If It Isn't Saturday, Then It Must Be Sunday!

Don't get mad at me, but one of the aspects of retirement (that is entirely understandable) is that I keep thinking it is Saturday.  And then when I realize that it isn't, the next day I am sure it is Sunday.  And sure, it is wonderfully nice that every day can feel like a weekend, because it mostly is like a weekend, at least, emotionally, and also how nice it is to be able to do weekend things on a week-day, such as take my car in for the service that was due on it like I did last Monday, instead of having to reserve ahead for a Saturday. I was able to make an appointment for 7:00 AM, when they opened, and even though it was a more "major" check-up than a routine oil and filter change, the dealership was not so packed and jammed like they would be on a Saturday and therefore I was out of there in an hour instead of needing to ride the shuttle home for that day.  (My service writer told me that would be the case, so I went to have breakfast at the restaurant across the street and hardly had to wait in the waiting room at all.)

I have also realized that can I go to movies at a matinee and receive a discount even on top of the senior discount, which I will be taking advantage of tomorrow when I go see the documentary Quincy, about one of my favorite musicians, Quincy Jones.  It's only playing at one Laemmle theater, all the way over to 2nd Street in Santa Monica, a normally so-heavily-trafficked distance that I rarely would choose to go there after work.  But in the afternoon, not much a problem.

Doctor's visits are a snap, too (unfortunately, I am needing those), because I don't have to wait for the next "first thing in the morning" visits which I would always want as the most time-efficient way of handling those visits on a working day.

However, peculiarly, I haven't seen any advantage to grocery shopping; the stores just seem to be crowded all the time no matter when I go.  And the truth be told, in most ways it seems in Los Angeles, there are just so many people who seemingly never work at all.  I used to marvel, for example, at all the people I would see walking their dogs as I crept along in my daily morning commute.  It makes me think of Claudio and Arianna, my friends from Italy whom I met when I was in Fakarava, who stopped in Los Angeles for a couple of days on their way back home from another French Polynesian island that they had gone to after I had fun with them for five days in Fakarava.  I had offered to give them a tour of Los Angeles when they came if they would like and sure enough, they called me and took me up on my offer and they really loved Los Angeles, so it had been hugely fun to take them around to everything they wanted to see.

But one of their comments was, "Doesn't anybody here work?" because, as I could see through their eyes, everywhere we went, there were hordes of people out and about, and this was on a week day (I, myself, was on my vacation).  Beyond the people walking dogs, the beaches were packed, Venice was loaded with tricksters and crowded stalls, the sidewalks always were filled with people (but to Arianna's happiness, Hollywood Boulevard had a movie premier in front of the Chinese Theater so she could see some celebrities walk the red carpet), and traffic everywhere was very heavy.  I had chosen for us to go to Paradise Cove in Malibu to sit at tables on the sand and have drinks and lunch, and they were so surprised when we were presented a "buzzing lobster" to let us know when a table would be ready, that the wait for a table could be up to an hour.  Claudio said, "A special technology just to let us know when there is a vacant table on a weekday afternoon?"  They could hardly believe it!  (Also, they could hardly believe that the houses in Bel Air really were houses, but I think I finally convinced them!  "Yes, Claudio, even that one!")

We got some drinks to take to the sand while we waited for the lobster to vibrate, but then I saw a parent from the school where I work and his two little girls, enjoying the beach.  I stopped to speak to them and introduce my friends from Italy and I complained about the long wait, when the man said, "Here, take our lobster, we gave up waiting and decided to get lunch from the snack bar, instead!"  How wonderfully generous!  Almost as soon as he gave the lobster to me, it began to vibrate, so we got to get a table right away after all, plus I got to prove once again the adage that one will always run into our school's parents, no matter where in the world you go!

But, back to my confusion about days, one of the fall-outs of this always thinking that it is a weekend is that I find myself craving to go out for a weekend breakfast, which had more or less been a normal habit of mine for years, but which would not be so good to do every single day.  And now, coming along with that, is a sense of nostalgia for formerly beloved breakfast places that are no longer around.

One of them, whose name I sadly can't remember at the moment, was a place I went to for years and years, and not only for breakfast, but other meals as well.  A friend of mine who I did extra work in films with, and had been in a play with, even took me to this place to celebrate my birthday, and beyond the specialness of that, a man sitting at a nearby booth had overheard that it was my birthday and before he left, he handed me a Happy Birthday card in which he had written something extremely nice.  How amazing is that--I wondered what does he do, go around with birthday cards in is pocket and if he sees somebody who is having a birthday, he whips out a card and writes wonderful wishes to give them?  That seems like a really great idea, actually, especially when you go out to eat, there often is a table there where somebody is having their birthday celebrated.  How cool is it to not only sing along and clap with the well-wishers, but to even provide a birthday card!

