Ailantha - Blog

Invasion Of The LOL Dolls

4/26/2018

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Invasion Of The LOL Dolls

If you've never heard of an LOL doll, it's a pretty sure bet you haven't had any recent interchange with a little girl in the four-to-ten-year-old range.
For the uninitiated, of which I was a member until my grand daughters introduced me to - nay, immersed me into - the phenomenon,

...which, if it has not yet taken over the world,

...has at least taken over my daughter and son-in-law's house,

...like an army of tiny, variegated, doe-eyed plastic space invaders,

...LOL's are 3" dolls that resemble miniature pot-bellied aliens and come in a variety of skin tones and hair colors, along with the even tinier LOL L'il Sisters,

...and the LOL pets.

But the wild popularity of these toys has, I believe, less to do with the little poppets themselves than the fact that they've been marketed with 1). a shtick, and 2). a narrative.

1). The Shtick
The LOL Doll's shtick is a relatively recent concept in the toy world - as explained to me by a sales associate in a Barnes & Noble where I had the wildly unexpected luck of finding one of the dolls - known as the Blind Bag, which involves the child opening layers of surprises hidden in little bags before finding the main surprise, in the case of the LOL this being the doll.

The LOL Dolls - and their companion L'il Sisters and LOL Pets - are marketed as collectibles and sold in colorful spheres,

...which require peeling back several layers before the spheres can be popped apart and the bags hidden within opened one by one, offering first little tidbits such as clues to the doll's identity, paper tattoos and stickers,

...then the more exciting bags containing the teeny weeny clothes and accessories,

...then finally, with the anticipation at its peak, one finds the bag containing the LOL Doll itself, and learns which of the collectibles one has acquired.

But there’s yet another surprise to come.

Each doll has a special trait, the possibilities being that the doll is capable of either spitting, crying, tinkling, or changing color when wet. One discovers of which trait one’s new doll is possessed by submerging the doll in water.

     Thus opening an LOL Doll is a thrill; however the thrill is most certainly amplified by:

     2.) The Narrative
    A feat of marketing genius, there have been created for the LOL Dolls a number of companion Youtube videos, each about twenty minutes long.
    The videos generally begin with The Narrator, as I’m calling her – an anonymous young lady one never sees but with a sweet, energetic voice – opening an LOL sphere step by step and voicing much excitement over each discovery.
      My granddaughters, having watched numerous times this engaging video demonstration on opening the LOL sphere, now imitate the The Narrator's ritual when opening a new LOL Doll, including her vocal inflections and ebullience over each surprise discovery.
The opening of an LOL Doll sphere is, then, a highly stylized and time-consuming process, not to be pursued in haste.
     After the opening - opening – scene, there ensues a little live-action feature in which The Narrator moves the LOL dolls around and speaks the part of each character.

From time to time there is a cameo appearance by a Barbie doll in the roll of the mother, the teacher, the doctor, or some other authority figure.

The story lines tend to cover fairly quotidian subjects such as going to the beach and spilling the sunscreen on the towel then getting sand on the sunscreen; going to the hospital to visit one’s new L’il Sister with spots on one’s face, causing the spots spread to all the new-born L’il Sisters in the nursery; showing the ropes to a clueless teacher at school; and, my granddaughters’ perennial and oft imitated favorite, a birthday party.
The videos, sometimes off-beat as the subject matter may be, are entertaining and somehow highly relatable for young children. They’re also rather hilarious.

But more importantly, the videos serve as wellsprings of ideas for play,

…and can even offer a conduit to express – rather than act out – emotions in the face of life’s little downturns.
     For example, during a hotel stay en route to our trip to Legoland (see post from 4/18/2018 ) my four-year-old granddaughter, while stepping into the elevator, dropped her much-loved, much-prized LOL L’il Sister,* which then bounced into the elevator shaft via the small space at the opening of the elevator door. After a brief bout frantic crying my granddaughter was calmed and soon seemed to have forgotten about the lost doll.
     But a few days later I overheard my granddaughters playing with their LOL Dolls.
    “Our baby sister died,” said the four-year-old in her doll’s voice, “she fell down a crack in the elevator.” Her older sister’s doll offered some words of consolation. The younger one then added in the saddest of doll voices, “We really miss our baby sister.”

