Thursday evening, nearing the end of the one day of separation between my birthday and Meridith's birthday, Meridith decided on where she wanted to go for dinner on her birthday: Souplantation.
Across the country it's known as Sweet Tomatoes, but in Southern California, it's called Souplantation. I don't know why. Tax reasons come to mind, but then that's always the case when I learn of changes in business between states.
When we first went to this Souplantation last September, I loved it. I loved the blueberry muffins full of tiny blueberries that burst blue inside, the chocolate muffins with syrupy centers, the fettucine alfredo with enough four-cheese sauce to make me get two more bowls. What may also have made the difference was going there on a late Wednesday afternoon rather than a late Friday afternoon, when the Valencia Town Center mall shopping district becomes the premier social hub of the Santa Clarita Valley. Add to that four regular screens and an IMAX screen given over to The Hunger Games at Edwards Valencia 12, and it was easy to see why the tables were crowded so.
Souplantation starts at the entrance with a loooooooong salad bar with spinach and various hand-tossed salad, including a Caesar salad that's made every 20 minutes that Meridith waited for. She loves freshly-made everything, so watching lemons squeezed and garlic pressed and cheese sprinkled on was worth the wait. I didn't take any, but she really went for it.
Along the salad bar are various accessories including shredded cheddar, crumbled blue cheese, and pasta dishes, including tuna tarragon and country macaroni salad with ham. Keep this in mind.
When you reach the end of the salad bar, nearest to the tables, you pay your $10+. You can go back to the salad bar while you're there without having to pay again, since you're already there and somehow the people at the two registers opposite each other (there's two salad bar lines, left and right) know if you've been there for a while. Perhaps it's from walking slower and slower as you eat more and more.
We found the ideal table, directly across from the soup bar, in front of the soda machines, diagonal from the door through which employees go carting trays of dishes, and pushing carts with containers of cut vegetables for the salad bar placed on both levels. That door would be annoying to some, especially with the banging of dishes in the back, an employee slamming soup bowls atop other soup bowls near the soup bar, and people walking up to the soda machine that sits behind the table, a partition in between. We didn't mind it, since Meridith loves hearing the activity of a kitchen, and it was easier for Mom than walking across the main dining room to get soup, buttermilk cornbread, and pasta.
The soup bar had many different kinds of soup, such as a New England clam chowder that had very few clams and a lot of potato, Irish leek potato soup, broccoli cheddar soup, tomato basil soup, and a chicken noodle soup in which all the noodles and chicken sat at the bottom of the pot, which I suppose is the best way of it if you want more broth than noodles, but there wasn't enough chicken. The thick noodles, however, were good. And there was a vat filled with baked potatoes with appropriate condiments on the side.
The bread station, in between the soup bar and the pasta station, had those chocolate brownies, the blueberry muffins, grilled cheese focaccia and four-cheese focaccia, and slices of sourdough bread wrapped in red cloth, with small paper cups of butter on the glass shelf above it, and a squeeze bottle of clover honey next to the butter.
To the right of the bread station, the pasta station, with four-cheese fettucine alfredo, the same disappointing, watery macaroni and cheese like last time, and penne arrabiata.
Potatoes. Starch. Pasta. Starch. Breads. Starch. The pasta salads at the salad bar. Starch. What's the best way to keep turning over tables, to make sure that no one stays too long? Give them potatoes and pasta and breads and pasta dishes at the salad bar!
It is nice at the start, with a lot of selection, but then is easily seen as a genius scheme at the end. It's obviously not a buffet restaurant that can easily offer seafood (my favorite kind of buffet), but there is no food there to lighten the load while you're eating. You're there for a short time as a result, and then you're gone. Considering its location, near the mall and closer to the movie theater, I'm not surprised. Eat and go. Eat and go.
It was nicer on that Wednesday last September, being that it was fairly empty, and felt leisurely. Meridith liked it, though, and that's what mattered most. But geez, sitting at that table, watching people pour out of the parking garage to walk across the street to the movie theater, wow! However, I won't read The Hunger Games until sufficient time has passed, if I read it at all. I don't like to ride hype. I decide what I want to read in my own good time.
Saturday, March 24, 2012
Thursday, March 22, 2012
An Instead-Of Birthday
Yesterday, I had an instead-of birthday.
Instead of continuing to be frustrated with my finicky mp3 player that only ever plays half the songs I put in it, my parents and sister got me a new mp3 player, the same model, with 8 gigabytes instead of 4. You'd think it would be the space issue that prevents me from hearing all the songs I put on that player, but when I did sync songs from the computer onto the mp3 player, I'd have to give it at least an hour to put half of the songs on the mp3 player. Before our trip to Henderson in mid-January, I deleted every song from my mp3 player and started again. It took two and a half hours for over 200 songs.
