Blog Archives

Celebrating Our 45th, Part 2: Dragon Donuts, Thrifting, And Other Things

2/27/2022

"Equal and Opposite Reactions" http://amzn.to/2xvcgRa
and the sequel, "Hail Mary" https://www.amzn.com/1684334888
By Patti Liszkay
Available on Amazon.

CELEBRATING OUR 45TH, PART 2: DRAGON DONUTS, THRIFTING, AND OTHER THINGS

...Continued from yesterday:
The following day, the day of our anniversary, we started off with breakfast from the hotel breakfast nook.

Tom ordered the Original:

...while I had the Ranchero:

We both agreed that our food was quite tasty, but kind of hard to eat as the meals were served in big red plastic drinking cups,

...and so had to be consumed from the top down, in layers.
We thought this a weird presentation, but then it occurred to us that maybe with the supply shortage the hotel kitchen might have run out of take-out bowls and had to make do with cups. The food was good, anyway.
After breakfast we decided to go for some dessert to the donut shop around the corner,

....Dragon Donuts.

Interestingly, all the donuts were ring-shaped, even the cream- and jelly-filled ones.

Tom had a cinnamon toast crunch donut, which he proclaimed over-the-top delicious,

...and I opted for a cream-filled glazed.

Imagine a cream donut with cream in every bite. That's how awesome it was.
It was quite a good thing that Tom and I enjoyed our donuts so much, considering what they cost.

But we figured that it was, after all, our 45th wedding anniversary, and so mayhaps a little splurge was not altogether out of line.
After our donuts we packed up and checked out of the Aloft (See yesterday's post https://www.ailantha.com/blog/celebrating-our-45th-par-1-aloft),

...then we walked down the block to Macy's for a quick browse.

From Macy's we headed out to do some shopping in earnest at the thrift store familiar to all serious Columbus, Ohio thrifters, the one located in the Columbus Square shopping center at the corner of Rt. 161 and Cleveland Avenue.

After making our thrift store acquisitions we went next door to an intriguing-looking store called Value Home Center, which offered some colorful and ornate furnishings.

It occurred to me that my young grand daughters would love this store.
Next we drove over to campus - which is how we locals refer to the neighborhood around the Ohio State University - to the Gateway Film Center,

...where we caught a matinee of an award-winning Norwegian flick called "The Worst Person In The World" which was about...well, in truth I'm not exactly sure what it was about, but if you ever have the opportunity to see it, I strongly suggest that you give it a pass unless you enjoy watching a two-hour movie that feels like a four-hour movie.
After our awful movie at the Gateway we decided to head back to Easton (See yesterday's post) for an early dinner. We were struck by how crowded the mall was considering that the COVID epidemic, though down, is still not out.

We guessed that people must be jonesing to get out as much we were.
We had dinner at Brio,

...which was likewise considerably crowded even at the early dinner hour.

However the service was nonetheless surprisingly speedy and the food was great. Tom had salmon topped with all kinds of yummy things,

...and I had a wedge of iceberg lettuce also topped with yummy things,

...and a bowl of lovely lobster bisque.

After dinner we decided to go find some dessert so we stopped at Giant Eagle and procured ourselves an anniversary cake which we brought home,

...and dove into while catching up on the Saturday papers.

Then we spent Saturday night watching a movie on TV, just like an old married couple.

2 Comments

Celebrating Our 45th, Part 1: Aloft

2/26/2022

10 Comments

Books By Patti Liszkay
Available On Amazon

"Equal and Opposite Reactions" http://amzn.to/2xvcgRa
and the sequel, "Hail Mary" https://www.amzn.com/1684334888
Available on Amazon.

CELEBRATING OUR 45TH, PART 1: ALOFT

A week ago today, February 19, 2022, Tom and I celebrated our 45th wedding anniversary.
Here we are 45 years ago in my parent's living room where we had our wedding portrait taken by the cousin of my sister-in-law's co-worker who did photography on the side and gave us a very good deal on our wedding photos,

...all three of them.

We hadn't actually been planning on doing anything special for our anniversary, with COVID still on the prowl. But then a few days before our anniversary while scrolling around my laptop screen I happened upon an ad for a new-ish hotel called Aloft located at Easton Town Center, a popular Columbus indoor/outdoor mall not far from where we live.

Might we dare to spend a night in a hotel for our anniversary? The COVID numbers had been actually falling of late. And we were, after all, triple-chipped, so to speak. .

And it wasn't as if we hadn't recently taken a plane trip across the country to visit our grand daughters. Or had our house occupied by various and sundry workers for months on end while our kitchen was being remodeled.