   *At the time of my visit the wildly popular LOL Dolls were hard to come by in California, and if one happened to find one or two on a store shelf – as I did, one time at a Walgreens in Monterey and once at a Barnes & Noble in Manhattan Beach – it was only by amazing luck and happenstance. L’il Sisters were even harder to come in by in Los Angeles and I searched to no avail around the Manhattan Beach area for a replacement for my granddaughter’s lost L’il Sister.
     However since my return to Columbus I’ve seen LOL Dolls in the toy departments of several stores,

...and by asking around even managed to procure two L’il Sisters, which I sent to my thoroughly delighted granddaughters in Los Angeles.

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"A Quiet Place," A Troubling Metaphor

4/23/2018

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"Equal and Opposite Reactions"
by Patti Liszkay
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"A Quiet Place," A Troubling Metaphor

Last week I saw "A Quiet Place,"

...a really good movie, I thought, delightfully cribbing elements from the original (and still the greatest, in my book) alien invasion movie, the 1953 flick "War of the Worlds,"

...then multiplying that movie's jump-out-of-your-seat moments,

...which are all the jumpier in this movie because most of the film transpires in silence,

...as, per the plot line, the humanivore alien invaders are blind but have ears as sharp as their teeth, and one false noise will bring down a lightening-strike chomp upon the unfortunate, helpless noise-maker.

Thus the humans in the movie have learned to live in silence, to be ever on guard against any inadvertent move that may bring on the monsters, or at least the terror that the monsters might be on their way. It's a stressful existence for the movie characters and, by extension, for the audience while they're watching these characters.

Still, for most of us "A Quiet Place" is just a movie, the fear and anxiety it produces really nothing more than a few quick thrills of adrenaline that dissipate shortly after the theater lights come back up.

But during a conversation with my daughter about the movie she offered me a deeper - and rather troubling - insight into "A Quiet Place.".

"You know," said my daughter, a psychology major, "anyone who's been in an abusive relationship with a person with an anger disorder should not see this film. It could bring up some bad upsetting emotions."

I could, in fact, understand how the movie could be an emotional trigger for anyone who'd ever lived in a state of subliminal anxiety, who'd ever been conditioned to watch every step so as not to suddenly arouse the inner monster lurking within some close and inescapable relationship.

I could understand how "A Quiet Place" could be an all-too-personal metaphor for an abusive relationship.
In fact, since that conversation with my daughter about the movie I've been thinking about a book by Allen Long that I read and subsequently blogged about a few months ago called "Less Than Human" (See post from 10/16/2017),

...in which the author recounts his childhood in a wealthy suburb at the hands of his socially respected parents who beat him and his brother at the slightest infraction, real or imagined, during an era when corporal punishment was considered such standard operating procedure in the raising of children that an adult's emotional distress and inner rage could be taken out on one's children in the name of love and with society's blessing.
      Hence as children Long and his brother lived what seemed to them a normal existence regularly spiked with moments of terror and physical assault, sometimes the terror being worse than the assault.
       I recommend reading "Less Than Human."
       I also recommend seeing "A Quiet Place."
       They're really the same story.

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Legoland

4/20/2018

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Legoland

...Continued from yesterday:

Though we arrived at Legoland (see yesterday's post) shortly after the park opened on a chilly, overcast Thursday morning,

...still we found ourselves already behind a great crowd of park visitors.

On our way to the entrance gate we passed the soon-to-be-opened Legoland Hotel, a massive, 350-room edifice that looked like a giant toy castle.

Once inside the gate of Legoland one has the impression of having stepped into a colorful garden of earthly delights

...populated by Legos.

...and families with small children.

...and not too unmanageably vast for little legs or parents pushing strollers - I reckoned Legoland to be about half the size of the Ohio State Fair grounds. Maybe even less.

A little past the gate entrance was a station at which one could upgrade one’s status to VIP, which I assumed expedited one’s arrival at the head of the ride lines.