This time, I have a better-made version of this mp3 player. When I transferred 204 songs from the computer, it only took 20 minutes. Much, much faster. Plus, all of them are there because after it turns on, it shows "204" under the # song that I'm on. If I'm on the 43rd song on this mp3 player, it shows "043" above "204."
My only quibble is that after I speed past 40 songs while it's paused, it doesn't skip as fast. I have to push the tiny lever to the side once, then wait a few seconds while it goes to the next song. I was annoyed with this at first, but in a way, it reminds me to appreciate the unfolding of music. I don't have to rush from song to song, even if I don't want to listen to a certain one at that very moment. Just cruise along to the next one in good time. It'll be perfect for when we go back to Las Vegas and Henderson so I can get back into the habit of just letting life flow by, as it is when we're there, and surely as it will be when we're residents.
Instead of Chronic Tacos in Saugus, I decided on Athena's in Canyon Country for two reasons. First, I looooooove feta cheese. Can't have it often because of how fattening it is, but there was the opportunity to have it in spanakopita and in pastichio. Second, Athena's has been in business for all eight years that we've lived here and probably earlier than that. No matter the state of the economy, it has lasted. And I wanted to do something different as a transition into the life we'll live in Henderson and Las Vegas.
The restaurant itself is large enough to hold a good-sized crowd, depending on how many tables are pushed together for some parties, but it fortunately doesn't have that feeling of being too crowded, too overextended. Everything there is made fresh. Mom and I ordered chicken noodle soup with our entrees, as is given, and then Meridith got the dinner salad she ordered with her quarter dark meat rotisserie chicken, and still my spanakopita had not come out. I first thought the waitress forgot about it, and then I realized that everything here is truly fresh, a rarity in the Santa Clarita Valley where factory-line creation seems common.
And oh, was it worth the wait! I'd been thinking about this ever since I first read the menu last Friday, lingering over the words "spinach cheese pie" in the appetizers section, fantasizing about spinach and feta cheese in phyllo dough. It was a triangle of pure heaven. I first reveled in such a heavenly taste, and then wondered why we hadn't tried Athena's in the eight years we've lived here. And it made sense yet again: We only discover the good places in an area just as we're about to move, which means we'll be moving soon. That's always how it happens and fortunately, we'll always have good places in Henderson and Las Vegas, without moving again.
The pastichio was layers of pasta with ground beef and cheese in between. To me, this pasta tasted lighter than what I usually experience in Italian dishes, which makes me like Greek food even more. I would like to find something like this in Las Vegas as well.
Instead of letting this only be a day of celebrating my 28th year, I still thought about my writing projects, especially my novel. While waiting for the soup, I looked out into the parking lot (we were seated next to the window that looks out on a few lanes of traffic, and from where I was sitting, I got a pretty good view of the parking lot), and saw two guys talking, one smoking, and thought about the two main characters in my novel. I watched these two guys because they seemed to have the rapport I was looking for, even though I had no idea what they were saying.
Then they came into the restaurant, took a table at the back, and a few minutes later, more family and friends belonging to a birthday party in the restaurant arrived, and so did other patrons. I liked the setting right then as I surreptitiously listened to the conversations around me without turning my head. Here was this birthday party with a lot of excited chatter, and there were those two guys at a back table, eating. One of the things I want to show in this novel is that these guys are part of society as anyone is, but they exist more on the edges of it. Where birthday parties go on, where crowds are, they stay to the side, mainly because of one's obsessed mission. At the same time I glanced at these two in the back, I also looked out at the traffic on the street next to us. I've been thinking about a truck for the road trip that these two will take, and intend to research miles per gallon on these trucks. It's not so much overkill as wanting to figure out where these two will go and how in their search.
Instead of a standard birthday cake, I went for an Oreo ice cream roll that I found at Walmart Supercenter back in late February. We got home and relaxed for a bit, letting the food settle before we had it, and it was perfect. Whenever Dad gets a frozen Claim Jumper chocolate silk pie, I usually grab the bulk of it because I love the sturdy chocolate crust and in fact, I only eat the pie for that. So to have Oreo crumbs all around and inside a roll of ice cream was definitely for me.
This was the perfect final birthday in Santa Clarita for me. It felt looser than past birthdays, I think because we know we're moving on, whereas past birthdays just signified another year here. That everything was perfect was a terrific farewell. It was the best birthday I've had here.
Instead of continuing to be frustrated with my finicky mp3 player that only ever plays half the songs I put in it, my parents and sister got me a new mp3 player, the same model, with 8 gigabytes instead of 4. You'd think it would be the space issue that prevents me from hearing all the songs I put on that player, but when I did sync songs from the computer onto the mp3 player, I'd have to give it at least an hour to put half of the songs on the mp3 player. Before our trip to Henderson in mid-January, I deleted every song from my mp3 player and started again. It took two and a half hours for over 200 songs.
