The hill are ablaze

With the sound of... Crackling flames?

Our simple aim for today was to get some Modest Mouse and Sonic Youth tix for the Greek Theatre, situated in the Hollywood Hills within Griffith Park. Aha, we thought. We could expose the dog (oh dear, this and the other blogs are turning into doggy-bloggies...) to more sights and sounds as part of her socialisation routine. Get her used to being distracted by pseudo-wildlife, but in a controlled manner in the process of a short hike up Mt Hollywood sort of thing. (Yes, it's really called Mt. Hollywood.)

Trying to avoid the heat of being under the midday sun, we thought we'd set out early-ish. At least early for us on a Saturday. Which would have gone fine if we'd been to bed a few hours earlier than 4am. (I blame Pedro Almodovar; his latest film Volver had us glued to our seats from midnight till 2am because the DVD just came out and it's hard to go to sleep after such an emotionally-engaging movie.) But clever little D made some PB+J sandwiches so we could breakfast at the park, irrespective of finding an open cafe.

So, all's well. We're loaded up in the car, hurtling along the 405, 101 (which can turn into the 134 if you use the right spell and the planets are in alignment),: road names that are incomprehensible to non-angelinos (even if you don't drive in LA, everyone complains so bitterly about freeways like the 405, 101, 110 and the 10 so much that you know all about them even if you never see them). We arrive through the north entrance of Griffith Park as part of our allegedly clever ploy to avoid the congested streets south of the park. All's going well. We turn down Mt. Hollywood Drive because our map shows it'll lead us straight to the roads for Griffith Observatory and the Greek Theatre. We stupidly ignore signs that say "no-thru traffic" because I don't like the way they spell "through" here, and we are clueless foreigners who don't watch the local news (no TV) and don't venture out of Westside very much.

So, we climb uphill/mountain, and we see the (in)famous Hollywood sign (which we found out after getting home was nearly the inflam-ous Hollywood sign) and a heck of a lot of people on foot and on bicycles. We see dogs, but our dog is strapped in and sitting calmly, so we're fine. We see a young coyote, but our dog is strapped in, hyperventilating, but strapped in, so we're fine. Then we get to the bottom of the hill/mountain, where a very nice, solid candy cane barrier awaits us. Aha. Revelation. No-thru road signs mean what they say. Which we suspected, but were too belary-eyed to pay much heed to.

Not much lost, except patience all round. Bugger this all for a game of soldiers. Or, at least, a picnic in one of the rest-stops. Where we learn our dog can be a stubborn wee cow about sniffing out every last mole under the grass. Yes dear, we see the molehills and know they excite your "prey-drive" (someone's been reading too many dog behaviour websites), but let's move on cos we're starving and coffee-deprived at that. But it turns out that however disastrous our start to the day in the park was, however annoyed we were about the lack of time for hiking, the right thing to do was just to expose her to all these new sights and smells by just sitting calmly for some time. She was fairly calmly with with off-leash dogs trotting obediently by, but that was more good behaviour by the other dogs than her. And she watched, with great interest, horses also trotting by and was as calm as we can expect from her even when one particularly recalcitrant horse was re-saddled about 50m in front of her. We even watched a gopher/gerbil/small-hamster-like-creature* stick its head out of its burrow multiple times to harvest some grass in its hamster-like cheeks (so, not moles then... more like gophers out of Caddyshack).

All very uninteresting to regular folk, but a major achievement in our growing relationship with our four-year old mutt who behaves like a one-year old puppy sometimes. We took her out. We brough her back. Safely. Step one in getting her to trust us for the eventuality of many hikes, be they in the US of A, or back home where horses, cows and sheep abound.

We even managed to get those tickets for Modest Mouse and Sonic Youth. Hurrah! Two things checked off the list today then. I'm guessing the through-road was barred because of the possible heavy-traffic headed for the newly-reopened Observatory, for which we learned one needs to reserve a parking space online in advance. (No doubt we'd have found that out before if we hadn't been so captivated by Volver). No matter. You want the Box Office? Do a U-turn; you can park in front of the Box Office. Cool beans.

Now, the journey home? That's a whole 'nother saga. But I'm still too traumatised to talk about that...

*I don't think it was a gopher; too small. Maybe someone's escaped hamster?

Take a Load Off Your Feet, Mama Says I Heard it (through the Grapevine) that Sometimes it Snows in April

Deviating from our usual venue of the Walt Disney Concert Hall, our eyebrows were raised by an entertaining evening of "contemporary" ballet at the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion (just across the street from the WDCH). The Joffrey Ballet is in town, and they're charming the audience of LA with their spiced up routines, pirouetting to the Beach Boys, Motown and Prince.

I'm always amazed by the sheer athleticism artfully disguised as elegance that all good ballet companies display. As a friend commented, "it's amazing how they can be so slow and graceful one minute, and manic the next". All that careful control of their bodies to give an impression of effortlessness must be damn tiring. Which is why I like watching them rather than trying to emulate them.

Something that occurred to me watching the Joffrey Ballet prance diagonally back and forth the stage to Prince's Sometimes it snows in April was how I'd forgotten what a good songwriter and singer he was/is. To a non-fan like myself, it's been hard to see past the silly name changes and hair-turbans for the last few years. But he's a good musician, isn't he? We might even make the effort to see him in Las Vegas if we ever go that way again.

This is yet another photo-less post because in typical disorganised D fashion, I left the camera at home and failed to capture the rather nice view from the LA Music Center. It looks rather grown-up and not very LA-like at night. Methinks we'll be getting more dance and theatre tickets soon for an excuse to go back. Also,I sometimes forget about this LA blog, and post to my other space for talking rot. Fixed belatedly...

Kirin

As of January, we no longer live in LA. We're now residents of Santa Monica. Unfortunately, this difference is purely semantic. SM, while considered a city in its own right, is still part of the sprawling conglomerate of cities and towns that make up LA County. It's also been one of those situations where we've moved only to stay still. As you can see in the photo above, hiding just behind P's legs is the one thing that is going to make the next few months in LA bearable.

We've always considered ourselves "dog people". Well, not specifically dogs only, because we love cats just as well (Muran! We miss you!). OK, maybe more like "pet people". And it's really rankled that because of my job, I can't keep certain pets. And because of the time we both spend at work, we couldn't have dogs for years. The lack of job security for postdocs also meant we never knew where we were going to be on a year-by-year basis. Well, no more excuses! We can always MAKE time for a dog. And we have. A few things have fallen by the wayside since acquiring Kirin. We gave away our TV, we spend an average of one hour less at work per day (thank goodness), and we don't hang out with my workmates as much. Instead, we have something worthwhile to come home to. And for now, home is where the dog is.

Addendum: Kirin was adopted from Much Love, a dog rescue organisation based in Santa Monica. They're really nice folk, and are careful about pairing the right dog to the right human. Every Sunday, you can find them in a parking lot on Main Street, just half a block away from Ocean Park Blvd between 1000 and 1500h. And they always have the cutest dogs available.