Legoland
The front gate, with the inevitable photo stop
Gail and Susan are very mature and grown up. Karl is mostly grown up, and I’m at least housebroken. So when Karl wanted to go to Legoland today he only got one taker, and off the two of us went.
Legoland took over the location of the failed Cypress Gardens, a tourist mecca for many years than eventually faded into oblivion against much better financed and complex operations like Disney and Universal. The Lego company operates 7 parks around the world, they know what they are doing, have a huge built-in base and the cash to do the job right.
This is a park for children, make no mistake about it. Karl and I may have been the only ones there without a child or 3 to keep us company. We tried to rent a kid, but they were all sold out.
There is one area that will keep the adults happy–mini world. Lego has taken a large area and created magnificent cities out of Legos. Millions of Legos. They have engineer/artists who manage to bring entire cities to life with kids toys, and you can spend quite a bit of time studying them.
San Francisco:
New York:
Las Vegas:
Star Wars:
Other sites in Florida:
It really is breathtaking. The attention to detail is perfect.
Of course, you get to see lots of cute kids.
One of the first things we saw was an area where water was shooting up from the ground and kids were playing in it:
After you get wet, you can rent a dryer:
This is a mini-wind tunnel for wet kids. $5 for 3 1/2 minutes
I don’t think I understand what they mean for the Christmas display:
Is it nightly, or selected dates? Somebody is confused about the English language.
There was one ride where you get a laser gun and shoot targets. Karl and I liked it so much that we refused to get out of the car and went around again. Here are our scores–I was sitting on the left:
There would be no picture if I had lost.
The Sunday after Thanksgiving is getaway day; everyone is going home. The park was pretty empty (which is why we could ride twice). Here is the dining area where we had lunch:
You could shoot a cannon through here.
Although perhaps everyone knew better about the food. I had a “pannini”. Don’t try to sell this in Italy:
About as bad as a sandwich can be.
There is a water skiing show in the amphitheaters left over from Cypress Gardens. Mostly designed for children, it has lots of bad jokes, silly skits and a bit of fancy water work. We found it enjoyable, if silly.
The last ride was a giant turntable that rises 150 feet in the air. In a state as flat as Florida, that gives you quite a view.
A day at Legoland is not an intellectual or culinary experience, it’s just fun. Lots of kids, bright colors, friendly staff and a truly astounding mini-world. Rent a kid and go, you’ll have a good time.
Catching up
When you have too much fun, you don’t have time to blog. That’s what they call a first world problem.
These are a few photos I took around Lafayette and Berkeley. It isn’t necessary to go to the East coast for fall colors anymore. When my family moved here 54 years ago, the trees were all indigenous pine or oak, and nothing much changed color. But half a century of people intentionally planting colorful deciduous varieties has made a significant change in the local ecology, and fall now brings us as much color as we saw in Maine or Massachusetts.
Thanksgiving day we had lunch across the street at a place called World of Beer–if there was one near my buddy Don Mamula’s house, he might never leave. The beer didn’t do anything for me, but I certainly enjoyed the appetizer we ordered:
A pretzel four of us could share, with beer cheese and spicy mustard.
I wanted to show you my new adopted grandmother:
Frances Koontz
My father’s mother died before I was born, and mother’s mother passed when I was 5. It’s nice to finally have a grandmother of my own.
Frances came to Thanksgiving dinner and hung out with us for quite a while, joining in all the frivolity that happens here.
Although Karl has taken to serious gourmet cooking of late, Thanksgiving dinner is Susan’s responsibility, and she cranked out a classic dinner with military precision—I saw her schedule for what was going in or coming out of the oven the entire afternoon. The turkey was “spatchcocked” which means you remove the backbone, break the breastbone and the whole thing lies flat like a tent without the poles. It also cooks in 90 minutes. You don’t stuff it; you make the dressing in a separate pan. It worked like a champ, cooked right on time and we had a succulent bird to enjoy.
Dessert was a pumpkin pie and a peppermint pie with hot fudge sauce. That’s an Oreo crust filled with peppermint ice cream drowned in melted chocolate. It’s every bit as good as it sounds.
Shortly after dinner I entered a tryptophan coma, and now it’s Friday. We went to the local bridge club today. Gail and Susan played together, as best friends in the whole world should, and they found some poor local sap to carry me around the club all afternoon.
And that’s my winter vacation so far. Not a bit of shopping. It’s almost un-American, but who needs to stand in line for hours to buy something you probably don’t need anyway?