This time, I have a better-made version of this mp3 player. When I transferred 204 songs from the computer, it only took 20 minutes. Much, much faster. Plus, all of them are there because after it turns on, it shows "204" under the # song that I'm on. If I'm on the 43rd song on this mp3 player, it shows "043" above "204."
My only quibble is that after I speed past 40 songs while it's paused, it doesn't skip as fast. I have to push the tiny lever to the side once, then wait a few seconds while it goes to the next song. I was annoyed with this at first, but in a way, it reminds me to appreciate the unfolding of music. I don't have to rush from song to song, even if I don't want to listen to a certain one at that very moment. Just cruise along to the next one in good time. It'll be perfect for when we go back to Las Vegas and Henderson so I can get back into the habit of just letting life flow by, as it is when we're there, and surely as it will be when we're residents.
Instead of Chronic Tacos in Saugus, I decided on Athena's in Canyon Country for two reasons. First, I looooooove feta cheese. Can't have it often because of how fattening it is, but there was the opportunity to have it in spanakopita and in pastichio. Second, Athena's has been in business for all eight years that we've lived here and probably earlier than that. No matter the state of the economy, it has lasted. And I wanted to do something different as a transition into the life we'll live in Henderson and Las Vegas.
The restaurant itself is large enough to hold a good-sized crowd, depending on how many tables are pushed together for some parties, but it fortunately doesn't have that feeling of being too crowded, too overextended. Everything there is made fresh. Mom and I ordered chicken noodle soup with our entrees, as is given, and then Meridith got the dinner salad she ordered with her quarter dark meat rotisserie chicken, and still my spanakopita had not come out. I first thought the waitress forgot about it, and then I realized that everything here is truly fresh, a rarity in the Santa Clarita Valley where factory-line creation seems common.
And oh, was it worth the wait! I'd been thinking about this ever since I first read the menu last Friday, lingering over the words "spinach cheese pie" in the appetizers section, fantasizing about spinach and feta cheese in phyllo dough. It was a triangle of pure heaven. I first reveled in such a heavenly taste, and then wondered why we hadn't tried Athena's in the eight years we've lived here. And it made sense yet again: We only discover the good places in an area just as we're about to move, which means we'll be moving soon. That's always how it happens and fortunately, we'll always have good places in Henderson and Las Vegas, without moving again.
The pastichio was layers of pasta with ground beef and cheese in between. To me, this pasta tasted lighter than what I usually experience in Italian dishes, which makes me like Greek food even more. I would like to find something like this in Las Vegas as well.
Instead of letting this only be a day of celebrating my 28th year, I still thought about my writing projects, especially my novel. While waiting for the soup, I looked out into the parking lot (we were seated next to the window that looks out on a few lanes of traffic, and from where I was sitting, I got a pretty good view of the parking lot), and saw two guys talking, one smoking, and thought about the two main characters in my novel. I watched these two guys because they seemed to have the rapport I was looking for, even though I had no idea what they were saying.
Then they came into the restaurant, took a table at the back, and a few minutes later, more family and friends belonging to a birthday party in the restaurant arrived, and so did other patrons. I liked the setting right then as I surreptitiously listened to the conversations around me without turning my head. Here was this birthday party with a lot of excited chatter, and there were those two guys at a back table, eating. One of the things I want to show in this novel is that these guys are part of society as anyone is, but they exist more on the edges of it. Where birthday parties go on, where crowds are, they stay to the side, mainly because of one's obsessed mission. At the same time I glanced at these two in the back, I also looked out at the traffic on the street next to us. I've been thinking about a truck for the road trip that these two will take, and intend to research miles per gallon on these trucks. It's not so much overkill as wanting to figure out where these two will go and how in their search.
Instead of a standard birthday cake, I went for an Oreo ice cream roll that I found at Walmart Supercenter back in late February. We got home and relaxed for a bit, letting the food settle before we had it, and it was perfect. Whenever Dad gets a frozen Claim Jumper chocolate silk pie, I usually grab the bulk of it because I love the sturdy chocolate crust and in fact, I only eat the pie for that. So to have Oreo crumbs all around and inside a roll of ice cream was definitely for me.
This was the perfect final birthday in Santa Clarita for me. It felt looser than past birthdays, I think because we know we're moving on, whereas past birthdays just signified another year here. That everything was perfect was a terrific farewell. It was the best birthday I've had here.
