Califournia

Photos by H. Darr Beiser

Century plant, La Jolla

This was my fourth trip to California this year. In November it will be Califivenia. I seem to be going ever couple of months now. I don’t mind one bit. This time were off to a 10-day split between San Diego and Los Angeles, culminating in a big wedding weekend.

Okay, so first off a big shout out for Alaska Air, offering the best priced nonstop from BWI to San Diego. There was no herding of groups, there were no pens separating the elite from the hoi-polloi. People just boarded. By rows. Big legroom, pleasant attendants, and the greatest gift of air travel, an extra seat between us.

La Jolla

La Jolla never gets old, staying with my in-laws a few blocks from the ocean remains as fresh as the time I went when I was 19. La Jolla is all perfumey, shrouded in velveteen air. The ease. The breeze. My all time favorite run—Bird Rock to Nautilus affords me a peak into some of the most magnificent living rooms in the country, the ones with floor to ceiling window dead-on, fifty-yard line views of the ocean. These glimpses make me often think, this is all I need to be happy, to be truly happy. Oceanfront morning, noon and night, it can be La Jolla, it can be Biddeford Pool, it can be a farmhouse in Ireland, but this is it, this is my ideal. 

Later in the week I visited a friend who has an oceanfront condo in La Jolla, and I asked her if she wakes up every morning filled with joy and wonder and she said “No, after awhile you stop seeing it. You get used to it. It’s like the mountains in Tucson.”

With Frank and Jane 

We went to Old Town, primarily to eat at the Old Town Mexican Cafe, But I also stocked up on every primary color I could get my hands on at Bazaar del Mundo.  Napkins and dishtowels with Candy Skulls, a jazzy tablecloth, a shirt with all the colors of the rainbow.

I went a few days early up to Beverly Hills, for pastoral care of my friend Judy as she faced the countdown to her only child’s wedding. I expected to find her in a pool of anxiety on the floor. But she was instead meditating by the pool in serenity. I ended up being the one cared for. We spent a full day at our beloved Olympic Spa, adding on lunch and manicures and pedicures and eyebrow threading. The next day was dedicated to poolside and reading. Every night we watched A Very English Scandal in the screening room. We had fabulous dinners. I saw the sunrise every day from my room, had nice long runs and watched Wimbledon live. Heaven.

Union Station Los Angeles

On Friday I met Darr at Union Station, LA’s grand art deco train station. We ate at the nearby Phillipe's Original French Dip Sandwiches and walked through the Calle Olvera shops brimming and screaming with the loud sharp colors of Mexico.

Calle Olvera Shops

This was the first time I was attending a wedding of the child of a friend. I found it very relaxing. I did not feel my former imperative to be the last on the dance floor or the first in margaritas consumed.

Griffith Park

The morning of the wedding we decided to do some hiking. So we headed for the Griffith Park Observatory. Neither the hike nor the ability to observe were to our liking. The hiking path was closed because of fire, so we walked up the paved road. My husband took one look at the view of Los Angeles and declared it smoggy. Therefore unworthy of photography. 

Hurray for Hollwood

The Hollywood Sign was our next destination.  We thought there was a way to hike there from Griffith Park, but we couldn’t figure it out. So we did what every one else in LA does, we got in our car and drove.  We went up the windy, narrow little Deronda Drive with the packed in houses, some of them precariously held up on stilts. Decidedly not earthquake proof. 

Then the hike… steep, but all paved, no fancy footwork required. Just heart work. And at last we arrived—behind the scenes and behind The Sign. We had so earned a big Mexican lunch, and boy did we have it in the pitch dark, perfectly air conditioned El Compadre. 

The wedding was at Palihouse, a boutique urban lodge which the party pretty much took over. Ceremony on the roof, dinner in the atrium, dancing in the lobby lounge.

The Couple

The bride and groom were extremely good looking. Their friends were extremely articulate in their toasts. The dancing was extremely joyous. The whole party was pretty damn perfect, including my charges, the MOB and FOB.

And thank God for the soak-up-the-hangover tradition, the brunch. Because this was at the astounding Canter’s Deli. It’s famous, it's camera worthy, it’s delicious. But the spirit of the brunch was the best, despite the perfection of the other events, it was the most relaxed and fun. Talk about survivor rush. The room was swimming in it.

Delighted at the deli