We bypassed this option and stopped at what appeared to be a good first destination, a boat ride around a Lego-laden lake,

…where we saw a Lego London Eye and Big Ben,

...a Lego Eiffel Tower,

...A Lego Taj Mahal,

...a Lego Mount Rushmore,

…and and an assortment of whimsical Lego creatures.

It was a delightful ride,

...for which we'd nonetheless had to wait in line for over 45 minutes .

...while those with a VIP pass breezed to the front of the line through a special VIP gate.
I told the others to go find another line to stand in. As for me, I intended to go check out the VIP dispensation.

Shortly after I took my place at the end of a fairly long line a friendly Legoland guy came down the line and asked how many of us came here after standing in a ride line. A number of hands besides mine went up.
The Legoland guy then tore off slips of paper from a pad, handed each of a us a slip and a pen, and proceeded to explain to us how the VIP pass worked.

The paper each of us had been handed was an information form that we were required to fill out while standing in line so as to be ready to hand it in when we reached the desk.

   The Ultimate Pass, at $100 per person, cut the wait time for the rides by 90%. However the Ultimate Passes were already sold out.
    There were a few Deluxe Passes left at $55 per person, which cut the ride time by 50%.
    I opted to buy each of us an Express Pass, which cut the wait time by 25%.

So six Express Passes added $125 to the cost of the park tickets, which were $107 per child and $119 per adult. But what the heck, it was Legoland. In for a penny, in for a thousand bucks.
Anyway, how the system worked was that one was given a little device that resembled a Tomagotchi.

One pulled up the list of rides, scrolled down to the ride one wished to ride, and pressed "reserve." One would then be given a time, anytime after which one could proceed to the express gate for that ride.

This little ride-reserving gizmo actually afforded us an excellent plan of action, as while we were waiting for for our reservation time for one ride, we could either stand in line for another ride,

...or go spend some time in one of the many play areas,

...or watch a charming stage show.

My grand daughters were particularly enchanted by one entitled, "BFF, Best Friends Forever,"

...and were thrilled to be able to meet some of the friendly, lovely, cast members.

Between our VIP ride reservations we also had plenty of time to stroll around the park and take in the attractions,

...including the model cities,

...New York,

...New Orleans,

...Washington, D.C.

...and of course, stop for lunch,

...which we did, at a spot we found that served the best ramen.

And so we spent the day riding the rides,

...without too much line-waiting,

...seeing the sights,

...even the bathrooms were a sight,

...and doing what there was to do,

...including my grand daughters trying a game of skill for a prize that involved climbing a rope ladder to the top without falling off,

...which one of the girls was, amazingly, able to do on her first try.

Then, our long day at Lego-land being done, it was time to go home,

...which we did,

...after a dinner stop at Denny's.

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Off To Legoland

4/18/2018

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Like the blog?

You'll love the book!
- “Lots of sass, drama and wicked humor.”
- “It’s Hallmark meets The Sopranos in this fun and engaging read.”
- “Emotions run high in this dance of very human passions and struggles.”
- “Five Stars.”
“Equal and Opposite Reactions”
Buy it on Amazon
http://amzn.to/2xvcgRa

Off to Legoland

...Continued from yesterday:
Midway through our grand daughters' spring break we all set off to Carlsbad, California for a trip to Legoland,

...a magnificent Lego-themed amusement park geared towards the young crowd.

As Carlsbad is a good hour-and-a-half drive south from Los Angeles, we decided to leave Thursday afternoon after my daughter and son-and-law finished work, spend the night in Carlsbad and arrive at the park early for a long day of amusement.

After a scenic drive margined by mountains,

..and palm trees,

...we stopped at a Denny's outside Carlsbad for dinner,

...where we were surprised, though mayhaps we shouldn't have been, that the chain-restaurant food was so good.
Or maybe we were all just muy hungry.
In any case, we all ended up liking what we'd ordered:

The Grilled Talapia from the 55+ menu,

The Veggie Burger,

...the Veggie Skillet,

...the Skillet Supreme (minus the chorizo sausage) for me,

...and mac and cheese that bore an uncanny resemblance to the Kraft boxed variety which, of course, made it a great hit with my grand daughters,

... who generally are not exposed to such a prefabricated gustatory delicacy at home.