Tuesday, March 20, 2012
My Lights at Night
I've been thinking a lot about the novel I want to write, to the extent that I paced the dark living room at 2 this morning, talking to myself, trying to figure out why one of my two main characters wants so badly what he wants. In that half a chapter I didn't even know I wrote, I have what he was like in high school with his passion. The other main character, the narrator of this novel, saw him in action in high school, watching in awe how he didn't seem to be there. It's like he was one with what he loved. It may be the reason why the narrator decides to join him on this vast road trip. It's something he can't see himself, but he wants to understand it. In idle moments, the narrator has occasionally thought about this guy, and here is this chance to see firsthand perhaps why he is what he is.
Vague, I know, but I'm still working out countless details. Last night, before the pacing, before talking myself through different scenarios, I looked up the website of a mall here in Southern California that I want to use for my novel. Before a certain restaurant closed in the town where this mall is located, we used to go to that restaurant and then to the mall. That mall retained the heavy historical feeling of that area, like the ghosts of the past were always there, and I loved that because the mall was honest. There are few frills to it. There were no outlandish decorations to try to attract people (perhaps during Christmas, but I've not been there then, and from what I know of this mall, I think they'd do a few things for the holiday, but not everything), no gigantic signs pointing to this side of the mall and that side of the mall, no enticements beyond what the stores sometimes offer in sales. There's also a pizza place/arcade/amusement center in that mall that replaced the whole downstairs area, which included a uniform store. Strange as it is for these two men to be going there without any kids with them, the obsessed main character has his reason and he thinks it might be in the arcade there.
Whenever Mom, Dad, Meridith and I went to that mall, it was always either in the late afternoon or in the evening, after it got dark. That's when I want these two to be there. The restaurant I mentioned has been closed for a while now, but I'm thinking of setting this novel in a time when it's still open, or keeping it open anyway, which reminds me that I should get its old address from Yelp.
Before thinking more about this novel that's been in mind for two years, I never realized how much an author puts him or herself into a novel. Obsessions, curiosities, past pain, favorite things, it can all be there unless the author decides to write a different novel entirely. But even then, even in another genre, you still find pieces of the author because what they've written has obviously interested them enough to spend a few years with it alone.
It also got me thinking about why nighttime is my favorite part of the day. I don't need a lot of night. I just need enough before I go to bed. But in thinking about that restaurant and that mall, I thought about them at night, seeing the streetlights, the lights in the parking lot of that mall, the lights inside the restaurant seen from the outside, how brighter they are at night.
I don't think I could have my characters living entirely at night, but I do want those moments where they're looking at the lights around them at night, thinking about something, thinking about this search that they're on.
When we lived in the apartment in Valencia, when I walked Tigger at night, I always took him to the edge of sidewalk next to one of the apartment buildings that faced the closed and locked maintenance shed, where the golf cart was kept in the garage there, the one that the women in the sales office would use to take prospective renters around the property to empty apartments. I stared at this maintenance shed, with the same mindset I have whenever walking through a Walmart or Target or strip mall or outlet mall or outdoor shopping center: I wondered who the electrician was who installed the light above the maintenance shed's office door. I wonder who installed the hoses that allow people to wash their cars inside two separate stalls next to the maintenance office. I thought about how amazing it was to me that this maintenance shed, and those two car wash stalls just sit here, totally still, while the rest of Santa Clarita and Los Angeles rush about, doing whatever they must because this seems to be the only time to do it. I think I went to that particular spot at night because it felt like the calmest place in the universe, the zen-like center of the whirlwind.
My lights at night do include the Las Vegas Strip, but to a lesser degree. It's only part of my life in Vegas and Henderson. On our most recent trip to Henderson in January, I remember us driving through Victorville at night, and at the far end of one side of the road, where you could see buildings lit up, there were trees in front of all that and it seemed like fairies were flitting about, or just a deluge of fireflies. To me, there's a kind of magic in the night because during the day, everything is exposed. You can see the roads, you can see the houses, you can see where you put your garbage and recycling bins for pickup. But at night, you can imagine that the roads lead to new lands hitherto undiscovered in your state, perhaps those of a different dimension that's only accessible by making a specific wrong turn.
It's why I only keep the light on in the kitchen that's above the sink when it's my night to wash the dinner dishes, and I keep the blinds open. When it's dark enough that you can see all the house lights on the mountainside above us, I look below that, past the rail top iron fence that's at the back end of the pool, down to a neighborhood below us where there's one bright white light on, attached to a garage. I of course think about the electrician who installed it, where their job has taken them now, if they're even still an electrician. But I also think about the darkness in that neighborhood, of the trees so still, of the flowers sitting there, of there being some adventure out there in the darkness, something to see that you can't know in the daytime. It's there.