A couple of years ago, I had gone to The Mission Inn (one of my all-time favorite hotels) in Riverside   as a quick and easy get-way which happened to be the weekend of my birthday.  For dinner, I chose to eat at Duane's, their marvelous steakhouse.  I overheard a man sitting near me say to his wife, "This is where I would like to celebrate my birthday," which led me to say to them, "Good idea; today is my birthday!" so they were nice and said, "Oh, Happy Birthday!" and gave me their fond good wishes, which I enjoyed.  Well, then later, after I had finished my wonderful dinner, the waitress brought me this, which was a surprise that made me very happy:

I said, "How did you know?" and she said, "I heard you tell the couple near you that it was your birthday, so...!"  So if you are like me and actually like your birthday, speak up!  I am shameless in this regard....

Back to the restaurant where the man had given me the birthday card, I happened to go there to have breakfast one weekend, and to my shock it was closed for good.  What?  At that time, I used to get my hair cut by a barber whose shop was across the street from the shopping mall where that restaurant was, so I asked him if he had any idea why that place was now closed. I told him that I had eaten there regularly for years and it was always very popular.  By then, I knew the name of every waiter and waitress and many of them knew my name.  There was a steady crowd of diners (like me) who liked to have breakfast out there on their covered patio.  (I had been semi-amused by a sign that they had posted out there.  Inside the restaurant, there were normal booths and sturdy wooden chairs around tables, but outside the chairs were those white plastic molded outdoor chairs.  The sign said, "Maximum capacity of chairs is 225 pounds.  If you weigh more than this, ask the waiter to bring you a heavy-duty chair."  The nerve!  I guess maybe somebody did happen to sit down and collapse one of those chairs, I don't know, but in my view that really wasn't a sign to have posted--just get some sturdier chairs!)

Anyway, I couldn't believe such a long-term and popular restaurant like this would suddenly go broke.  But the barber said it had nothing to do with the success or failure of the restaurant, but that the owner of the land was beginning a process of evicting tenant after tenant once their lease was up, because he wanted to do something else with that property that he thought would bring in more profits.  What happened to be there on that land (that I remember) was this restaurant, a Trader Joe's market (the only one I have ever been in), an Indian restaurant, a Mexican take-out, an aquarium shop, and a shop renting and selling Russian videos.  There might have been other stores, but that is what I remember...plus a large and very convenient parking lot.  Yeah, probably not the most profitable mix of stores, but this was an aspect of having a business that I hadn't thought much about. The owners of the land have an ancillary stake in your operation as well as you have an ancillary stake in theirs, so it is hoped that each have a mutual success.  If it doesn't happen, both are in trouble.

I used to have an auto mechanic who was forced to leave his leased repair shop because the owner of the land raised the rents way too high for him with the next lease renewal.  My mechanic felt that the land owner was greedy and would regret that decision.  All I know is that space still has an auto repair shop in it, just another one, whereas my mechanic ended up moving four different times after that, having a lot of trouble making a go of his enterprise and that is too bad, because he was an excellent mechanic.

Yesterday, I suddenly wondered what "awesome" thing had finally taken the place of the restaurant I had liked.  I "toured Santa Monica Boulevard" via Google Maps, but could not figure out exactly where that location was, as the area had undergone quite a bit of changes in the last decade or so.  I could no longer recognize much of that area, at least, from seeing via Google Maps.  I realized that it required to actually there in person.

So much of all that was when I lived in Hollywood, but when I moved to Tarzana, Hollywood was no longer my neighborhood so I have rarely gone back there since.  But now with this sense of nostalgia for many of those places that I enjoyed in the past, I decided to have breakfast at The House of Pies on the corner of Franklin and Vermont (when I lived in Hollywood, I lived on Franklin), which, I was glad to see, is still in business.  I even did my "bad thing" of eating the same breakfast that I used to have when I lived in the area, what in those days they called "The Western Breakfast", but what they now call "The Ultimate Breakfast Combo":  two eggs, two sausages, two slices of bacon, ham, hash browns, two slices of toast, and three pancakes (or a Belgian waffle).  Carbs carbs carbs, it's so wonderfully negatively indulgent that it is a slap in my keto face--hash browns and two slices of toast and three pancakes (or Belgian waffle) PLUS all the fats and protein of sausages, bacon, and ham--I said to the waitress, "That certainly covers all the bases!"  I ate outside on their patio, as I always did back then, and really enjoyed it.  I was kind of worried that I couldn't finish all that food, which if you order something like that, you have to eat it all or you are stupid...well, I needn't have worried about that, I certainly did finish it all and also had three cups of coffee and completely drank the very large glass of water that she brought me.  Okay, so I can fast tomorrow.

I noticed that there is still in the area a BOOK STORE, so hooray for them.  Also, catty-corner on the street is still a Masonic lodge and I realized that I have certainly heard of Masons that their lodges, for heaven's sake, yet all these years I never actually knew just what they did.  So that's another thing good about retirement, you can actually make the time to learn about things that you somehow managed to miss previously, if you want to, that is.