After dinner we headed for our hotel, The Carlsbad Holiday Inn,

...which had a beautiful outdoor pool, hot tub,

...and fire pit.

After a dip in the pool the girls got into their jammies and snuck over to Grammie and Grandpa's room for a visit.

The following morning we rose early, checked out of the Holiday Inn and sought breakfast at a nearby restaurant called the Beach Plum Kitchen.

The restaurant was already crowded but we were able to snag a table on the patio under a heating element,

...and the server offered us blankets - a first-time and much appreciated restaurant experience for us -

...which, it being a chilly morning, my daughter and I did not turn down.

So then, all warm and snug, we proceed-ed to order break-fast.

The food was very good, especially the breakfast potatoes. Among us we ordered:

A veggie breakfast burrito,

...veggie omelet,

...scrambled eggs,

...French toast,

...sunny-side -up eggs,

...and for the girl whose birthday it was that day, a birthday muffin.

After breakfast we were back on the road,

...following the hordes to our mutual destination.

To be continued...

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Passover And Easter

4/16/2018

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...Continued from yesterday:
My grandchildren have the benefit of having one parent of a Jewish background and the other raised with the Christian traditions.
And so in their family they celebrate both Chanukah,

...and Christmas,

...as well as both Passover and Easter, as did Tom and I during our visit.
On Saturday morning, March 31, the second day of Passover this year and the day before Easter,

...our grand daughters told us the story of the biblical Ten Plagues upon Egypt that preceded the first Passover.

On the shelf in the background is an afikomen holder our younger grand daughter made at her preschool. The afikomen is a special piece of matzo eaten during the seder meal.

Then we blew out a dozen eggs,

...which I used in a recipe I found on the internet and wanted to try for healthy, low-caloire banana pancakes made only from eggs and mashed bananas. They were actually pretty dreadful,

...unless drowned in syrup. (When will I ever learn to stop falling for those too-good-to-be-true internet recipes?)

Then we dyed the egg shells.

That evening we attended the Second Night seder meal at the home of my son-in-law's parents.

Some of us helped with the final preparations in the kitchen,

...while others helped by playing nicely in the living room.

When all the guests had arrived we took our places at the table and the seder began.

The Passover symbols.

Each of us were given a copy of the Haggadah, the text used to tell the story of Passover and to explain the significance of the elements of the seder.

We took turns reading from the beautiful text,

...while we ate the traditional and symbolic seder foods,

...among which were gefilte fish,

...a hard boiled egg in salt water,

...and a delicious matzoh ball soup.

The following day, Easter Sunday, my daughter and son-in-law hosted an Easter egg hunt and kosher brunch for about 30 children and adults.

We started early preparing the food,

...and setting up an obstacle course in the backyard.

...with some friends arriving early to help with the preparations.

The menu included scrambled eggs and a veggie scramble, fruit salad, popcorn, relishes,

...matzo with assorted toppings, including lox, regular and vegan cheese, cream cheese, hummus, sunflower seed butter, avocado,

...and a lovely tray of Passover sweets brought by one of the guests.

At 10 am the guests began arriving,

...including Pinky's friend Sneakers.

When everyone had arrived,

...and understood what they were supposed to do,

...the hunt was on, outdoors,

...as well as indoors.

When all the eggs were found we moved on to the next activity, which was a raffle,

MC'd by my daughter,

...for which each young guest was given a strip of five tickets.

It had been arranged that each guest would end up winning a prize,

...from the trove of treasures we'd gleaned from the Dollar Tree, the biggest hit among which turned out to be the whoopee cushions, which continued to be a source of entertainment for the duration of the party.

When a person's ticket was picked they chose a prize and then reached into the bag to choose the next winning ticket.

My daughter kept the raffle moving along,

...and the crowd entertained.

After the raffle the guests spent the rest of the day playing,

...eating, socializing,

...and relaxing.

And so the the kosher Easter brunch went on until about 5:15 pm when the last guests left, though they'd have stayed longer if my daughter and son-in-law hadn't had tickets for that evening's L.A. Clippers game.
I, of course, invited the guests to stay longer, have some more food, watch some more TV,

...but the time had come.

