#2159: Thursday, September 27: LA, first day-ish

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Post 2159
- 7 years and 270 days since I started this blog -

  

View out the jet window over NY on my SYR to JFK flight

Journal
(written 9/28/18)

I'm trying something new. I'll be linking this post to its associated photo album on Facebook. If that's how you got here, here's some background: 8-1/2 years ago I started this blog as a food journal. I had a medical crisis and needed to lose weight. Initially, that's all I did here: Journal my food intake and my weight. It contributed to helping me lose 20+% of my body weight in 6 months, and continuing has kept me on track since then. I started adding commentary after a while, but lately it has become infrequent. 

While I'm traveling, I let go of the weight-tracking and food journaling, except for the occasional food shot when I've eaten something interesting. And that's where we find ourselves now.

Let's begin with yesterday, my travel day. It started very early for me, I was at the airport at 7:30am. Not early for many, but I typically don't eat breakfast until 5pm.

The flights were good. Pleasant conversation on my way into JFK. No neighborliness on my way to LA, but I watched a great movie, Won't You Be My Neighbor, and a better-than-I-thought-it-would-be entertaining movie, Solo: A Star Wars Story.

The former was an excellent documentary, very moving, and I got emotional several times. Fred Rogers was one amazing human, and I found a lot to like in this telling of his story.

The Star Wars flick provided a well-done, well-paced action-thriller-spectacular, with all the usual Star Wars glam, and an interesting performance by Alden Ehrenreich, as Han Solo, who spent the movie channeling the vocal mannerisms of Jack Nicholson. It was a pretty good impersonation, and I found it entertaining.

It was a beautiful afternoon in LA when I hustled my carry-on to the rent-a-car shuttle stop at around 3:15pm. By the time I got my car, I was in the thick of rush hour, with an hour-and-a-half drive, in traffic, to my AirBnB.

Which was really great! The way to get from LAX to the beautiful San Fernando Valley goes through Hollywood and over the Hollywood Hills. It's a nice drive. Plenty of fancy architecture and lots of vistas. into the canyons. I was happy to slow down and enjoy the time on not-405.

Just over the crest of the hills on Coldwater Canyon Road.

The airBnB is far and away the nicest place I've ever stayed in LA. A beautifully decorated, comfortable poolhouse, and I couldn't be happier with it. Also, just over a mile from Alex.

View from out my airBnB poolhouse window.

Alex, Stacy and friend Alex Lewis took me to a ramen place I had liked in the past, and man, oh, man, that was a delicious meal.

I mostly eat out when in LA. Alex is always looking for good places to eat for me when I come to visit, and as his palate has broadened, I've benefited. That is, however, one of the things that makes LA so expensive. Another is gas, which is a buck per gallon more expensive than at home. And another is the cost of pot, which is comparatively astronomical when you buy at the legal retail level.

Which is where Alex has always gotten pot for me when I visit. As a non-resident, I could not even get in the door of a medicinal dispensary. I'd never been to one myself (I haven't been to any of the other rec-legal states).

This is my first time in LA since recreational cannabis was legalized, and the first time I will visit a legal pot store.

But I digress. (We'll come back to this later).

By the time dinner was over, I was thoroughly beat. Fast forward to breakfast today.

I spent part of the morning doing internet research to see where the best breakfast places were near me. I found some old favorites were still well-regarded, and some new-to-me restaurants. It also gave me a better appreciation of the neighborhood I'm staying in. Lots of good stuff around here.

I set out to eat at an Israeli place I hadn't heard of before, but just as I was leaving, I got a call. And so, a half-hour went by.

Then, as I stepped out of the pool house, I waved to the mother of the AirBnB host, who I'd been informed was baby-sitting the family's children for a few days. She stepped out, so I went over and said hello, introduced myself, and we ended up having a nice conversation.

By the time I got to my restaurant, it was 2:30pm and the restaurant was closed until 5pm. I decided to go to an old favorite, Hugo's, and had a great meal, with attendant good service, and lingered for quite a while, idling and talking on the phone with a friend back home who'd just come off a tour and had some crazy stories to tell.

On my way back to the airBnB, I bought a few snacks and some bottled water. When I got back with Alex, he took me to a high-end dispensary, the Weed, for my first experience.

The dispensary has a receptionist, a very pleasant waiting room, and serves one customer (or small group, like Alex and I) per budtender (that's what Alex called him).

The budtender (I'm getting used to it) asked if I wanted a tour. I replied, "Yes - I've been waiting a long time for this."

Then, there's not much to say about it. There were no unfamiliar products. Everything I bought went into a child-proof bag, that was very near adult-proof as well.

The goodies from my first legal cannabis shopping trip.

After, we loaded up an oil cartridge and went to the next dining experience, Sugarfish, where we sashimi'ed and sushi'ed and rolled, and it was awesome.

I'm ever so grateful for the life I live, acknowledging that it is unearned and comes to me just for having survived to live it.

Food Comment

The restaurants I've been to have all been excellent in terms of ambience, quality, presentation and service. It's quite a streak. I'm gaining weight! I'll be fine.

Food extras

Dinner Meal (last night)
8:30pm, at Jinya Ramen Bar:

Old Skool Ramen: chicken broth, fish oil, pork chashu, egg*, bamboo shoots, green onion, with thin noodles. Not shown: Baby Leaf salad (with mixed baby greens, cherry tomatoes and house (miso+) dressing).

Breakfast
3:00pm, at Hugo's:

Chipotle Scramble: Eggs scrambled with diced grilled chicken breast, peppers, onions, scallions, mozzarella cheese, cheddar cheese and slightly spicy honey-chipotle sauce over corn tortillas, topped with sour cream. With turmeric rice and whole multigrain toast.

Dinner
8:30pm, at Sugarfish:

Tuna sashimi. One of a dozen dishes we shared, which included salmon, yellowfish and crab rolls, salmon and yellowfish sushi, and other stuff I don't remember. The yellowfish was the best I ever had. Period. This is a stock photo - the restaurant was too dark for good photos, and it would have been disturbing and distracting.

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