California Vacation 2016 - Al Brooks Tours and the Rose Parade

     Mike has always dreamed of seeing the Rose Parade in person, so we went to California for the 2016 parade.  Mike didn't want to deal with driving in a crowded, unfamiliar place, nor did he want to get crappy seats or have to stand on the curb at the end of the parade route, so he chose to buy a package from Al Brooks Tours.  The tour company calls it a four day/three night package, but you check in and go to sleep on the first day and night, and you eat breakfast and check out on the fourth day.  Hence, I consider my junket to have been a two day affair.
     Have I mentioned that I hate tours?  I hate being herded on and off buses.  I especially hate having to get up in the middle of the night in order to squeeze in all the day's activities.  Our schedule included crawling through L.A. traffic, standing in long lines with throngs of people, having about 15 minutes to appreciate whatever awaited at a particular stop - all while freezing because L.A. was colder and windier that New Jersey.  I tolerated the first day and decided on the second day to wrap up in my wet blanket and skip the parade (4:00 a.m. wake up required). Mike went to the parade with my sister, who accompanied us on this trip, and he had a splendid time.  I watched the event broadcast on HGTV, commercial free and hosted by Jonathan and Drew Scott, from the comfort of my room at the Marriott LAX.  Everybody was happy.
     Mike, my sister, and I reached the same conclusions about the Al Brooks experience.  Here are our praises and criticisms along with a suggestion.
     The accommodations at the Marriott LAX were very nice.  Everyone at check-in was pleasant and efficient.  The rooms were clean, and the beds were comfortable.  The breakfasts buffets that were part of our package were delicious with a wide array of choices.  We bought a couple of dinners at the hotel restaurants, and we thought the wait staff had fun, upbeat personalities.
     Mike says the parade seating couldn't have been better.  Al Brooks' seats are at the beginning of the route, under the TV cameras, so every marching band stops to perform there.  Everyone is fresh and energetic at the start, and the floats look their best.  Mike also reported that the lunch after the parade (included in the tour package) was tasty.
     The buses were clean, and our driver was personable.  He stood by to offer assistance getting down the steps each time we left the bus.  We were assured that the bus would be locked if the driver left during our stops, so we felt confident that our belongings were safe.
     Nobody at the tour company can do anything about the weather.  The standard advice when visiting southern California in the winter is to dress in layers since the mornings and evenings are cold, and midday can be fairly warm.  Whenever someone in southern California says "dress in layers," I hear "put a sweater under your light or medium weight coat or jacket." I wish I had taken my best winter coat, and I wish I had worn thick socks and boots.  My toes were frozen after a few hours outside walking on concrete in the float construction areas.  Mike says his feet were cold during the parade.  You are immobile, sitting out in the open for a long time when you watch a parade from bleachers.  That story about body heat keeping you warm from being tightly packed on the stands doesn't apply to feet.  I also think a windy day takes that precious body heat up and away.  Here is better advice.  Dress in northern style layers - thermal underwear, warm socks, gloves, scarf, hat, and a heavy winter coat.  If parade day temperatures start out in the lower 40's, as they did on 1/1/16, go with the full bundling up.  You can stuff the hat and gloves in your pockets if the temps rise.  You can also unwind the scarf and unzip or remove the coat.  You could take a lighter jacket as an after parade option since there is plenty of space on the bus.
     Mike and I have been to L.A. before, so we could have done without the December 31st activities.  The trip to see the floats under construction involved too much waiting in line.  They were nearly fully constructed and much of the judging had been done, so there wasn't a lot of building going on.  Seeing the varieties of float materials was interesting, but volunteers are happy to talk to you about that after the parade when you get an opportunity to walk through the parked floats.  You see the floats before the parade, you seeing floats during the parade, you see the floats after the parade.  We would have been happy eliminating the pre-parade float exhibition.
     After the float viewing on December 31st , we drove from one point of interest to another.  We craned our necks trying to catch glimpses of various landmarks in downtown L.A.  We were supposed to get off the bus to stroll down the Walk of Fame and past Grauman's Theatre, but we were behind schedule. All but one member of our group said it wasn't worth the trouble to get off and on the bus for a meager 15 minutes on the Walk of Fame, so the driver cruised around the block while the the one dissenting person power walked over the sidewalk stars.  The Farmer's Market at 3rd and Fairfax was the same as farmer's markets everywhere.  There was also a drive to the Santa Monica Pier (again, not enough time).
    The tour operator can't do anything about the crowds.  About one million people attend the Rose Parade.  Anything you try to do is going to look and feel like being in a Walking Dead zombie march.  How much of that are you willing to do?  Our pitch to Al Brooks Tours is that they offer a parade day only package.  That would have been just enough sleep deprivation and hurry-up-and-wait for us.  We ran into a guy who had bought just such a package from a different tour outfit, but his seats were a couple of miles down the parade route - not nearly as nice as Al Brooks seats.
     So, if you are thinking about attending the Rose Parade or going with Al Brooks, you have our two cents.