       "The best thing about this book was its realism."
       "It was a great book to get lost in."
         "An engaging and timely debut novel."
                   "Wonderful read."
          Equal and Opposite Reactions.
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Call Of Duty: Grandparent Special Ops

4/14/2018

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...Continued from yesterday:
   On Friday morning, the R &R segment of our California trip being officially over, Tom and I plunged into the occupational specialty for which we had had been deployed From Columbus, Ohio, to Los Angeles, California:
     Babysitting our grand daughters over spring break.

Now, while I feel a mix of gladness for and envy of my fellow grandparents who live so close to their offspring that they can be part and parcel of their grandchildren's lives on a regular basis, still, living so far away does give Tom and I the benefit of our visits being special occasions.

Thus may we go about our grandparental mission of spoiling to our hearts' content and guilt-free,

...knowing it's only temporary and therefore unlikely to produce any long-term adverse outcomes in our grandchildren's development.

To that end, as our four-year-old grand daughter's break began on Friday, one school day before her sister's, we planned a full operation of activities for her and a couple of friends who came over for a day-long play date.

We started with some supervised nail-painting,

...then a crafts project,

...then some playtime, during which the girls composed on the keyboard tunes in the expressionist dissonant style of which Pinky Poo appeared to be a rapt admirerer.

The girls then made up a game that involved taking turns blocking the hallway and allowing passage only with the password, which was "bunny shoes and kitty shoes." Grandpa Tom kept getting the password wrong, much to the girls' delight, and hence was denied passage every time.

We also took a trip to Pollywog Park (see post from 8/29/2014),

...after which we went to Mandy's for lunch (see yesterday's post),

...where the girls were fascina-ted by the counter seating,

...and the old-fashioned claw-crane vending machine.

The girls opted for grilled cheese sandwiches,

...while I made a most auspicious choice, the delicious veggie skillet.

After lunch we went for frozen yogurt,

...then returned home for another round of playtime before it was time to retrieve the big sisters from school.

And so at the end of that first day of our grandparental call of duty we could say that the day's maneuver went down with unanticipated success - no casualties: no fighting, crying, or boo-boos - and much thankfulness on Tom's and my part that we'd built up almost enough stamina for just such a mission as this one,

...by having twice hiked the 497- mile Camino de Santiago across northern Spain. (see https://www.andlightenyourpack.com/ and https://pattiliszkay.weebly.com/)

Day One: mission accomplished.

"5.0 out of 5 stars
Amazing very heart wrenching.
"I Loved it, very good story line. I would definitely recommend this book to anybody. It made me cry where is the second one?"
- Amazon Review

"Equal and Opposite Reactions"
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Strolling ― And Eating ― Around The Beaches

4/12/2018

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...Continued from yesterday:
Tom an I returned from Monterey to Los Angeles on Wednesday. As our grandchildren's spring break hadn't yet started, we had most of Thursday to ourselves to while away as we wished.
So after dropping the kids off at school we started the day at our favorite breakfast spot, a little local eatery called Mandy's,

...where I had my usual, potatoes and eggs, sunny-side up,

...while Tom went Rogue One and ordered the epic strawberry-topped Pancakes.

After breakfast we strolled around Manhattan Beach,

...and down to the pier.

Then it was back to the house to keep the dogs company,

...until it was time to pick up the kids from school.

That night for dinner we headed over to Hermosa Beach to our favorite dinner spot on the beach, Scotty's.

Amazingly, Scotty's is never crowded, even though the price is right, it's located right on the beach with a view of the Hermosa Beach Pier,

...and the food is soooo good. Among us we had

...the Roast chicken,

...the Veggie burger,

...the Street Tacos,

...ba-sketti,

...and fish tacos that surely rank among the best on the planet.

Mayhaps Scotty's simply lacks a schtick,

...which is fine by us.

To be continued...

"Read the book while we were on vacation and couldn't put it down. It was a great book to get lost in. The author created characters that I came to care about and were so realistic I felt like they were my friends. I laughed and I cried -- and even learned a thing or two. Great story."
-Amazon Review

"Equal and Opposite Reactions."
Buy it on Amazon
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Good-Bye Monterey, Then Back To L.A.

