Mission Awesome-Possible!

[retsuko]

These past two days, livyanne, another friend (E.), and I visited the Huntington Gardens and Library, attended Dar Williams' L.A. concert, and trekked around Disneyland!

And, lo, it was awesome. Awesome-possible!

First of all, we visited the Huntington. Honestly, I hated going there as a child. You cannot touch anything, you're not allowed to run in the gardens (by your meanie parents), and it is BORING. You're supposed to look at things and comment on them, but not do anything. What's the point of that, I used to wonder. But now as an adult, I really do enjoy spending time in places like that. It's immensely peaceful, particularly in the gardens and in the shade. And there's an effort that I really appreciate (and would have appreciated as a kid) to make the place more interactive instead of merely standing back and observing. The new greenhouse has a plant lab where you can look at microscopic slides, hand-crank a fan to simulate wind patterns, and learn about leaf patterns; the new Chinese garden has lots of little hidden places that are fun to explore and find, perfect for small children to run around and hide in.

[Side Note: Sadly, a few things that I remembered from my childhood are no longer extent: the large bell at the top of the Japanese garden can no longer be rung by pushing a large hanging log against it. That was a bit disappointing.]

But I still had a lovely time. It was a warm day and we were all a bit tired and sweaty early on. I would have liked to sit in the Zen rock garden for a little longer, especially when the gingko leaves had turned color--all that yellow against the grey gravel would have been just amazing. But we were on a deadline for our tea reservation and moved through fairly quickly.

Oh, the tea. The tea was AMAZING. It was a buffet, but they had caviar. CAVIAR. I had to be very careful not to gorge greedily, feeling that it would have been a bit gauche to say OM NOM NOM aloud as I chomped down cracker after cracker slathered with the stuff. There was also a lovely cucumber-mint salad (very refreshing after tramping around the gardens), assorted sandwiches (watercress, your time has come!), and some amazing little pastries, desserts, and handmade scones. The waitress cheerfully informed us we could start out with pink lemonade at first and move on to hot tea later, a wise choice given the heat. But a cup of tea did hit the spot very much after we had cooled down a bit and we had a nice English Breakfast blend that went well with the scones and the clotted cream... oh, my. If I had to eat just one meal for the rest of my life, tea would probably the choice I would make. (Although it would be hard to leave sushi behind.)

And then there was the gift shop... and many a Xmas present was procured. :D


We dropped E. off at the train station after that, since she wasn't able to have the next day off, and made our way to the hotel with a minimum of crazy L.A. traffic. I am so, so glad that I didn't grow up driving on the freeways of L.A.. It was pretty crazy in a few spots, and I imagine that if you can drive there, you can drive anywhere else in the entire world, fearlessly.

We checked in at the hotel and chilled for a bit, but then decided to head over to the concert venue early, because we didn't know what the seating would be like, or what would be in the area. This turned out to be the smartest idea of the entire trip; the taxi took a while to get to the hotel, and when we did manage to get in one, there was still a bit of residual traffic. Still, it was pretty fun riding through the older L.A. neighborhoods and seeing some pretty awesome neon signs and whatnot (a gas station that looked like it was designed by Frank Gehry!)

The concert was at the El Rey theater, which is a restored art deco theater--some glorious neon outside, and three crystal chandeliers inside. The venue was perhaps better suited to a more "dancey" artist--the only seats were along the outside edge of the theater, and the center was a lowered dance floor in front of the stage. Fortunately, we were there early enough to snag a seat and get some drinks before things got too crowded (and really, this concert wasn't too crowded, which was fine by me.) The security was hyper-aware and pacing. I felt like saying, look, these sort of people aren't the kind of fans you need to worry about, particularly, but I didn't really feel like getting into it too much. I bought a chocolate martini and got delightfully buzzed.

Shawn Mullins was the opening act. I had never heard of him before the concert; livyanne assured me that he had a smash hit during the time I was in Japan, hence my missing him. He had an amazing voice. He did a great cover of "House of the Rising Sun", which thoroughly sold me. Dar came out and did an song with him about halfway through, to the great satisfaction of the crowd. He was a solid singer and performer, and I enjoyed him very much.