Float Construction, December 31, 2015
Evidently Santa has a gig building floats after delivering Christmas presents.

      
                 

What I Learned in 2015

     I picked up a few new facts and developed a couple of new opinions in 2015.

     1. Blue Lady tea is delightful.
     2. "Loaded" means bad for you - think nachos or potato skins.
     3. It's impossible to pronounce "Santander" properly without sounding pretentious.
     4. Cuties are not just for kids.  Cuties are for everyone.
     5. On the other hand, Halos are for rotten, little brats who need their butts smacked.
     6. I finished out the year by learning the definitions of revenant and bildungsroman.

               Health and Happiness to All in 2016.

Another Cross Stitched Christmas Stocking

     If you read my March 16, 2015 post, you saw Mardi's Christmas stocking.  I decided, once my sinus headache diminished enough that I could see straight, that I would cross stitch a Christmas stocking for Mardi's favorite "cousin," her dog sitter, our niece.

  

     I got the alphabet from Google images.  I zoomed in until I could count the stitches and transfer the letters to graph paper.  The same goes for the candies.  I found a picture of various candies, and zoomed in until I could see how they were stitched.  I selected examples I could most easily convert to Christmas colors.
     So Jess, enjoy your stocking and its contents.

Four Calling Birds? No, It's Several Thousand Grackles

     The best Christmas gifts are unique experiences.  A flock of about a gazillion grackles passed through the neighborhood this Christmas day.  What a present.
     Grackles are over-sized blackbirds.  They appear to be black from a distance, but close up they are irridescent green, turquiose, and purple.  Males and females are similar in appearance. They travel in large groups and eat just about anything.  Our hoard of grackles picked through the lawn, I imagine, eating every bug and seed in sight.  Farmers don't like grackles because the birds raid fields and steal grain and seeds.  Interestingly, a flock of grackles is called a plague.
     So, why were we paid this visit?  It seems the warm weather is the reason.  Tens of thousands of grackles visited Franklin Township, Hunterdon County in January 2012.  They came then, and are here now, because there isn't any snow on the ground.  They go south to forage when the ground is snow covered.  http://www.nj.com/hunterdon-county-democrat/index.ssf/2012/01/massive_flock_of_birds_has_bee.html
   

This is our front lawn and the lawn across the street.

   

The trees were full of grackles.

Excuse the blurred image.  They never stopped moving.  I wasn't sure how to stop the action using Mike's camera.

     Besides being a visual treat, the sound of all those wings flapping when they flew off was thrilling.  
     Here's more on grackles: https://www.allaboutbirds.org/guide/Common_Grackle/id

The 1,000 Tissue Head Cold

     Christmas time is the wrong time of the year to be knocked on your keister by a head cold that morphs into a sinus infection.  What can you do when you would like to read but your head aches too much to focus your eyes on the printed word?  You download audiobooks to your Kindle, of course.
     Here's what kept me entertained while I sipped tea and soup:

     West of Sunset by Stewart O'Nan - This is a fictionalized account of the last three years of F. Scott Fitzgerald's life.  From 1937 to 1940, Fitzgerald went to Hollywood and worked as a screen writer.  He left his wife Zelda in a mental institution, took up with gossip columnist, Sheilah Graham, failed at screenwriting, and drank until he was dead.

     A Touch of Stardust by Kate Alcott - This is another work of fiction set around real events, the filming of "Gone With the Wind."  A starry-eyed girl from Indiana goes to Hollywood  in 1939. Her dream is to be a screenwriter.  Her reality is to perform the most lowly tasks in an office at Selznick International Pictures.  She ends up as Carole Lombard's assistant and becomes the girlfriend of David O. Selznick's right-hand-man.  She's a regular on the set of "Gone With the Wind," acts as Lombard's bride's maid when Clark Gable's divorce finally comes through, and eventually gets her crack at screenwriting.  Our protagonist's story is a familiar tune, however, there is one element of the book that I found interesting.  War is looming in 1939.  Writer Alcott brings in Jewish Hollywood's attitude toward Hitler and the war.  

     The Paris Wife by Paula McLain - This is also a novel inspired by real people and events. Hadley Richarson was Ernest Hemingway's first wife. She and her inheritance allowed Ernest to go to Europe and write his first successful novel, The Sun Also Rises.  By the time the book was published, the sun had set on their marriage.      

     An Invisible Thread by Laura Schroff - Schroff was a successful advertising executive when she was stopped by a child beggar in New York City in 1986.  Instead of giving him cash, she bought him dinner at McDonald's.  This was the beginning of four years of weekly dinners and mentoring.  It's a story of a lifelong friendship, and it has a happy ending.  Schroff's memoir gave me some new insight on the definition of success.