4/10/2018

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...Continued from yesterday:
On Wednesday, March 28, Tom and I said good-bye to our quarters at the Presidio of Monterey military hotel (see post from 4/1/2018).

On our way to the airport we stopped at the Presidio Historical Park, located on a hilltop next to the army post, to have a look at the views below us of Monterey Bay and the surrounding landscape,

...and to visit the Presidio Museum,

...which chronicles the history of the Presidio of Monterey - "presidio" is Spanish for fortress - from its construction on that site by Spanish soldiers in 1771 to the present.
In the park was posted this sign,

...the wording of which ― especially the use of the word "hosted" ― made me laugh. (The Native Americans really should have left the Spanish, Mexicans and Americans off their guest list).
As the Spanish priest Junipero Sierro (see yesterday's post) accompanied the Spanish army to Monterey, founded a mission here (which he later moved to Carmel - see post from 4/7/2018), and oversaw the economic development of the region, there is a statue of him in the park on a spot overlooking Monterey Bay.

In 2015 when Junipero Serra was proclaimed a saint by the Catholic Church there was protest against his canonization because of his subjugation and mistreatment of Native Americans and his forced suppression of their culture. At the time of his canonization some mystery protesters cut off Junipero Serra's head and threw it into the bay where it was later found. A new head was made and reattached.

After our visit to the Presidio Historical Park we headed to the Monterey Airport.

We grabbed some lunch at the sole airport restaurant, where the food was not noteworthy,

...except, perhaps, for the noteworthiness of the bread of my veggie sandwich being remarkably stale and my French fries being remarkably cold. But then, this was the only restaurant in the airport, so I guess the customers are pretty much a captive audience.

Then we took off and within the hour we were back in L.A.,

...just in time for a baby-sitting gig with our grand daughters and some friends over for an after-school play date,

...also pinky poo,

and his wild-and-crazy pal Indie, who was still visiting for a few more days.

The wonder of it all.

"You will meet some very intense and sassy characters whose lives are quickly woven into complex and dramatic connections. Emotions run high in this dance of very human passions and struggles with all the frailties and joys. By the end of the story I was left wanting to know much more about what will happen in the future for all of them!"
-Amazon Review

"Equal and Opposite Reactions."
Buy it on Amazon
http://amzn.to/2xvcgRa

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Big Sur

4/8/2018

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...Continued from yesterday:
On Tuesday we headed back to California Highway 1 and this time drove 30 miles South from Monterey to Big Sur, the breath-taking mountainous stretch that runs for about 70 miles along the Central California coastline.

Our first destination was lunch at Nepenthe, a restaurant built on a cliff 800 feet above the Pacific Ocean,

...famous for the panoramic vista from the terrace of the mountains and the sea.

Though we arrived at the restaurant’s opening at 11:30 am, there was already a waiting list, but fortunately not a long one, so we had about 10 minutes to stroll around the restaurant and take in the view.

We got a seat on the edge of the terrace with a wonderful view.

However, as we were perched atop a steep cliff I got butterflies when I looked down and was careful to keep my feet tucked in.

The service was slow and the menu was way pricey. My veggie sandwich cost $17.50,

…and Tom’s crab sandwich was $24.50.

The sandwiches did not include fries, which had to be purchased á la carte, and of course everybody’s going to buy fries to accompany their sandwich, even at $9.50 for a large basket,

…or $6.50 for a small basket, one of which Tom and I ordered and shared.

The food was nonetheless good - my veggies were topped with a very tasty basil pesto– except that the buns were so big that our sandwiches were impossible to eat as sandwiches and the so chewy were these mega-buns that they were difficult to cut with a knife, especially on the surface of the paper-lined baskets they were served in.
Still, I guess Nepenthe’s credits outweigh its debits, and when we left the restaurant about an hour-and-a-half after we’d arrived there was a pretty sizable crowd waiting around the terrace to be seated.

     I felt sorry for the waiting children and their parents.
     As for the Nepenthe experience, I felt that it was fine to do once, but I have no need to ever go there again. If I’d had to wait a long time for a seat – especially if I’d ended up with a seat without a view – I wouldn’t have felt that the experience would have been worth the view, especially since there are such lovely views to be gleaned for free from other lovely spots along Big Sur.
      However, the restaurant’s gift shop – which one need not patronize the restaurant to enter – was another story.
     I loved the Nepenthe gift shop. It was full of the neatest, prettiest, stuff.

