Today is August 13, 2025. I haven’t written my blog for a while, with my last one on Wednesday, August 6, 2025, before we jetted to Los Angeles on Thursday, August 7. We did come home last night, but it was close to 12 midnight and I sure was not going to write this blog when we were traveling over 14 hours for some strange reason during the whole day. We started off around 8:30 when we left our hotel to drive to LAX to drop off our rented red Dodge Charger (the first time I was ever in one, I believe). This took unceremoniously long to get to the airport, but we had a 12:15 reservation, so it didn’t matter what time we got to the airport. We still had that much time to check in and walk to our gate which, for the very first time, was not too far away from airport security. So that was a relief!

All in all, the several days we spent in Los Angeles and its environs were very jam packed with things to do. We even got to celebrate our anniversary on Sunday, August 10, after going to our friends’ gala anniversary dinner on Saturday, August 9. We also got to see our friends in a more intimate setting Friday night, also on Ventura Boulevard, in a less glitzy place called Bacari with fewer people. I now think that first dinner was arranged for all of the guests who traveled from afar to get to the main celebration on Sunday. Thus there were only about 10 of us. I think Elliot was speaking to a couple who flew in from Georgia. The main attraction, so to speak, was quite the chic and elegant affair: it was held at a restaurant on Ventura Boulevard called Casalena. There were cocktails, hors d’oeuvres, and then a formal sit-down dinner, replete with a DJ, and, even, dancing. Plates of food were delivered to the tables after speeches were given to honor the coupler celebrating 50 years of married bliss. I was a little surprised that Elliot didn’t stand up to deliver one himself, but he didn’t. I had my chance this time to get up to dance, and boy, did I take it. I ended up dancing with a single older guest who I never learned how she knew the couple. I just shimmied my way up on the floor for upwards of two hours or so.

The most exasperating thing I hated about this trip was the constant driving we did. You don’t walk in California; you drive if you can afford it. So the minute we rented our car on Thursday night, we drove everywhere. Even though we were on Melrose Avenue, we did resort to walking but only locally. You rarely see people walking the streets in Los Angeles. Though I didn’t drive, I considered myself the navigator. At first, we couldn’t hook up the bluetooth in the car with my phone; we had to ask a friend, “Albert,” who we saw Thursday night at Canter’s, a kosher-style deli located on North Fairfax Avenue. We actually went to this fading symbol of the Old Los Angeles three times. Twice for dinner and once for lunch.

Actually, it was I who hooked up my phone to the car’s system since after Albert supposedly installed it Thursday night, it stopped working on Friday. I touched some buttons here and there, and voila, it worked the entire time we used the car. So I didn’t have to resort to giving verbal instructions on route directions; that was delivered by a very proper English woman voicing directions from Google Maps. It was great.

On Monday, we went to the new Academy Museum of Motion Pictures not far from our hotel. It’s on Wilshire Boulevard. I bought two senior tickets in New York and scheduled a 1 p.m. visit about two weeks ago. Parking was not easy there; we originally looked for parking on the street, but that was impossible, so I got out of the car and asked a security guard outside the entrance to the museum where we could park, and he mentioned to go across the street to the Petersen Automotive Museum, and to the parking garage there, so that’s where we parked. The two museums share the facility, so there was no problem parking there.

Our hotel was called the Palihotel and was located on Melrose Avenue. It was not far from the Improv, a comedy club, where we saw a revue on our anniversary. I booked the ticket as an impromptu gesture – just a day or two before the show itself and was able to get two tickets to the 9:15 show. The headliner was comic Will Burkart whose name I at least knew. The comedian going on earlier was someone I never heard of. Burkart’s Wikipedia page says he was born and raised in the San Francisco Bay area, and he’s only 32 years of age.

We had no complaints about the hotel – only that the parking garage needed a security code to get in and you had to call the front desk for someone to open the yawning doors of the gate. One time no one answered and I had to get out of the car to run up to the front desk to seek out the late-time clerk to open the gate. Also, the creaky elevator broke down on Sunday and was not operable until past our check-out. Thank God our room was on the second floor, so that didn’t involve too much walking up and down the stairs, except for check-out which was on Tuesday, August 12, and that did involve us taking both of our suitcases down two flights of stairs. That wasn’t so good! Oh, the shower was also quite unusual: every time you took a shower, the water didn’t drain out in enough time, so you had a tub almost filled to the brim. I called the front desk to announce my displeasure over this and a maintenance person was called up to do something about it. The only thing he did was remove the stopper. Even after this so-called “repair,” the water still almost crested to the top, but at least, the water drained much faster after this. Also, the air conditioning was a little too high one night, so I had to report this the next day too. I just changed my mind here; we will not stay at this hotel in the near future anytime soon. Even the area surrounding the hotel was a little grungy.

One good thing about this trip was that there was a news blackout of sorts for the duration of our time in sunny Los Angeles. The TV remote was the darndest thing; here I should have complained about it too, but I didn’t. I couldn’t get live TV on, so I abandoned that idea to find something else on other venues. We were able to watch some old movies on something called Samsung TV. But no news!

The worst thing about the trip was the commute to Newark Airport which took almost two hours one way. But that was my choice: I decided to trade in United miles for a practically free trip to LA which required that we needed to travel out of Newark Airport. The outgoing trip wasn’t that bad, even though our flight was delayed for over two hours because of a glitch in United Airlines’ own systems the day before. We had a 2:10 p.m. flight out which was delayed until about 4:32 now. But we didn’t know this; we first got an alert about this at 10:46 a.m. We were already on our way to the airport.

The return flight was a real doozy. There we had that 12:15 flight which this time did leave the tarmac basically on time. It was getting into New Jersey around 8:40 which now required a 2-hour commute home. Where we had to deplane which took more than a half hour to get off, then find where the Air Train is, board that for three stops to Penn Station, then find where the subway is located. At least we didn’t have to wait a long time for the E. I wanted to have something to eat at Penn Station since nothing was offered to us on this flight except for beverages and snacks. I settled for an Auntie Anne’s pretzel costing about $8.

Getting in close to 12, our trip was finally over! What made it all worth the while was seeing Atticus coming out of the bedroom to greet me a little warily. However, he was sitting on my right leg soon thereafter as I began watching the programs I taped.

And so it went!

I believe this is a gown that Barbra Streisand wore in one of her films. This is from the Academy Museum of Motion Pictures. The dress is from Funny Lady, I just recalled.

This is one of the big exhibits at the museum: the worlds of Sarah Greenwood and Katie Spencer who are veteran production designers who have worked on many films as diverse as Anna Karenina to Barbie, last summer’s major blockbuster hit.

This is from that exhibit honoring Sarah Greenwood and Katie Spencer.

This is a mockup of Barbie’s pink Cadillac.

This is a costume worn by that Brazilian spitfire, Carmen Miranda.

Here’s my Oscar!

This is from Beauty and the Beast, another film that Greenwood and Spencer worked on.

This peephole made up of books is found in The Last Bookstore, Downtown Los Angeles’ famous bookstore that Elliot and I always visit when we go there.

This leaning tower of books is also located in The Last Bookstore.

Don’t touch those books! Also found in The Last Bookstore which has been voted “the most photographed bookstore in the world.” And for a very good reason!

Wanna a book?

Another much-photographed area in The Last Bookstore.