     Operation Mincemeat by Ben Macintyre -  During World War II the English  tricked the German's into thinking there would be an invasion in Greece and Sardinia when the real invasion was in Sicily.  The deception was accomplished by planting phony documents on a corpse and setting the corpse afloat on currents that would take it to the beaches of Spain.  It was correctly supposed that officially neutral, but German sympathizing Spain would share the information in the documents with the Germans before returning it to the British, as required by war time laws. So, how did the Brits get the corpse and who was he?  Read the book to find out.        

     Longbourn by Jo Baker -   Previously, I read (not listened, read) The Mermaid's Child also by Jo Baker.  I didn't like that book, but I really enjoyed Longbourn.  Longbourn is Pride and Prejudice retold from the perspective of the household staff.  

     Hausfrau by Jill Alexander Essbaum - Ana Benz is an American woman married to a Swiss banker.  She, her husband, and three children (two belonging to the husband, one belonging to one of Ana's secret lovers) live in Zurich, Switzerland.  Instead of getting a job, or working for a worthy cause, or cultivating a hobby, Ana has affairs.  There's some pretty explicit sexual content in the book, and it has been compared to Fifty Shades of Grey.  Hmmm, also like Fifty Shades of Grey, the protagonist is named Ana.  I don't have any sympathy for Ana, and I like how things ended.  I'm sure that says something about me.  

     Explosive Eighteen by Janet Evanovich -   Complete fluff.  Fluff is good somethimes.

         

Easy Crocheted Scarf Using a Minimal Amount of Yarn

     My sister recently presented me with some soft, cuddly blue yarn that she bought in one of those fancy yarn shops.  She asked me to make a scarf.  This yarn, manufactured for Classic Elite Yarns was called Chateau.  It's fiber content was 70% alpaca and 30% bamboo viscose. The problem was that Sis, acting on the advice of the sales clerk, had purchased only two hanks of yarn. Each hank was 50 grams or 1.76 ounces.  The two hanks totaled only 3.52 ounces or the equivalent of one skein of common, everyday Red Heart.  I tried to find additional yarn, but the color was on back order at two yarn stores and at the internet sites I checked.  Besides that, the dye lots would not have matched.  What to do?
     While working at the Smithville Mansion Christmas Boutique, I found a cute scarf in inventory.  After staring at it for a while, I figured out the pattern.  I was able to make a scarf, and I even had a tiny ball of yarn left over.

     Here are the directions:

     J hook and H hook
     3.5 ounces of soft (bulky is good, too) yarn

     Ch 120 st with the J hook.
     Switch to the H hook.
     In the second ch from the hook, sc for 119 st.
     Dc the next row.
     Sc the next row.
     Dc the next row.
     Next row sc for 31 st or 10 inches.  Then ch 8 st to make a "button hole."
     Skip 8 dc on the row below and rejoin the yarn.  Sc 80 st to the end of the row.
     Dc next row.
     Sc next row.
     Dc next row.
     Sc next row.
     The scarf body is finished.

     To make the edge:
     Shell around (5 dc in st below, skip 2, sc in st below, skip 2, 5 dc in st below).
     The finished scarf should be 42"-43".  It is almost 5" wide.

     Wear the scarf by laying it around your neck and slipping the long end through the "button hole."  It will provide enough coverage and warmth to keep chills out.

Icebox Soup

     At least one night each week I stand in front of the open refrigerator and try to find a creative and appetizing way to turn something left over into supper.  Recently one of my father's old phrases came to mind - icebox soup.  He claimed that during the Great Depression, at the end of each week, the contents of the icebox was thrown into a pot with water, simmered, and served as soup.
     My child's imagination came up with all sorts of wild combinations.  Did they ever have mashed potato-catfish-pear soup?  What about macaroni-horseradish-hot dog soup?  Dad didn't get specific about the ingredients. I'm pretty sure that his icebox soup was vegetables, a little meat, and some broth, not a bad combination at all.  The point of his story was that I should be grateful for what was on my plate, and eat it.
     The interesting thing is that those cheap Depression era meals were pretty tasty.  We're still eating crash cuisine, but these days it isn't always inexpensive to prepare these dishes.  Who doesn't like beanie-weenies?  Pasta, beans, a little tomato sauce and grated cheese?  That sounds like Progresso Macaroni and Bean Soup, if you ask me.  Dandelion green salad was a way to turn weeds into a first course.  Back before the days of broad leaf weed killer, free salad was everywhere.  Nowadays Martha Stewart and Epicurious.com have practically turned the lowly green into haute cuisine.  The same thing goes for polenta.  Sliced and fried, it's a $12.00 appetizer at a decent Italian restaurant.  Creamed chipped beef or S.O.S. is no longer an economy meal.  At $20.00 per pound, those paper thin, salty slices of cheap cuts of beef are as expensive as filet mignon.
     I have never served icebox soup to Mike.  However, he has eaten summertime vegetarian meals like fried eggplant, sliced tomatoes, and corn on the cob.  I trim the brown stuff off the surface of past-its-prime-cauliflower and make mashed cauliflower.  His special weekend french toast breakfasts are made from stale bread.  As long as the meal is served with love and doesn't contain asparagus, he's a happy boy.