We decided to go for it.
We arrived at the Aloft Hotel at Easton on Friday afternoon.

...and were immediately charmed by the colorful pop-arty lobby.

Our room was likewise arty and cute and spotlessly clean.

The view from our window.

After we settled into our room we walked a few blocks across the mall to the Rusty Bucket. A nice lady who saw me snapping pictures offered to take a photo of Tom and me.

We had dinner at the Rusty Bucket,

...where, as it turned out, the food was, surprisingly, not great. However, the restaurant took the price of Tom's inedible meatloaf off the bill so it was all good. Or good enough.
After dinner, such as it was, we strolled around the mall for a bit,

...then walked over to the Easton AMC,

...where we caught a showing of "Marry Me," a thoroughly enjoyable rom-com starring Jennifer Lopez as a pop diva.

...and Owen Wilson as a nerdy high school math teacher,

...whose paths cross under most unlikely circumstances,

...and co-starring hilarious-as-ever Sarah Silverman as a school guidance counselor.

Never mind the stanky reviews given by the up-tight critics, "Marry Me" is one fun, funny movie. (Or so says this movie critic).

After the movie we walked across Easton back to the hotel,

...where the XYZ Lounge was hopping.

There was an outdoor fire pit that would have been nice to sit around, had the weather been warmer.

But no matter, it was nice and cozy inside,

...where, 45 years later, we were still feeling happily aloft.

To be continued...

10 Comments

A Terrible, Terrible War

2/24/2022

0 Comments

Books By Patti Liszkay
Available On Amazon

"Equal and Opposite Reactions" http://amzn.to/2xvcgRa
and the sequel, "Hail Mary" https://www.amzn.com/1684334888
Available on Amazon.

A TERRIBLE, TERRIBLE WAR

Today I received an early-morning call from my sister Romaine.

"What about what's happening in Ukraine?" she said.
"Oh, it's terrible," I said. "Just...just...terrible."
"It's so terrible," she said. "So terrible."
And somehow those were the only words that either of us could find to say about the Russian invasion of Ukraine: That it was terrible. Just so terrible.
In the early hours on this day, February 24, 2022 Vladimir Putin shattered the peace of Europe,

...when his rockets and bombs rained down on Ukraine and his military attacked that country from the north, south, and east.

And now men, women, and children are going to suffer. Terribly.

And the rest of us all around the world are not isolated from this war on Ukraine. Because Russia can weaponize its energy supply. Russia's actions can hurt our economies, can raise the prices and availability of our gas and our goods and can cause a rise in already high inflation. Russian hackers might attack global energy grids and/or wage a cyber world war. Vladimir Putin could launch nuclear weapons and not only wreak apocalyptic destruction but cause the release of nuclear fallout that travels on air currents around this globe that we all must share.
For all the discourse, analyses, opinions, commentaries, and everything else that will be said about the war that the tyrant and would-be emperor Vladimir Putin has plunged our planet into, the truest words can be found in a text from Alexyey Navalny, Putin's political opponent who now writes from a Russian prison cell:

His words, I believe are the truest. And so are the early morning words of my sister and I: This is going to be a terrible, terrible war.

0 Comments

"Rear Window," "Disturbia," "Kimi": Creepy, Creepier, Creepiest

2/22/2022

0 Comments

Need A Good Read?

"Equal and Opposite Reactions" http://amzn.to/2xvcgRa
and the sequel, "Hail Mary" https://www.amzn.com/1684334888
Available on Amazon.

"REAR WINDOW," "DISTURBIA," "KIMI": CREEPY, CREEPIER, CREEPIEST

There can be no arguing that what the world needs now is love, but mayhaps what the world also needs just as much right now is a great escapist movie.
Happily for for us all, even while sequestered in our houses there is available to us on our screens an overabundance of thrilling cinematic fare to whisk us away for a couple of hours; and especially happily for those with HBO Max is the recent release of an out-of-this world psychological thriller called "Kimi."
"Kimi" could be described as high-tech Hitchcockian. In fact fellow film buffs will recognize the movie as the latest iteration of that 1954 Hitchcock classic "Rear Window,"

...in which a bored, wheel-chair-bound journalist played by Jimmy Stewart who has little other diversion than watching what's going on outside his window begins to wonder along with those around him if he's a witness to a murder or a captive of his own imagination.

The 2007 film "Disturbia" staring Shia LaBoeuf,

...is a terrific, edge-of-your-seat, high-tech-for-the-time update of "Rear Window" with the character of the incapacitated journalist replaced by a troubled teenager under house arrest and cuffed with an ankle monitor who suspects danger in the neighborhood but has too little credibility to be believed.