I don't think I'd have my characters roaming the darkness all the time, but I do want to put in there those memories of nighttime being so fascinating to me. It's that mall, and also that motel we stayed at in Alabama when we moved from South Florida to Southern California in August 2003. It's that maintenance shed in Valencia, and it's those late Friday afternoons at College of the Canyons after my once-a-week cinema class ended. It's so much I'd want to include in whatever night scenes I produce for this novel, and what I can't, lest it be overkill. But it's all about seeing what I can use, what would be good for the story I want to tell. That's why I talk to myself at 2 in the morning, and why I sometimes act out my characters, getting to know them and understanding what they want. It's my adult playground.
Vague, I know, but I'm still working out countless details. Last night, before the pacing, before talking myself through different scenarios, I looked up the website of a mall here in Southern California that I want to use for my novel. Before a certain restaurant closed in the town where this mall is located, we used to go to that restaurant and then to the mall. That mall retained the heavy historical feeling of that area, like the ghosts of the past were always there, and I loved that because the mall was honest. There are few frills to it. There were no outlandish decorations to try to attract people (perhaps during Christmas, but I've not been there then, and from what I know of this mall, I think they'd do a few things for the holiday, but not everything), no gigantic signs pointing to this side of the mall and that side of the mall, no enticements beyond what the stores sometimes offer in sales. There's also a pizza place/arcade/amusement center in that mall that replaced the whole downstairs area, which included a uniform store. Strange as it is for these two men to be going there without any kids with them, the obsessed main character has his reason and he thinks it might be in the arcade there.
Whenever Mom, Dad, Meridith and I went to that mall, it was always either in the late afternoon or in the evening, after it got dark. That's when I want these two to be there. The restaurant I mentioned has been closed for a while now, but I'm thinking of setting this novel in a time when it's still open, or keeping it open anyway, which reminds me that I should get its old address from Yelp.
Before thinking more about this novel that's been in mind for two years, I never realized how much an author puts him or herself into a novel. Obsessions, curiosities, past pain, favorite things, it can all be there unless the author decides to write a different novel entirely. But even then, even in another genre, you still find pieces of the author because what they've written has obviously interested them enough to spend a few years with it alone.
It also got me thinking about why nighttime is my favorite part of the day. I don't need a lot of night. I just need enough before I go to bed. But in thinking about that restaurant and that mall, I thought about them at night, seeing the streetlights, the lights in the parking lot of that mall, the lights inside the restaurant seen from the outside, how brighter they are at night.
I don't think I could have my characters living entirely at night, but I do want those moments where they're looking at the lights around them at night, thinking about something, thinking about this search that they're on.
When we lived in the apartment in Valencia, when I walked Tigger at night, I always took him to the edge of sidewalk next to one of the apartment buildings that faced the closed and locked maintenance shed, where the golf cart was kept in the garage there, the one that the women in the sales office would use to take prospective renters around the property to empty apartments. I stared at this maintenance shed, with the same mindset I have whenever walking through a Walmart or Target or strip mall or outlet mall or outdoor shopping center: I wondered who the electrician was who installed the light above the maintenance shed's office door. I wonder who installed the hoses that allow people to wash their cars inside two separate stalls next to the maintenance office. I thought about how amazing it was to me that this maintenance shed, and those two car wash stalls just sit here, totally still, while the rest of Santa Clarita and Los Angeles rush about, doing whatever they must because this seems to be the only time to do it. I think I went to that particular spot at night because it felt like the calmest place in the universe, the zen-like center of the whirlwind.
My lights at night do include the Las Vegas Strip, but to a lesser degree. It's only part of my life in Vegas and Henderson. On our most recent trip to Henderson in January, I remember us driving through Victorville at night, and at the far end of one side of the road, where you could see buildings lit up, there were trees in front of all that and it seemed like fairies were flitting about, or just a deluge of fireflies. To me, there's a kind of magic in the night because during the day, everything is exposed. You can see the roads, you can see the houses, you can see where you put your garbage and recycling bins for pickup. But at night, you can imagine that the roads lead to new lands hitherto undiscovered in your state, perhaps those of a different dimension that's only accessible by making a specific wrong turn.
It's why I only keep the light on in the kitchen that's above the sink when it's my night to wash the dinner dishes, and I keep the blinds open. When it's dark enough that you can see all the house lights on the mountainside above us, I look below that, past the rail top iron fence that's at the back end of the pool, down to a neighborhood below us where there's one bright white light on, attached to a garage. I of course think about the electrician who installed it, where their job has taken them now, if they're even still an electrician. But I also think about the darkness in that neighborhood, of the trees so still, of the flowers sitting there, of there being some adventure out there in the darkness, something to see that you can't know in the daytime. It's there.
