“THE DOCTORS”

Yesterday we went off to Paramount Studios where we were part of the audience for the back-to-back taping of two episodes of "The Doctors" t.v. show. That's one of Mom's favorite shows. We managed (wholly by luck,no pull) to get "VIP" tickets which entitled us to park on the Paramount lot (street parking around there is murder), to go to the head of the line for admission without waiting (enduring the glares or stares of awe, depending on your interpretation of those who had been waiting in the long line for some time), and to get seated down front where we might have a chance of being seen on t.v. Whoo hoo!  Celebs!  They didn't allow cameras (or even cell phones), so we had to leave those in the car. The only photo we got was of the Paramount water tower with it's logo:

Yes, that is the MORNING sun. We had to get up at 5:00 (well, Mom did) in order to ablute, dress, eat, and get on our way. Traffic was fairly forgiving for L.A. (Friday lite) so it wasn't too bad and we got there in plenty of time.

The taping itself was pretty interesting. Multiple cameras and booms, but a fairly simple set construction. All there was to it were the plastic backdrops and the table that the four docs sit at. That gets moved around, but there wasn't much else. The docs themselves look just like they do on t.v. No surprises. The "Bachelor" doc is pretty tall, the woman doc has r-e-a-l-l-y skinny legs and walks on what look like 5 inch stilettos, the plastic surgeon looks, well, plastic, and the pediatrician looks and acts like a friendly goof. They read just about everything off of teleprompters, only the banter is spontaneous. It was pretty fascinating to see the director work, giving cues, stopping the tape, redoing certain spots, etc. All in all we had a good time. We had to be there from 7:45 a.m. to 12:30 p.m., with a break at 10:30 for the loo. I liked the director. If he had been any more laid back he'd be comatose. But that kept things remarkably amiable and smooth. Absolutely no tension on the set, even when things went wrong.  I kept thinking that these guys get paid fortunes for this.  Sigh.

Panamint Valley Posse

There’s a lot of good things that have flown from our decision to buy our Lazy Daze RV.  We’ve had great adventures driving around the Southwest, rekindling our appreciation for the incredible diversity of landscape that this country offers.  But it also has fostered new friendships that we value more and more with every LD get-together that we have.  The latest was our trip to the Panamint Valley and Death Valley last week (12/26 to 12/30).

Recent years have seen a small portion of the parent Caravan Club get together for the week after Christmas in Death Valley to explore with Jeeps and commune with food and drink.  This has proved so popular that I’m told there were about 30 rigs at Furnace Creek this time.  The Death Valley Desperados.  However, we joined with a splinter group that wanted to avoid cumbersome “wagon-train” Jeep excursions.  We met up instead in the Panamint Valley, a beautiful area to the immediate west of Death Valley, separated by the Panamint Mountain range.  Here’s a shot of that range from our campsite the first evening, with Loni, Renee, and Barbara bundled against the chill:

The Panamint Valley has a very cool formation that looks for all the world like a giant shark facing right.  See it?  Our rigs are down in that Valley, but over to the left, out of the picture.

We initially were three rigs:  us, Larry & Renee, and Art & Barbara;  we were joined later by Terry and Elith.  We circled the wagons in the middle of nowhere:

Rig-to-rig progressive dinner night (we got the hors d’oeuvres):

This is Bill on the right, a local resident who’s carving his dreamscape 3,500 feet up the Argus Range that forms the west side of the Panamint Valley, alongside a huge hunk of gorgeous stone he hauled in to the site.  Art (L) and Larry (R) in the rear.

Our jeeping took us over the Slate Range that runs down the south portion of the Panamint Valley, where we are standing here.  Are these guys desert rats, or what?  (What.)

The next day, joined by Terry & Elith, we took the Wildrose road out of the Valley and climbed 4,000 feet into the Panamints, cutting over on the Emigrant Canyon Road and finally the Skidoo Trail to the ghost town site of Skidoo and its end-of-the-road rock mill (out of sight around that bend).

Skidoo flourished (700 souls) between 1906 and 1917, pumping in water from 23 miles away.  The phrase “23 Skidoo,” however (meaning “scram!”), preceded the naming of town.  I can’t imagine hauling materials into this remote area to build an entire town.

