We took Lucinda down to Caltech this afternoon for one of the “Saturdays at 2:00” kids’ programs. Today’s show was Lazer Vaudeville, which was an amusing mishmash of juggling, light shows and a little bit of acrobatics. It was very entertaining, although Lucinda was a little bit scared at the beginning when Alonzo the fluorescent dragon came out on the stage to introduce the show. Still, she had a fun time, so it was all right.
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Lucinda asked to go up on the roof today. Doesn’t everyone let their five-year-olds go up on the roof? So we went up together. And since we were going up, I brought my tools along. The city had moved our electric service to a new pole, and the service wire was hanging a little low, so I figured I could just move the clamp up on the pipe thingy to get the wire off the gutter.
So there you have it. An idyllic day having quality time with our child up on the roof of our house…
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Today we went to the Body Worlds exhibit at the science museum. This is an exhibit of real bodies, preserved with plastic and on display for us to see in gory detail. It was really quite interesting. Cathy’s friend Cathy from Texas came here for the weekend to see it, and she liked it a lot. So overall, it was an interesting adventure.
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Lucinda lost her first tooth this evening. It’s been loose for a few weeks, and it finally gave up and came out. Lucinda asked Mommy to pull it, and it came right out.
Today we went to the big Body Art Expo at the L.A. County Fairgrounds. As tattoo conventions go, this one is kind of lame in that it’s not put on by tattoo people, but at the same time, all our tattoo friends are usually there. We took Lucinda along, since she said that she wanted to go. We wandered around there and visited with everyone we knew. Lucinda got a little temporary henna tattoo, and we generally had a fun time.
Lucinda wanted to play dress-up with Mommy today. She picked out the clothes for both of them to wear, and then she insisted that I take a picture. They’re awfully cute, no?
Lucinda got a $100 bill from Grandma and Grandpa for Christmas. Such is the joy of being the only grandchild in the whole family. So she decided she wanted to buy one of the Barbie Power Wheels cars. We told her that $100 probably wasn’t enough, but she wanted to look. She Mommy took her to Toys-R-Us. They had the Trail Rider there and it was a floor model and the last one. So they haggled a bit with the manager and got the price down to where Lucinda could afford it. She had to throw in the money from her piggy bank at home, but she had enough. So now she’s a happy little rider.
| So today was the Rose Parade. We live right at the end of the parade route, so this affords us a somewhat odd view of the event. It began like a Soviet May Day, with an overflight by our most fearsome military aircraft. So I went outside and snapped a picture of them flying over the hedge. Then I took a short bike ride down to the park. The In-N-Out Burger mobile units were all set up and ready to feed the marching bands when they got there. |  |
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One thing I thought was a bit odd was that with all the Department of |
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| After a while, the horses started to arrive. I thought that the cowgirls with the stars-and-stripes outfits were cute. |  |
| One guy seemed a bit concerned that the crowds might walk on his lawn. He put up a little temporary fence, just like the stores on Colorado Blvd. |  |
| The true nightmare scenario of an event like this is to need an ambulance. That happened this time. It wasn’t clear exactly what happened to the man, but they were doing CPR on him, so it couldn’t be good. |  |
| The mule group had a trailer that said, “Hauling World Champion Ass”. |  |
| Usually, all the horse people are just eating In-N-Out burgers when they get here, but this year, one guy brought a barbecue grill and set it up right out in the street. |  |
| Back down on the parade route, there was lots of trash left by all the people. A lot of it is Chick tracts and other religious pamphlets. The other thing we see is people bringing a mattress to sleep on and then leave it after the parade. But the city is on top of it. By tomorrow, all the trash will be gone, and it will be as if it never happened. |  |
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| Of course, little girls love horses, and Lucinda is no exception. She went out with a bag of carrots. |  |
| This afternoon, we went to see the floats close-up. Who knew that the surface of Saturn was covered with dried apricots? Another odd thing was the Home Depot float, “Saturday in the Park”. It was not clear why it had a fire extinguisher mounted right on the front. And the Roto-Rooter float was kind of funny. What else would it be but a big tree with massive roots? |  |
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So we had it all planned out. We had reservations for an early dinner at Cafe Bizou in Old Town. But after I rode my bike through there today, I thought that the traffic and parking would be a nightmare. But we thought we’d be able to beat that. We could take the train.
So we went to the train station, and we waited. The train station is in the middle of the freeway, which is actually a kind of hellish place. And we waited there for about 15 minutes before the train got there. This should have been a tip-off that something was wrong. We got on the train, the doors closed, and then we just sat there for 10 more minutes. Then they announced that there was some sort of problem with the tracks up ahead, and they were having to run single-track, so we were waiting for the train going the other way. And then we sat some more. Finally, we pulled out of the station. And the train went rocketing down the track at a good 15 miles per hour. When we got the next station, then the train just stopped and sat. Then the train going the other way came in. We bailed out and got on it and rode it back to where we started.
All of this ended up being a good hour spent sitting on the train. So we left the train station and went and had dinner at El Torito, which was just fine.
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Today we rode the train down to San Diego to take Lucinda to visit Grandpa Schwarz. This was an all-day affair that started by taking the Metro Gold Line from Pasadena to Union Station in downtown Los Angeles. From there, we got on the Amtrak Surfliner for the ride down the coast. The rain had stopped, so we got a good view of the mountains with a fresh coat of new snow. The train goes along the coast for a lot of the trip, so we got some nice views of the beach, as well as the San Onofre nuclear power plant.
When we got to San Diego, Grandpa picked us up and we went to his apartment there. He showed Lucinda how to hold the castanets, which she enjoyed, since it meant she could make lots of noise. They also played the piano together and drew pictures on the computer. There are more pictures of Lucinda from the day in her photo album.
Finally, at the end of the day, we rode the train home. It was really a very pleasant ride.
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