After my great nostalgic breakfast, I made my way to Santa Monica Boulevard to go see what had happened with that poor old strip mall that had the restaurant and the Trader Joe's.  And what I found knocked my socks right off.  The owner thought he wasn't getting enough profit!  Well I guess so--this guy had foresight or ambition far beyond anything I ever could have imagined.

Remember what was there before, nothing above a single story--three places to eat, a Trader Joe's, an aquarium shop, and a video store...and a wonderful large parking lot.  Oh, and what was (had been) across the street (just to give you a reference) was a barber shop, an acting studio, and a boxing gym.

What is there now, here is the front view (see it covers that whole block):

and here is one of the side views:

These are the Avalon Apartments, Hollywood, which essentially take up an entire block and cover almost every square inch of the original land, and is six stories high.  It still does have a Trader Joe's!

Think of how much more each square foot of that land is earning now compared with what it was earning before.  It's understandable, but also scary when you contemplate these kinds of differences.  I saw a lot of that on today's little trip through my old stomping grounds, quite a few new immense apartment and condo complexes, as well as more large hotels.  I, myself, would not want to live right on a very busy street like Santa Monica Boulevard or Sunset Boulevard, but apparently (some) people really do like that.  That is sort of "New Yorking" Los Angeles.  Also making it way more densely crowded.  I saw that was so much easier to get around in the Valley.

The most dramatic change of land use that ever touched me happened in North Miami Beach (they call it Sunny Isles Beach).  I had stayed in a cute little Days Inn there (three stories high), right on the beach (not across the street), had a nice big swimming pool (I really enjoy going back and forth between the ocean and a fresh water swimming pool), a convenient parking lot, and my room had a useful balcony with outdoor furniture on it (I could eat out there) and had a front and center ocean view.  There was a man who had a bar set up on the sand right there at the hotel, very convenient, and the people sitting there drinking (whom I joined) were very friendly.  This was as affordable as it could get and it had all I really needed.  It was a nice family-friendly motel in a very good location for enjoying the sand and warm ocean water.  It was a trip I would be happy to repeat, and, in fact, planned to a couple of years later, but was having some trouble finding the listing for the Days Inn of Sunny Isles.  The Days Inn website kept leading me to another Days Inn in a different location.  I finally checked out some other websites and learned that Donald Trump (ha ha!) had bought up that hotel plus the ones on either side of it, all of which were similar in being small affordable family-friendly beach hotels.  The more expensive beach hotels were in Miami Beach and probably pretty much out of reach for quite a lot of people.  But, like that strip mall in Hollywood that had the restaurant that I liked, somebody knew that that land underneath was useful for something much, much, much more profitable.

This photo from several years ago still blows me away:

This photo is what was being built on the land that had once had those hotels that Trump had bought. Huge difference from what was there before.  That is progress, but it still does make me sad, since I had enjoyed my trip and my stay there and would not be able to repeat that experience.  In other words, I was being pushed out by greater money interests.  On that same trip, the hotel where I stayed in Key West was also on the water, and it, too, was bought up and torn down so that something much more expensive could go there in its place.

Here's something ironic:  I was on a flight to Maui that I saw the movie War Dogs, starring Jonah Hill.  It was a story about two Miami guys mucking around not making very much money--one of them was an outcall masseur--and the other one had his brain tuned on "easy success ideas" a bit too strongly.  They got involved with an armaments deal in Iraq that was worth something like three hundred million dollars, and well, oh boy do they get in trouble, not only with some exceedingly dangerous characters, but also the federal government, but meanwhile, it was a phenomenal ride of financial success beyond anything they had dreamed.

The masseur guy and his wife bought an amazingly beautiful condo high up in a skyscraper on the beach somewhere in Miami with multi-story glass windows and infinite ocean views and many phenomenal, top of the line features.  I am not exactly sure what it was that clued me in (but I do have an eye and a memory for certain details), I had wondered where there actually was such a place like that to live and ultimately I discovered where or what it was.  I am pretty sure that where they filmed this condo was the "Porsche Design Tower"--the main unusual feature of the Porsche Design Tower (despite everything else it has going for it) is that there are two automobile parking spaces at the level of each and every condo no matter where you live in this 60 story building.  This also makes me think of a thrilling chase and fight scene inside a mechanical multi-level parking garage in the movie Mission Impossible 4, which is in my favorite movie series.

Having a condo unit like the Porsche Design Tower, which is so futuristic in its design and lifestyle, is something to lust after that you can't help but admire its existence whether or not you as an individual are able to have such a thing or not.  I don't envy or hate people who can have this or things like this and other things; I am just glad that that such things do exist.  The irony is that the Porsche Design Tower was one of the buildings that took the place of the Days Inn that I had enjoyed.    I was pushed out by greater money interests, yet I admire what those greater money interest bought in.