And now there's "Kimi."

The title refers to Kimi, an electronic digital voice-activated directions-taking thingy - or however you'd describe thingies like Alexa and Siri, which is what Kimi is as well.

The difference, though, between Kimi and those other devices is that Kimi is constantly being made smarter by a ubiquitous, anonymous cadre of IT listeners whose job is to correct misunderstandings and distortions on the machine's end, which is a creepy enough concept.
The human protagonist in this "Rear Window" descendant is a Kimi-corrector named Angela, portrayed in a knock-out performance by Zoë Kravitz.

Like her forerunner characters, Angela must stay inside her house, a nonetheless very cool, spacious loft in a repurposed Seattle warehouse district refurbished into a complex of, one guesses, equally cool, spacious lofts.

But unlike her predecessors, Angela is imprisoned not by a shackle or physical immobility, but by a crippling fear of leaving her house.
Her agoraphobia has been amplified by the COVID pandemic, and so she spends her days looking out her window at her neighbors,

...particularly longingly at one, whom she sometimes invites up via text message for some brief companionship,

...after which she feels compelled to completely sanitize the place.
Otherwise she's swallowing medications, obsessively pumping hand sanitizer, brushing and re-brushing her teeth, and doing what appears to be the numbingly boring job of listening to and diagnosing piles of mundane recordings of people trying to get their Kimis to understand them,

...all the while in the grip of her paranoia and self-inflicted isolation.
But then Angela comes across a distorted Kimi recording that she listens and re-listens to until she's convinced that the sounds she's hearing are of a woman being assaulted.

More digging leads her down a digital rabbit hole where what she believes she discovers forces her to face her most terrible fear,

...and puts her life into danger that's not in her imagination.

Along with the "Rear Window" motif, "Kimi" borrows tropes from other thrillers - think "Girl with the Dragon Tattoo,"

...and there's also a device borrowed from another classic thriller that I won't mention here so as not to spoil, but which old movie fans will recognize to their delight.
I've watched "Kimi," twice so far. With the latest world news reports I'll probably have to go watch it again.

0 Comments

Suffer The Little Children

2/18/2022

0 Comments

Books By Patti Liszkay
Available On Amazon

"Equal and Opposite Reactions" http://amzn.to/2xvcgRa
and the sequel, "Hail Mary" https://www.amzn.com/1684334888
Available on Amazon.

SUFFER THE LITTLE CHILDREN

For weeks now I, like much of the rest of the world, have been following the grim news reports of Russian troops amassing at the Ukrainian border in what is being interpreted as preparation for a full-scale invasion of Ukraine.

And while the Western allies have been moving in and out of negotiations with Russia in an attempt to stop what could potentially descend into World War III, I imagine I'm not the only person who's been listening to the experts, analysts and commentators and trying to make sense of it all: Why exactly would Russian President Vladimir Putin start a war with Ukraine? If Russia invades Ukraine, what will Europe do? What will the United States do? Are we, along with Ukraine, also on the verge of a war with Russia? Whether we are or we aren't, how will this war affect us? What will it mean to us here in the United States and to the rest of the world?
In short, what is what's going on in a part of the world 5,687 miles away from me all about?
The answer finally came to me last night while I was listening to NPR and the news broke that troops in the Russian-backed separatist area between eastern Ukraine and Russia,

... fired artillery shells on the small Ukrainian border village of Stanytsia Luhanska.
The shells hit the town's kindergarten. The Fairytale Kindergarten, it's called.
A reporter spoke to one of the teachers who described how they led the children into a hallway were there were no windows. The teacher said that the children were crying and had to be brought home to their parents.
That image of those little children, terrified and crying for their parents hit me with a pang to my heart. I had a vision of my own children at that age, frightened and crying for me. I had a vision of the faces of my grand daughters, the loves of my life,

....among those of the crying children.
I went online and saw the photos of what they did to the Fairytale Kindergarten.

And then I knew what this war, that started yesterday with the destruction of the Fairytale Kindergarten, really meant.
Whatever its cause, whatever its effects, whatever its outcome, Vladimir Putin's war against Ukraine means the same thing that every war from the beginning of time has meant: Suffering children. Suffering mothers. Suffering fathers. Suffering people, young and old.
Shame on Vladimir Putin. Shame on all the bringers of war. Shame on all those who, in their greed and their hatefulness and their cruelty and their lust for power have caused the suffering of children. God's shame on them all.