The night of the 28th, Loni cooked Chicken Dijon for the eight of us, with a nice green bean risotto and a big salad.  Renee helped put the salad together, Elith made a scrumptious dessert, and Art & Barbara supplied the wine.  Terry and Elith have a 27 ft rear bath model, so it had plenty of room for eight at the dinette and the lounge table.  We are camping in style!  We pulled up stakes on the 29th and moved on to Mesquite Springs campground in Death Valley, up near Scotty’s Castle.  This is an “improved” campground, with picnic tables and fire rings and bathrooms, but no hookups.  We were joined here by a couple more rigs from the DVD group, and are perched on the rim of a large ravine.

Scotty’s Castle may be touristy, but it’s still a must see.  I’d never seen it before, so we took off to take a tour.  Despite the name, this actually was the winter vacation residence of a Chicago insurance millionaire, Albert Johnson, who came here for his health.  Part of that health, he thought, was a steady dose of laughter provided by one Walter Scott, prospector, storyteller, and general prevaricator, who had duped Johnson into “investing” in his alleged gold mine.  Johnson caught on quickly, but retained “Scotty” until his death to keep him entertained.  Started in 1924, and never completely finished, the place is beautifully crafted, inside and out, and the Park Ranger gave an interesting tour, dressed in period costume.

While waiting for our tour to start, we drove over to check out the Ubehebe Crater about 8 miles away.  This baby is half a mile wide and 500 feet deep, formed by a volcanic explosion about 1,000 years ago. No, I wasn’t trying to throw her in as a sacrifice.  Honest.

We had a relaxing time around a campfire that evening, which was our last.  We left the next morning, but everyone else was staying through New Year’s.  If you look reeeel sharp you can see the little white blips of the rigs at the Mesquite Campground in this shot taken on the way out (click to enlarge):

We had to get home for New Year’s with Chuck and Alice and for our 42nd anniversary dinner out.  Here we are, ready to go.

It’s been a darn good year!  Happy 2010!

Catching Up: The House

It’s been almost four months now since we started this project.  That’s about as long as it took to build a complete second story back in 1984.  We’re almost done.  All the woodwork --- facia and windows – was repaired from 25 years of neglect; primer and at least two coats were applied;  all stucco was painted.  The eaves were closed in all around.  A dropped ceiling was installed on the porch, together with new arches and enlarged columns.  The porch was closed off at the old steps, filled in over them, and new steps were made down the front.  New walks in front and along the side of the drive and garage were poured.  New gutters all around, and an underground pipe drain takes most of it away (wish I’d done the same with the rest).  The porch, stairs, and part of the walks were tiled with slate (that’s not done yet). New balustrades were installed around the porch and stairs. The rock facing is about half done.  A new side window was cut into the den-cave above the garage.  And, we had the roof patched and repaired.  I made new shutters for the upper windows, and need to make a final one for the lower bedroom.    Once the final rock and tile work is completed, we can start landscaping.  Oye. 

Here’s the before and present (click to enlarge):

Catching Up: Thanksgiving In Indy

Thanksgiving is my favorite holiday of the year.  Yeah, Christmas is nice – who doesn’t like presents?  But the feeling of a house at Thanksgiving is unique.  The smells from the kitchen, the football from the t.v., the family and friends gathered in anticipation of that second-favorite of all sensual experiences:  pigging out!  Last year was the first time we had not been the hosts, when we went up to S.F. and had the feast at Mike and Alia’s.  Felt very strange not to have OUR home be the center of this day, and we realized that a new chapter was opening in our family’s life.  Needless to say, we had a grand time in a new setting, with an expanded family and different friends.  This year was even stranger.  Our nuclear family was nuked.  Loni and I went off to Indianapolis for the holidays with my relatives, and the boys hosted a grand fest at John and Meghan’s new apartment in S.F., which we haven’t yet seen.  2,200 miles apart.  Where’s nuclear fusion when you need it?

We had an uneventful flight (thank you, SWA) and arrived to temps about 25 degrees cooler than L.A.  Not too bad, and certainly better than the week of below zero that we spent there many years ago.  Mom had homemade vegetable-beef soup ready, which was the perfect post-travel meal.  I won’t blow-by-blow the trip, but we had great meals:  the Belgian bistro-brewpub with Susy (aviso:  don’t get the sour beer) – great garlic fries and mussels;  outstanding casserole at Jack and Rose’s;  top-notch northern Italian with Wayne and Tina in the funky Broad Ripple neighborhood of the City; and, of course, the centerpiece, Thanksgiving at Susy’s.