But I was really there for Dar, and I was not disappointed. She is rather tiny in person, and although she was nervous, she never let it get in the way of what she was doing. She was backed up by a guy on keyboards and a woman doing some amazing percussion and harmony with her. I guessed what I liked the best was how powerful her voice sounded in person--on the CDs I own, I can tell that her voice has been mixed, strengthened with the help of a dial here, a knob there. But in person, she sings more powerfully than on the CD tracks, and I could hear the passion she was putting into the songs. And it was fabulous.

She did a lot of stuff off her new album, "Promised Land", mostly my favorites from that; she did "Spring Street" and explained what she'd been thinking when she was writing it, and for the first time, the song made me very happy. She also sang the babysitter song from "The Honesty Room", which is one of my all-time favorites, and the audience got really into. I thought it was kind of funny that people were so worked up over it, that here we were, a crowd of 20-, 30-, and 40- somethings, and all we really wanted to hear was a song about how she had a cool babysitter when she was a kid. But at the same time, I was shushing that cynical voice because I freaking love that song--I had a babysitter I loved like that when I was a kid and Dar nailed it when she delivered the spoken lines after the second chorus "I can't wait to give her the card... I can't wait to give her the card!" And I guess this is what I love about this singer very much: she's able to articulate feelings and memories that I have that I sometimes don't want to touch, or can't remember properly. The first time I heard the babysitter song, I was suddenly in fifth grade again and my ultra-cool babysitter Cory was crimping my hair with her curling iron and telling me about her personal political credo. And that's something I don't experience every day.

Dar closed with "Mercy of the Fallen" and encored with "After All", a song which I haven't been to listen to in a long while because it makes think of the times when I was suicidal. But hearing her perform it somehow made it real, that I was standing there and listening, and I had this moment of utter joy that I had worked to move beyond that, get my life in order, and hear this song, sung at this moment.

And it was glorious.


The next morning, livyanne and I slept in a little, having debated about dealing with the traffic and decided that it was best to let the morning rush hour abate and catch the tail end. After a little messing around with the weirdness of our directions (the only time google maps ever failed us), we were on the 5 south, with no traffic in sight (yay!) and me playing "Avenue Q", much to our amusement. And, then, Disneyland!

Since I'd been there recently, I was pretty relaxed about doing this and that, and livyanne was, too. However, she was surprised/appalled that I had never been to the Enchanted Tiki Room and insisted that we go. And as we took our seats, she leaned over and whispered to me, "That's Adam Sandler!" and I looked over, and yeah, it was. He was there with his wife and daughter. Livyanne had spied the handler from the park, dressed in a white suit with a plaid vest, sitting behind them, looking slightly menacing. So then the whole tiki room thing got started, and it is marvelous, old school Disneyland cheese: the birds, tiki statues, and flowers are all animatronic and sing silly songs. At first, Adam Sandler's daughter was a little afraid of the darkened room and loud voice; she looked about four years old and I could definitely see how that would be intimidating. When the show was over and we were walking out, I ended up next to Adam Sandler's wife, who was rather pregnant, but very pleasant to talk to--at least for a few sentences, pleasantries about how Disneyland is a little scary for a small child. I hope they were able to enjoy the rest of their day at the park--as we were in line for another ride, some girl in line behind us spotted him and started screaming hysterically. At that moment, I understood why the handler was necessary.

Anyway, livyanne and I had a good time the rest of the day, doing some of the stuff I hadn't gotten to do before (Toon Town, where we custom-made our mouse hats, see the photo gallery) and eating ice cream and generally enjoying ourselves mightily. After some more negotiations, we decided to leave around 7:00 and encountered NO TRAFFIC on the 5 on the way home! It was a miracle. livyanne was incredibly gracious and drove the whole way there and back. :)


For anyone who's interested, the photos are here.

This trip made up for the root canal and all its related unpleasantness and did much good for my soul in general. :)