0 Comments

I Must Remember This

2/14/2022

0 Comments

Books By Patti Liszkay
Available On Amazon

"Equal and Opposite Reactions" http://amzn.to/2xvcgRa
and the sequel, "Hail Mary" https://www.amzn.com/1684334888
Available on Amazon.

I MUST REMEMBER THIS

I think most of us on the amateur side of photography choose to snap the pictures we snap not so much from the desire to capture an image as from the desire capture a memory.
Among the memories I wanted to capture during this past visit to California was how unusually clear the Los Angeles sky was, so clear that one was able to see the mountains off in the distance from the second floor of the house,

...or over the rooftops while walking down one street,

...or off on the horizon while walking down another.

There's the memory of how pretty the golden light from the setting sun was in The Commons park in Playa Vista the second time we visited there, this time for an evening picnic,

...and how magical the scene was when the park lights came on,

...and illuminated the palm trees.

And then there was the magical glow of the sky and the lights early one evening when we were driving on our way to or from somewhere.

There was the time we discovered that chocolate Magic Shell works very well not only on ice cream but also on fruit from the fridge.

There was the day Tom and I went to the Manhattan Beach Library and were charmed by the jelly fish sculptures hanging from the sky-lit ceilings,

...and the view of the sea from the glass walls.

And there was my evergreen capacity to be charmed by the view of the sea from the street.

There's the memory of my grand daughters' boundless fascination with their Lego world, the table where they can so often be found building, playing,

...and not infrequently eating.

Oh, the places we go,

...and the pictures we take,

...and the memories we make.

0 Comments

The Ears Of Pinky

2/10/2022

0 Comments

"Equal and Opposite Reactions" http://amzn.to/2xvcgRa
and the sequel, "Hail Mary" https://www.amzn.com/1684334888
Available on Amazon.

THE EARS OF PINKY

This is my California grand dog,

...a little rescue male nonetheless christened as a puppy by my grand daughters with the name Rainbow Dash Sparkle Ariel Pinky Poo Fluffy Tail,

...whom we call Pinky for short.
Pinky is an affable fella who peacefully co-exists with Yajou, the family cat.

...and who has never met a human he didn't want to be sitting next to.

...or sitting on,

...or hanging out with.

Pinky contributes more than his fair share to the family cute quota.

And though Pinky's been a member of the family for almost five years, it was only during this past visit that I noticed that he had one very distinctive feature: Make that two very distinctive features: His ears.
One day I happened to notice that pinky had ears kind of like Baby Yoda's.

But then I noticed that sometimes they'd look more like grown-up Yoda's,

...or might even go into more of a half-Yoda.

Nor, I soon realized, were his ears always Yodaesque; sometimes they stood up like those of the fox in "The Little Prince."

Other times his ears would just flop back,

...or flip up as if in a "ready for take-off" position.

Seemed Pinky's ears might flip, flop, float, or point any which way.

Is Pinky trying to communicate something, his ear moves a sort of doggie sign language? Or do his ears simply have a mind of their own?
Try as we might, we may never know.

0 Comments

The Tide Pools Of Rancho Palos Verdes

2/8/2022

0 Comments

"Equal and Opposite Reactions" http://amzn.to/2xvcgRa
and the sequel, "Hail Mary" https://www.amzn.com/1684334888
Available on Amazon.

THE TIDE POOLS OF RANCHO PALOS VERDES

...Continued from yesterday:
The second and final Sunday of our visit was, happily, a free day, and so my daughter took us to see the tide pools at Abalone Cove in the costal town of Rancho Palos Verdes.

After parking the car we trekked down a hill which offered breath-taking panoramas,

...and some quite steep inclines,

...that had Tom and me wishing for our old hiking sticks.

At one point my daughter and grand daughters stopped and asked me to take a picture of them.

It wasn't until on our way back that I learned why they chose where they chose to pose:

...it being well-known that not even Indiana Jones is as scared of snakes as I am.

As it turned out, when we reached the beach it was necessary to negotiate a rather gnarly patch of rocks to reach the shore, which left my mate and me once again wishing for our hiking sticks.

In any case we made it down to the beach,

...where we caught sight of the tide pools a little ways down the shoreline.

Tide pools are litte shallow pools of seawater that will form at low tide among the rocks along a rocky shoreline.

Various forms of sea life can be seen in tide pools, which is what attracts visitors such as ourselves.

As for me, the rocks being quite...rocky, I didn't venture out much past the edge where there wasn't much sea water or, consequently, much sea life action,

However my daughter and grand daughters, who ventured father out into the tide,

...reported seeing lots of crabs and colorful sea anemones.

Meahwhile I was contented to stroll along the shoreline,

...and enjoy the views,

...while Tom found himself a perch on the rocks from which to take it all in.