More tomorrow.
Over the river and through the woods
Dallas. Where else would we be the day before Thanksgiving?
Expecting heavy traffic in the morning and heavy security at the airport and heavy crowds because of the date we left home and hour earlier than usual.
There was
Expecting heavy traffic in the morning and heavy security at the airport and heavy crowds because of the date we left home an hour earlier than usual.
There was no traffic. Security was no problem at all. Not a very heavy crowd at the airport. We had plenty of time for breakfast.
We are off to Orlando to spend the holiday with Susan who is somebody’s grandmother, just not mine. On the other hand, Frances is coming to dinner, and I might adopt her as a grandmother.
I looked in this place to see if they had a cheese plate and a glass of port with which to pass the time, but apparently port has too much alcohol to sell in a wine bar in Texas. Somebody has too much time on their hands.
We have four days in Orlando, then Gail goes home and I go to Denver for the nationals. We’ll come back through Dallas, of course. Stay tuned.
In The House
Lunch today in the City with Keith and Jan at a little place they found called The House. A very small restaurant near the junction of Columbus and Broadway, serving a unique version of Asian Fusion in the heart of Little Italy.
The long narrow space is decorated with a considerable amount of original art, warm wooden tables and chairs, paper place mats and napkins. There isn’t much space, and you better be good friends with the person you’re sitting next to. Good thing I was sitting next to Gail.
The menu has a considerable variety, and the dishes are mostly designed for sharing. It’s many different things you already know put together in ways you haven’t imagined.
Salmon roll with Tobiko
A tower of tempura green beans sitting on watermelon radishes
More Salmon sitting on a work of art
Curry noodles with chicken and vegetables
The food was inventive, different and scrumptious. We devoured all of it. The service was excellent, and the prices were quite reasonable.
The House doesn’t take reservations–when we left there was a line outside the door, San Franciscans who know a great meal when they find it.
Fifty One Minutes
I have medical insurance through Kaiser. Some people hate Kaiser, but I’m not one of them.
Ever since we got home from our cruise, I’ve been coughing like a retired Welsh coal miner at a cat show. Since my carefully thought out program of “leave it alone, it’ll go away” wasn’t working, I finally broke down and made an appointment. I called on Wednesday and had a 2:30 appointment on Thursday.
Moments after checking in and paying my $20 co-pay, they called my name, took my blood pressure, temperature and weight. For a rare change they didn’t ask me how tall I am–maybe they got tired of me answering 6′ 4″. Then I was ensconced in an examination room to wait for the doctor.
Who was along in just a few seconds. Just another Kaiser doctor, nobody I know. He listened to my lungs, looked in my ears and said I have a cough. Maybe I should have gone to med school; I knew that already.
He gave me a prescription for a couple of things, and ordered a chest X-ray to see if I had pneumonia and that was all.
So I went down the hall and picked up the prescriptions for only $10, then into the hospital to find the X-ray lab.
Paid another $40 co-pay and quickly went in, had two pictures taken and was back out in a flash.
This seemed like a good time to get a flu shot, so I stepped into the modular building on the campus, showed my Kaiser card, filled out the form with my age and date of birth (which seems like overkill, since you can derive one from the other), told them I wasn’t pregnant or allergic to eggs, and got the shot.
At 3:21, 51 minutes after my scheduled appointment, I was back at the elevator in the parking structure. Doctor’s visit, pharmacy, X-ray and flu shot all accomplished.
And that’s why I’m a Kaiser fan.
Leaving in style
Gail and Toby
The young master has been home for the last 10 weeks, but it’s time for him to return to Israel, go back to work and spend more time with the very cute French girl he’s crazy about. Israel has good lamb but less good beef, so we arranged a farewell dinner at Ruth’s Chris Steak house.
What is the point of snootily telling the customer “we only seat the entire party”? Gail and I were there first, and the hostess was up on her high horse with her little rules. You can imagine how that went–somebody has to remind the staff who the customer is. We were soon seated, and then, sure enough, the rest of the family showed up. Dinner commenced.
Ruth’s Chris is a high-end kind of place, with big portions and big prices. The service isn’t particularly fast, because you don’t want to feel rushed. You go there to dine, not to eat, and should plan on taking your time.
My starter was the apple, walnut and blue cheese salad.
That’s a big salad, well made and nicely presented. The dressing was bright and vinegary, the apples were crisp, there was more than I could eat.