…and also had a beautiful outdoor terrace with a view.

All the neat, pretty stuff was, of course, too expensive to buy – all right, I bought two colorful woven $12 oven mitts as a gift for my daughter – but the place was inspiring to browse.
In fact it was at the Nepenthe gift shop that I discovered the bedspread environment of my dreams:

…the whole ensemble costing about $1,000.
     I figured I could zip over to Joann Fabrics and for a fraction of that price and buy the material to make reasonable facsimiles of the quilts, skirts, throws and pillows of my Nepenthe Dream Bed.
      Eh, it’ll never happen, of course. But it was nice to dream for a few minutes.
       After lunch we turned and headed back north up California 1,

...until we arrived at the entrance road (unmarked along the highway but which Tom had found marked on a map) to Pfeiffer Beach,

…at the end of which was a walking path,

…that led to the most beautifully scenic beach.

The hills and rock formations reminded me of the setting of a scene from one of my favorite, watch-over-and-over-again movies, “Jason and the Argonauts," when the enraged giant metal god appears from behind a hill on the beach, chases the Argonauts into the sea,

...then wrecks their boat.

     I wondered if that scene was in fact shot in this location, so I looked up the filming info on “Jason and the Argonauts” and learned that the movie was shot in Italy. My thought is that the producer could have save some bucks by filming at Pfeiffer Beah.
       But then, really, what do I know?
       After Pfeiffer Beach we headed back to Monterey,

…stopping for dinner at a restaurant we found in Pacific Grove called Coco’s,

...which, we later learned, is a California restaurant chain famous for its pies, of which we later partook, though the we found the dinner food really good, too.

I ordered the open-faced sirloin smothered in mushrooms and onions with a side wedge of lettuce with bleu cheese dressing, all of which was delicious. The steak was especially good, not always the case with steak – of which there are dozens of ways to ruin it – but this piece was rare as can be and so tender, and the garlic bread atop which it sat was tasty and soft.

Tom liked his grilled salmon with vegetables equally well,

…and the hot, fresh bread was so good, soft on the inside, just a little crispy on the outside.

     For dessert we split a slice of the berry pie with ice cream (which, sadly, I forgot to snap), which was also delicious.
    On our way out of the restaurant we chatted for a few minutes with the friendly manager who, we learned, not only enjoyed his job but was a fervent practicing environmentalist, conservationist, and low-consumptionist.
      We’ve been gifted with such a beautiful, wonderful planet, it’s nice to know that there are some people out there who consciously care about it..

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-Amazon review

"Equal and Opposite Reactions."
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Carmel-By-The-Sea

4/7/2018

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...Continued from yesterday:
After visiting the Dali 17 museum on Monday morning (see yesterday’s post), Tom and I drove to Pacific Grove, the next town over from Monterey, to seek out some lunch.

We came upon a promising-looking pizza place in a strip mall,

…where we snagged and subsequently polished off a very decent deep-dish pizza.

After lunch we headed about 4 miles south along beautiful California Highway 1,

...to the town of Carmel-by-the-Sea.

Our first stop was a visit to the historic Carmel Mission,

...founded in 1770 by the Spanish priest Junipero Serra,

...who claimed the land for Spain,

...converted the native Americans,

...pressed them into servitude,

...and oversaw the agricultural and economic development of the region,

...as well as the decimation of its indigenous population.

Junipero Serra was canonized a saint in the Catholic church over much controversy in 2015.

After our tour of the Carmel Mission we drove into town.

Carmel-by-the-Sea is a beautiful gem of a place,

...its streets lined with cute little shops and eateries,

...and gingerbready-looking houses.

The main street leads to the beach,

...and a beautiful panorama.

On our way back to Monterey we stopped again at Pacific Grove where there is a Monarch butterfly sanctuary full of eucalyptus trees to which butterflies migrate from colder Midwestern climates to winter over from October to February,

...though now the butterflies have all returned to their homes.