When my grand daughters came prancing back from the tide pools I shared with them a photo texted to me from my daughter in Columbus showing the weather there.

"Awwww!" the girls moaned in unison. "No fair! They have snow!"

0 Comments

Expensive Days, Cheap Days, Free Days

2/6/2022

0 Comments

Books By Patti Liszkay
Available On Amazon

"Equal and Opposite Reactions" http://amzn.to/2xvcgRa
and the sequel, "Hail Mary" https://www.amzn.com/1684334888
Available on Amazon.

EXPENSIVE DAYS, CHEAP DAYS, FREE DAYS

...Continued from yesterday:
The weekdays begin for my grand daughters with the hilly half-mile walk to school,

...during which they're usually joined by some neighborhood friends.

Tom and I usually also started our day walking with them,

...it being such a pleasant walk through the neighborhood,

...even on the occasional overcast, jungly-looking January days.

Each morning on the kitchen counter there would be left a list of that day's after school activities, which Tom and I had taken on the duty of overseeing during our two-week visit.
On the girls' first day back to school after the long weekend (see previous post https://www.ailantha.com/blog/california-dreamin-on-an-icy-ohio-day) I was looking over that day's briefing on who needed to be where at what time.
"Do you have any free days this week?" I asked my grand daughters.
"Not today, for sure," replied my ten-year-old grand daughter. "Today is an expensive day."
"An expensive day?" I said.
She explained. "If a day with nothing to do is a free day, then a day with a lot to do must be an expensive day, Wednesday might be a free day,"
"No, I have soccer on Wednesday," her younger sister piped up. "But that's all we have."
"So Wednesday is a cheap day," she said.
Thus we planned each day's configuration according to whether it was an expensive day, a cheap day, or a free day, working in time for homework,

...helping with chores,

...baking some personalized pies,

...or brownies,

...or pizza from scratch.

And even on the most expensive days there was always time for some reading,

...and some chilling.

There were a few half-day dismissal days, which were almost as good as free days, which gave us time to do some shopping,

...or to go out for lunch a couple of times to Mandy's,

...a cute diner with such a classic-looking interior,

...that, according to the wait staff, movie scenes are occasionally shot there.

My grand daughters love to to go to Mandy's to sit at the counter,

...and drink milk shakes.

Expensive days, cheap days, free days,

...they were all priceless.

0 Comments

California Dreamin' On An Icy Ohio Day

2/4/2022

0 Comments

Books By Patti Liszkay
Available On Amazon

"Equal and Opposite Reactions" http://amzn.to/2xvcgRa
and the sequel, "Hail Mary" https://www.amzn.com/1684334888
Available on Amazon.

CALIFORNIA DREAMIN' ON AN ICY OHIO DAY

. Yesterday Ohio was pummelled by an ice storm, followed last night by a snow storm

All day yesterday what looked like rain falling down, but sounded like pellets, left a pretty coating of ice on the plants,

...and a treacherous coating on the driveways and roads.

By this morning the ice was covered with six inches of still-falling snow,

... which Tom and I spent the morning shoveling from our driveway,

...stopping to chat now and then with the neighbors who were also out shoveling their driveways and sidewalks.

Now, while the snow continues to blow around in the air outside, I've parked myself in front of the fire,

...while I recall that one week ago I was still in Los Angeles, enjoying the balmy weather,

...the cerulean blue skies,

...the mountains on one horizon,

...the sea on another,

...the sunshine,

...and the sunshine of my life.

Tom and I arrived in Los Angeles on Saturday, January 15 and returned to Columbus two weeks later on Saturday, January 29. As soon as we arrivied we stepped into the household routine, which, shortly after our arrival, involved fixing lunch.

Later in the day the girls and I launched into some crafts projects that I'd brought with me.

They made jewelry from two-sided puffy stickers,

...while I tried my hand at pipe-cleaner animals.

Mayhaps no works of art for my first tries,

...still, my eight-year-old grand daughter wanted them for her baggie of valuables.

The following morning we drove to nearby Playa Vista, catching a surreal mountain view along the way,

...for a get-together with some relatives.
While the others got together at a park for a few rounds of pickle-ball, a game that, to my understanding, appears to be a morph of tennis and ping-pong (though I expect I could be totally wrong about this),

...Tom and I walked around Playa Vista to have a look at the sights.

After the pickle-ball games we all met up again at a beautiful park called The Commons,

...for a picnic brunch.

As the next day was Martin Luther King day, a school holiday, we went out for dinner that night to one of my favorite area restaurants, Scotty's in Hermosa Beach,