I don't think I'd have my characters roaming the darkness all the time, but I do want to put in there those memories of nighttime being so fascinating to me. It's that mall, and also that motel we stayed at in Alabama when we moved from South Florida to Southern California in August 2003. It's that maintenance shed in Valencia, and it's those late Friday afternoons at College of the Canyons after my once-a-week cinema class ended. It's so much I'd want to include in whatever night scenes I produce for this novel, and what I can't, lest it be overkill. But it's all about seeing what I can use, what would be good for the story I want to tell. That's why I talk to myself at 2 in the morning, and why I sometimes act out my characters, getting to know them and understanding what they want. It's my adult playground.
Sunday, March 18, 2012
More of the Same of My Southern California Dream Home
More pictures of the same spot, looking up at my dream home at Ventura Harbor Village.
Two things came to mind today as I thought about this location: First, I'm not even sure if there's a shower in the square footage behind these windows. A bathroom there must surely be, but are these units also for living? If so, then there should be a small kitchen too. I'll probably never find out, but that's how I'd like it if I became a resident.
All I'd need in that apartment is a bed, a couch, a coffee table, a TV, a DVD player, and basic cable (for Jeopardy! and The Big Bang Theory on CBS), and I'd devote the rest of my space to bookshelves. Inspiration for my own writing would come from what I have on those shelves, what I get every week from a hopefully nearby library, and just by walking the grounds of Ventura Harbor Village. Tourists wander, the line grows long at Coastal Cone, and I can always watch boats sail the harbor, as well as gawk at the mammoth ones that are docked at various slips.
The price for a bowl of New England clam chowder at Andria's Seafood Restaurant is $6.09. If I hit the lottery or had a job there that pays well enough to maintain such a harborside lifestyle, then yes, I could have it every day for lunch if I wanted, but I wouldn't want to get tired of it. So once in a while for lunch, on an idle Tuesday or Wednesday that just feels right for it.
My preferred space is the third window on the right. In yesterday's entry, I linked to the hardcover edition of The Ha Ha by Dave King. Where the foot of the bed is in that photo is where I'd place my bed under that window on the right. It feels right. For me, it would also feel like every day is the weekend. Every day should feel like the weekend anyway, but being that my dad is a teacher, and I'm a substitute campus supervisor, Monday through Friday feels like Monday through Friday. Not so much in dreading Mondays because any day you get paid is a good day, but just that schedule of the week with weekends off that makes a Friday feel like the universe has aligned itself, and Saturdays and Sundays entirely up to you. Or maybe it's just where we live right now. Once in Henderson, I'm sure I can make every day feel like the weekend. There's more to see and do there than there is here.
Ventura Harbor Village has a Greek restaurant called The Greek at the Harbor. I'd be set. They've got feta cheese, and moussaka, and baklava. They've also got window seating where you can look out at some of the boats. Feta cheese and that view would suit me fine.
Lately in my head, I've been hanging out at Fashion Outlets of Las Vegas in Primm, right near the Nevada/California border, and the Buena Park Mall in Buena Park, where Po Folks used to be, and where Knott's Berry Farm is. For a long time, I've been fascinated by that mall's utter straightforwardness. Nothing to try to entice shoppers to go there. It's just there, and people do go there, and they shop there, which I know is the purpose of every mall, but this is also a rare mall where you can feel history hanging heavily over the area. It's not just perhaps the ghosts of Buena Park's founding fathers, but also past citizens themselves. It's the one city I know of in Southern California that keeps its history alive, and even if it didn't, you could still feel it like you do when you're walking around wherever you are in Buena Park.
I've also thought about Ventura Harbor Village beyond these entries. Because of it and San Juan Capistrano, I've always been amazed that peace can be found in Southern California. It's not a frantic rush to wherever you need to go, wherever you have to go, and whatever you have to do. Life can exist without that silent pressure. I don't have it anymore since I know I'll be going home to Nevada soon enough, but I hope there are people in Southern California who do call that part of Ventura, and San Juan Capistrano, home, for the reasons that I believe it can be home. They must appreciate it every day. It seems like it would be a good life, but maybe even more if the state wasn't so overtaxed. Plus I don't drive freeways, and once I'm out of California, I'm never coming back. It'll be home in my imagination until I arrive home and then it'll be in the back of my mind. I won't have to fantasize anymore. But I will always appreciate what Ventura Harbor Village has done for me and my imagination, because I felt relaxed and I was shown that life exists outside that franticness, and it set me on a course to find better for myself, which I've found in Las Vegas and Henderson. You can't ever forget a locale that does something like that.
My First Review in Two Years
I love the arrangement that Rebecca Wright over at Movie Gazette Online offered me, of reviewing only what truly interests me, and writing as many or as few reviews as I want. As I work on my next books, I like having the opportunity to write reviews again, this time without my once-fervent desire to be a full-time film critic somewhere. I can have a lot more fun with it now!