We did not want for food!  That’s Mom’s silver head in the foreground, and great-grandson Tyler on Elaissa’s lap.  There are great-great’s out there, but not present here.  Four generations was cool enough.

We spent the rest of the week helping out at the church (yes, heathens were welcome to lend a hand), buying Mom a DVD player to match her 50” LCD, showing her how to work it and to check out movies at the library, getting her some infrared headphones to help with hearing her shows, and going to see “Blind Side” at the flics, which we all enjoyed very much, nose-high critics be damned.

Ten days is long enough for Midwest fall gloom, and the last-day drizzle didn’t tempt us to extend our stay.  We’ll be seeing Mom in about six weeks when she flees the heart of winter to come stay with us for a while. 

The flight back was interesting.  I completely forgot to go online 24 hours ahead and secure our boarding passes.  We had to get them at the airport.  It would appear that everyone now takes advantage of the online check-in.  The flight was full, and only two other people had numbers higher than ours, so we had our “choice” of four seats when we finally boarded.  We glommed onto two center seats in rows 7 and 8, across the aisle from each other.  My row had two women, who turned out to be mother (late 60’s, window) and daughter (indeterminate, aisle), with a mound of bags and garments piled on the center seat (despite, as we learned later, repeated admonishments on the speaker from the captain as the boarding progressed that it would be a full flight).  I asked them to move the stuff.  The daughter started stuffing everything under the seat in front of where I would be sitting.  Ah, no.  She finally caught a clue, and starting trying to hoist everything into an already stuffed bin overhead.  Ah, no.  The flight attendant finally hove to and distributed things into other bins.  I got to sit down (and the two other long-standing passengers finally got to pass by to find their own seats).  The ladies didn’t offer to sit next to each other.  OK, my bad for being a dope with the check-in, penance in the center seat.  Then I noticed the Book.

Both mother and daughter had retained enough junk to cover their food trays several times over.  But the daughter’s Book stood out.  Coverless.  Battered.  Five inches thick with dictionary-type indents.  As soon as we were airborne she started in on it.  I glanced.  Every single word on what looked like a thousand pages was either highlighted, underlined, or circled, sometimes with combinations of each.  Different colored inks.  Notations covered the margins, top, bottom, and sides.  What the???  Then I got it.  Heathens are slow.  It was a Bible.  Uh oh.

All right.  Just keep quiet and read your own book, self.  My fears were not realized, however.  No proselytizing.  The only irritation was that they kept talking to each other by leaning forward towards me and chatting across as if I was part of their piled goods.  But sit next to each other?  Nooooooo.  Then, the syncro splash. 

This was a smooth flight.  Nary a bump.  The drink service was effortless.  The ladies both ordered coffee, and Mom ordered a Bloody Mary for good measure at the same time.  Each pushed her debris around on the trays to make space for the drinks.  And then . . . without so much as a shudder from the plane, they simultaneously moved their arms forward and, in a synchronicity worthy of Chinese tandem diving, knocked over their drink (drinks, in Mom’s case).  Daughter took most of hers on her pantlegs.  I took about half of Mom’s mixture on my leg and she got the rest.  Napkin brigade!  The attendant kept them coming.  Mom’s tray was like a muddy-red swimming pool.  Sincere apologies in stereo.  It’s a long flight.

We start descending into Phoenix.  Mom’s gazing out the window and says that she could never live here.  I ask where they’re from (Columbus) and if they’re going on to L.A.  “Oh no.  We’re here to see Joel Osteen,” she says.  I look blank.  “Joel Osteen.”  Blanker.  “You don’t know Joel Osteen?”  Uh, nope, sorry.  “You’ve never heard of him?”  More blank, now wishing I’d kept my mouth shut.  “Why, he’s one of the biggest ministries on T.V.  He has a huge congregation.  We’ve come to Phoenix just to hear him.  I can’t believe you’ve never heard of him.”  Guess I live in a cave.  She gave me a strange, appraising look.  Probably trying to figure whether I was Jewish, Muslim, or just slow.  Clearly no right-thnking Christian person could not have heard of Joel Osteen   Thank goodness for noisy flaps and wheels lowering.  This conversation is aborted. 

Virtually the entire plane gets off in Phoenix, and Loni and I get to sit together the rest of the way to L.A.  She says she could hardly keep a straight face when the flood hit, and that her seatmate had had a hissy fit of self-righteous comments about how “those women” had just ignored the captain’s warnings of a full plane and kept their junk on the center seat.  Fun and games in the air.