Although Ruth’s is mainly a temple to large slabs of beef, I had the scallops, the better to please the cardiologist.
Grilled scallops with fresh corn and spinach
Not bad; somewhat overcooked. I think my dish was cooked first and sat under heat lamps for too long before it was served. The beef dishes looked quite a bit better:
12 oz. Rib Eye steak
Meat. Big, unrepentant chunks of meat. That’s what Ruth’s Chris is all about, and they do it well. USDA Prime beef, cooked on a 500º grill. These people know beef.
8 ounce Filet Mignon
The above is just food porn. It doesn’t need words.
Most of us ordered the prix fixe meals, with salad, side, entree and dessert all for a reasonable (for Ruth’s, at least) price. Sadly, the white chocolate bread pudding was not part of the special, but I had to have it anyway.
White chocolate bread pudding with Grand Marnier sauce
So much for heart healthy dining. It was spectacular, as good as any I found in New Orleans. It’s definitely too much for one person to eat. I know that now.
The deliberate pacing of the meal was too much for us–the young man had a plane to catch. Dashing through our desserts, I called for a check which resembled the national debt of Bolivia.
It was worth it. Ruth’s Chris is the place to go for a rich, heavy meal in elegant surroundings. Don’t let the hostess bully you–sit when you are ready, not when she is. Be sure to share the bread pudding.
Silly and Goofy and Noisy and Deep
Marcia Pizzo and Jackson Davis perform in Vanya and Sonya and Masha and Spike at Center Rep. Photo from Center Rep
A few months ago I was watching the Tonys on the TV and there was this play I had never heard of winning everything in sight. When Mike told me that it was coming to Center Rep I was all atwitter looking forward to it. That’ how we got to see Vanya and Sonya and Masha and Spike Saturday afternoon.
I think the production in New York had a different cast. Or director. Or script. Something didn’t make the trip from Broadway to Locust Street.
Playwright Christopher Durang wondered what if his life was more like a Chekov play, and wrote this to find out. The characters all bear the names of Chekov characters, the plot is cribbed from Chekov, there is even a cherry orchard. it’s all very interesting if you have an MA in lit crit, but self conscious and pretentious if you don’t. I don’t.
One of the things I wonder about in life is how to tell if I’m seeing a poor actor or the results of poor direction. One of the characters in this play is Cassandra, the housekeeper. All four of us thought she was chewing the scenery, overacting with every line. The fault of the actress or the director? Beats me, but it was a major weak spot in the show.
The plot is simple–Vanya and Sonya live in their parents house, which is now owned by their sister Masha, a self-centered actress who is rarely present but pays all the bill and supports them. Masha shows up with her boy-toy, bosses everyone around, threatens to sell the house and put her siblings out on the street. Some stuff happens, everybody lives happily ever after.
The strongest part of the play is in the second act when Vanya (Jackson Davis) has a long monologue railing against modernity and longing for the old days when you dialed the phone and watched Ozzie and Harriet. I don’t know that the sentiments expressed are all that original or important, but the speech is well delivered and decidedly electrifies the house.
Vanya and Sonya and Masha and Spike wasn’t a bad play, it just wasn’t very good. After the awards it won in New York I was expecting something wonderful, and it just doesn’t deliver on that promise at all. Drat.
A thing worth doing is worth doing badly
Doing everything well would be nice, but sometimes you just need to do something any way you can.
This morning I went to the College of Marin for a drawing marathon, put on by the Bay Area Models Guild. For 3 hours I could sit and draw from live models, for a measly $30. Although I have no talent whatsoever, nobody cares. There are no photos because cameras are strictly verboten. Accompanying me was our friend Ruth Hussey, who is an accomplished artist. Even after 60 years of drawing and painting, she still likes to go to these events and practice.
I’d like to draw better than I do, and the only way to get better is to practice. Models are not only expensive, but if you aren’t an established artist you can’t just call a model and say “come on over to my house, get naked and let me draw you”. People seem to be wary of that.
There are different stages set up, with models working for different lengths of pose. I started out with the one and two minute poses, which are mostly just to get gesture, a quick outline of the pose. Since I’m not good at that, it was exhausting to try. On the other hand, after 2 hours of trying I was a tiny bit better.
The last hour we moved to the 5 and 10 minute poses. With more time, I could do a slightly better, but not anything I’d want to scan and post here. I got some of the lines of the poses, made a few sketches that might have looked vaguely like what I was looking at.