My first review in two years was posted yesterday, about the documentary Hey, Boo: Harper Lee & To Kill a Mockingbird. After you read the review (or before), click on my name and you'll find the bio I wrote for the site.
My first review in two years was posted yesterday, about the documentary Hey, Boo: Harper Lee & To Kill a Mockingbird. After you read the review (or before), click on my name and you'll find the bio I wrote for the site.
Saturday, March 17, 2012
My Southern California Dream Home
If I was a different Rory L. Aronsky, content to live in Southern California for the rest of my life, and making enough money to move wherever I want without concern, or hitting the lottery to the same effect, I know exactly where I would want to live.
At Ventura Harbor Village, in Ventura, above the arcade containing my beloved Galaga machine, above Coastal Cone where a butter pecan malt tastes oh so sweet and oh so wonderful, there is square footage up there, separated by walls, that could conceivably be used as offices. A psychiatrist could hang a sign there if they wanted, or a real estate agent, or some business that requires an office in place.
Outside the back exit of the arcade, next to a pair of restrooms, I stand north, looking up at windows that make up my favorite spot, above a carved-in sign that says "More Shops and Restaurants":
This is my Southern California dream home. I'm not sure what the square footage is behind any of those windows, but I would set up an apartment there. I would want to live at the harbor, looking out at all the boats, sitting on a bench having a butter pecan malt, and playing Galaga whenever the arcade is open. All I would need to know is how close I am to the nearest library.
In fact, there's a novel called The Ha Ha by Dave King that I bought last month, 30% for the novel itself, and 70% for the cover, because it reminded me of standing on that very spot where that picture was taken, imagining the window open just a bit, the blinds up just a bit, the foot of my bed right under that window, and me laying on it, reading. I could make a peaceful life for myself there because I feel so at ease every time I go there. Sure, there may be problems in Ventura itself, issues that have festered, but unlike the Santa Clarita Valley, where I feel like I'm crushed under so much bullshit disguised as passivity (though I've sadly gotten used to it over the years, and will be well over it by the time we move), being at Ventura Harbor Village makes you feel like no matter if there are problems, there is a time for them and that's not this time. Not so much ignoring for the sake of relief, but a more easygoing nature toward solving issues.
This is where I would be, happily, if I was a different me.
At Ventura Harbor Village, in Ventura, above the arcade containing my beloved Galaga machine, above Coastal Cone where a butter pecan malt tastes oh so sweet and oh so wonderful, there is square footage up there, separated by walls, that could conceivably be used as offices. A psychiatrist could hang a sign there if they wanted, or a real estate agent, or some business that requires an office in place.
Outside the back exit of the arcade, next to a pair of restrooms, I stand north, looking up at windows that make up my favorite spot, above a carved-in sign that says "More Shops and Restaurants":
This is my Southern California dream home. I'm not sure what the square footage is behind any of those windows, but I would set up an apartment there. I would want to live at the harbor, looking out at all the boats, sitting on a bench having a butter pecan malt, and playing Galaga whenever the arcade is open. All I would need to know is how close I am to the nearest library.
In fact, there's a novel called The Ha Ha by Dave King that I bought last month, 30% for the novel itself, and 70% for the cover, because it reminded me of standing on that very spot where that picture was taken, imagining the window open just a bit, the blinds up just a bit, the foot of my bed right under that window, and me laying on it, reading. I could make a peaceful life for myself there because I feel so at ease every time I go there. Sure, there may be problems in Ventura itself, issues that have festered, but unlike the Santa Clarita Valley, where I feel like I'm crushed under so much bullshit disguised as passivity (though I've sadly gotten used to it over the years, and will be well over it by the time we move), being at Ventura Harbor Village makes you feel like no matter if there are problems, there is a time for them and that's not this time. Not so much ignoring for the sake of relief, but a more easygoing nature toward solving issues.
This is where I would be, happily, if I was a different me.
Thursday, March 15, 2012
Time is the Only Difference Between a Kindergartner and a 27-Year-Old
Ok, there is puberty, and high school graduation, and trying to find a job that doesn't kill your soul until it finally does 30 years later (something I've managed to avoid thus far and work hard at keeping it that way), but all those events involve time. What is planted in your mind at a young age usually carries over to your adult body and heart. I noticed this last weekend when Mom, Dad and I were at Walmart Supercenter, but I have to start way, way back, when I was a kindergartner at Sterling Park Elementary in Casselberry, the only school I went to that was in the same neighborhood as my house.
