturb the rest of the congregation.

After the service I sat at one of the outside tables but no-one stopped by to make a donation to March of Dimes. Because we were late I hadn’t been able to slip my notice to the Minister to read out during the service so no-one really knew I was there. I’m planning to put an “ad” in the weekly Church Bulletin, and get to Church early next week, and maybe I’ll get some donations next time around. We met one of the father-in-law’s old school friends from Shanghai (now from San Fran) who wanted to take us to lunch in an “authentic Sicilian Restaurant” in Pasadena.

The father-in-law went in the friend’s car, the mother-in-law got into our car, and off we went. Apparently we needed to exit the 210West at Lake, so we did, while following the friend’s car, and following is a map of almost exactly where we went when we got off the 210. “H” is the hotel where we eventually picked up the friend’s wife by following the route traced by the red line. The Red Star is where we eventually had lunch. We got there from H by following the green line, approximately. I’ve added little arrows so you can hopefully follow the route we took to get to the hotel and then to the restaurant. If there is a 1 and a 2 at an intersection then we passed through that intersection at least twice, going the direction of 1 the first time, and 2 the second time. If you know that area and you realize I’ve gone the wrong way on a 1-way street, it’s because I’m working from a memory I’d much rather repress, and I know some of the streets there are 1-way only, but I can’t remember which ones. I only know we had a lengthy tour of downtown Pasadena given by someone who lived in San Francisco and knew where he wanted to go, but had no idea how to get there.



So we finally made it to the authentic Sicilian restaurant, only to discover it was closed. Fortunately there was a restaurant backing on to the lane next to where we’d parked. Oddly enough, given that it was prime lunching time on Sunday in downtown Pasadena, every table outside this restaurant was empty. We made our way inside and meandered around the empty restaurant before finding the bar, with no-one at it but the bartender. Apparently we’d come in the back way because everyone was getting fed at the front of the restaurant. When we got to the front of the restaurant there were quite a few people already eating, so we knew we weren’t in a dive. Not only were we not in a dive, we were in a pretty classy restaurant. It was so classy they didn’t have dollar signs next to the prices, and everything was a round figure, like 7, or 8, or 9. No $ 7.95, etc. And man was it good food, especially considering Liz’s dad’s friend paid for it, free food is almost always good :) After the meal I asked where we were, turns out we were eating at Bar Celona.

After lunch we said our goodbyes and got out of Pasadena. Liz dropped us all at home then took off to do some grocery shopping. I spent the afternoon getting the house in top shape as our friends were stopping by for dinner. Liz picked up a few steaks, grilled those and made a salad, it was pretty darn good eatin’. After dinner we sat around and caught up on old times (these are friends of mine from Australia). JE played Uno then checkers with them before getting upset that he had to go to bed. We decided the water works would be lessened if we let him stay up until our friends were leaving, so he had a relatively late night.

All in all, it was a good weekend.