So I’m not good, and didn’t make any worthy art. The day was still a success, stretching my limits and trying something different. Sometimes you just need to do something badly.
The wheel keeps spinning
Restaurants come and go, that’s the way of the world. We used to enjoy Patrick David in the Danville Livery, then it closed and became Martini Sky. That closed, and something new opened--Dana’s. Since we knew the way, tonight we gave it a try with Micky and Linda.
Dana’s has had a minor facelift since its last incarnation, and it’s all for the good. High backed booths do an effective job of making the place much quieter–which was my main complaint about Martini Sky. The tablecloths, heavy napkins and other smaller changes work to deaden the sounds from the bar and make the restaurant an enjoyable place to have a meal. There are a goodly number of tables outside, with heaters above them. I think it would be pleasant to try one even on a crisp evening.
The menu has plates both large and small so you can share with friends or tuck into a 16 ounce rib-eye all by yourself. There is even a 40 ounce bone in rib-eye designed to be shared. It must be a heck of a thick slab of beef since it takes 45 minutes to prepare.
Micky started with the roasted beet salad: He won’t eat brussels sprouts, but he likes beets. Go figure.
Beet Salad
Butternut squash soup decorated with creme fraiche
My entree was the daily fish special–pan seared halibut.
Halibut, pesto, green beans and a pumpkin/potato cake
Linda had the crab cakes, which are really an appetizer and not quite enough for an entreé. Tasty, though:
There are crab cakes somewhere under the salad.
Service was decent, not great. I wanted a 5:30 reservation, but could only get a table at 5:00. We got there late, but at 5:30 we were almost the only table seated. I don’t understand the science of reservations.
As you would expect, the winelist is deep. Gail ordered a La Crema chardonnay, and for the first time I can remember she thought the wine was off and sent it back. The house was completely cooperative and her second glass was satisfactory.
Dana’s is a fine restaurant, and much more pleasant to visit than Martini Sky was courtesy of all the sound deadening. Prices are reasonable, not cheap. I expect we’ll go there again.
I love a Cabaret
Another Sunday at the Venetian Room, attending Bay Area Cabaret, feeling elegant listening to live singing from an era that is no more. The performer tonight was Jane Monheit, a 38 year old singing the music of Lerner and Loewe, Cole Porter and the great Ella Fitzgerald.
Jane Monheit wowing the crowd.
Jane came onstage and sang, accompanied by her husband Rick Montalbano on drums, Neal Miner on bass and Michael Kanan on piano. Sometimes the artists are accompanied by musicians from the local union hall; it’s always better when they are a seasoned unit.
The cool shoes went well with the cool jazz.
In just over an hour, Jane sang her way through some old standards and some less familiar sounds from the swing era, paying tribute to her idol Ella Fitzgerald. There was the obligatory encore, which is just a standard part of the act these days. Jane’s rendition of “Over the Rainbow” was a show stopper, slotted inexplicably in the middle of the act. Overall, we thought the show was a journeyman act–solid, professional, well put together, not star quality but more than good enough to keep us coming back.
These cabaret shows are well run. They start on time, run for an hour or so and then they are over. We’ve developed a pattern of going across the street to the Mark Hopkins hotel to have a bite at the Top of the Mark, living large with the great view and some spectacular nibbles.
Marinated California olives with Feta cheese
You can’t make a reservation here, you just have to hope there’s a table. Ideally, you want a window table to enjoy the immense views from the 18th floor on top of Nob Hill. We got seated almost immediately, but in a center table. The waiter then helped us move the window when something opened up.
Miso chips with tahini and avocado, garnished with radish sprouts
The Mark has the most confusing, unreadable, misleading, baffling, bizarre menu I’ve ever encountered. It looks like a drinks menu, but it isn’t. The food is good, if you can figure out how what to order.
Italian sausage flatbread.
“Flatbread” is the way you can charge $19 for a tiny pizza. It’s a damn good pizza, though.
The drinks menu, the real one, is full of fancy cocktails using all sorts of obscure ingredients. If you’re into modern fancy cocktails, this would be a good place . I drink iced tea. They have good iced tea, too.
The Top of the Mark has been a San Francisco institution since it opened in 1939. When you go there you feel like a member of the upper crust, giving the servants a night off while you paint the town. It’s a perfect finish to an afternoon at the Cabaret.
Totally Unauthorized 