For years, ever since writing it down when I was 8, I thought my first memory, the first time I noticed that I was alive, was when I was in line with my kindergarten class, coming back from lunch. (I remember that life was pure black all around me, until that moment, when it all faded and I saw those pictures in front of me. Since then, I've recalled memories from when I was three.) We were all waiting to go back to the classroom, and Mrs. Moffat was probably doing a head count. Next to me were drawings that older students had done and I turned to look at them. I got so absorbed in them that I didn't even notice my class had already begun walking back to the classroom way across to the other side of the rotunda. When I finally looked up, the door to the classroom was closing. I was on my own to walk back. When I got back, Mrs. Moffat noted that I was late by making me move my name, written out on a long strip of paper, from the "Happy" list to the "Sad" list on the wall.
I was acquainted with a few of my classmates, but never on such speaking terms that they would have told me it was time to go when our line started walking, or even pushed me along. It was the same for the rest of elementary school, then middle school and high school: I preferred to do things on my own, which is why I hated getting into groups for projects. I felt I could get them done faster on my own. Also, this was Mrs. Moffat's first year teaching, which explains why she didn't call me to join the line. Either she didn't think to do that, or she was secretly sadistic, taking pleasure in a student moving their name over to the "Sad" list on the wall. I don't know, and only years later did I learn from Mom that I was in Mrs. Moffat's first kindergarten class.
That close attention to artwork has not faded over time. At Walmart Supercenter, as long as I have a book with me, I can go anywhere in the store. This time, I needed a pack of Fruit of the Loom socks so I didn't have to put my dwindling sock collection in the laundry every five days so I could have clean socks.
Before that, Mom and Meridith looked at the pens in the pen aisle, and I was behind them at the head of that aisle, looking at the posters on offer. There's an artist named Christian Riese Lassen who creates such stunningly beautiful artwork that you just stand there in awe, staring, wondering on which wall of your house you can put a poster of one of his paintings. One of the posters featured at Walmart was this one, of two horses standing in front of a waterfall background. He uses stylized colors to create a scene you'd want to rush right into if you could, to bask in the tranquility and pure love of life in it. I'd seen it also at the Walmart on Kelly Johnson Parkway, the one that overlooks Six Flags Magic Mountain, and stared at it just as intently.
This time, I'd been looking at it long enough that when I finally teared myself away from it, Mom and Meridith had already left the pen aisle. I walked past it, looked to my left and found them walking past the electronics department, far from me. Once again, I was what I have always been. Paintings do that to me.
For years, ever since writing it down when I was 8, I thought my first memory, the first time I noticed that I was alive, was when I was in line with my kindergarten class, coming back from lunch. (I remember that life was pure black all around me, until that moment, when it all faded and I saw those pictures in front of me. Since then, I've recalled memories from when I was three.) We were all waiting to go back to the classroom, and Mrs. Moffat was probably doing a head count. Next to me were drawings that older students had done and I turned to look at them. I got so absorbed in them that I didn't even notice my class had already begun walking back to the classroom way across to the other side of the rotunda. When I finally looked up, the door to the classroom was closing. I was on my own to walk back. When I got back, Mrs. Moffat noted that I was late by making me move my name, written out on a long strip of paper, from the "Happy" list to the "Sad" list on the wall.
I was acquainted with a few of my classmates, but never on such speaking terms that they would have told me it was time to go when our line started walking, or even pushed me along. It was the same for the rest of elementary school, then middle school and high school: I preferred to do things on my own, which is why I hated getting into groups for projects. I felt I could get them done faster on my own. Also, this was Mrs. Moffat's first year teaching, which explains why she didn't call me to join the line. Either she didn't think to do that, or she was secretly sadistic, taking pleasure in a student moving their name over to the "Sad" list on the wall. I don't know, and only years later did I learn from Mom that I was in Mrs. Moffat's first kindergarten class.
That close attention to artwork has not faded over time. At Walmart Supercenter, as long as I have a book with me, I can go anywhere in the store. This time, I needed a pack of Fruit of the Loom socks so I didn't have to put my dwindling sock collection in the laundry every five days so I could have clean socks.
Before that, Mom and Meridith looked at the pens in the pen aisle, and I was behind them at the head of that aisle, looking at the posters on offer. There's an artist named Christian Riese Lassen who creates such stunningly beautiful artwork that you just stand there in awe, staring, wondering on which wall of your house you can put a poster of one of his paintings. One of the posters featured at Walmart was this one, of two horses standing in front of a waterfall background. He uses stylized colors to create a scene you'd want to rush right into if you could, to bask in the tranquility and pure love of life in it. I'd seen it also at the Walmart on Kelly Johnson Parkway, the one that overlooks Six Flags Magic Mountain, and stared at it just as intently.
This time, I'd been looking at it long enough that when I finally teared myself away from it, Mom and Meridith had already left the pen aisle. I walked past it, looked to my left and found them walking past the electronics department, far from me. Once again, I was what I have always been. Paintings do that to me.
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