The Bakery & The Bins...

We left the kiddos with their dads and us gals had a morning in Escondido.

We began our outing by meeting DIL #1's Mom, Julie, at A Delight of France.
Belatedly celebrating Julie's birthday (and to fuel our bargain hunting), we enjoyed the delights of France with coffee and almond croissants.
This flakey treat is the barometer in which I measure a bakery. This was a pretty successful stop.
Our destination was the Goodwill Outlet Center, lovingly nicknamed The Bins.
The pricing is intoxicating: adult clothing is 15 pieces for $25 (that's $1.66 each item), and children's wear for only two pieces for 99￠. We combine our treasures to guarantee the best deal possible.
We all came home with screaming deals, great memories, and happy pocketbooks.
Some of the treasures found did not come home with me but had to be documented. I loved this shirt, Save the USPS.

"Buying something on sale is a very special feeling.
In fact, the less I pay for something,
the more it is worth to me.
I have a dress that I paid so little for that I am afraid to wear it.
I could spill something on it,
and then how would I replace it for that amount of money?"
-Rita Rudner

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LA Part 2: La Brea Tar Pits

After a morning at the Walt Disney Concert Hall we went to the La Brea Tar Pits. It had been years (at least 20) since we visited the the only "Ice Age fossil site in the world that's being actively excavated in the middle of a city."

The Tar Pits have fascinated scientists and visitors for over a century. Over the last 50,000 years, Ice Age animals, plants, and insects were trapped in sticky asphalt, which preserved them to be discovered today. Steve and I both came as children and have never forgotten it.
In 1963, Rancho La Brea was designated a National Natural Landmark by the National Park Service.
Exploring Hancock Park, where over 100 fossil quarries, commonly called pits have been excavated, is free and open to the public. Since we arrived too late in the day to explore the museum, we meandered through through this 23 acre
historic site.
The iconic Lake Pit, located in front of the museum, is actually a pit left over from asphalt mining operations in the late 1800s. Rain and groundwater has collected above the bubbling asphalt, creating a small lake. The lake’s bubbles, sheet, and distinctive odor come from a deep underground oil field. Here we all marveled at the recreation of a mammoth becoming trapped in tar.

Since 1906, more than one million bones have been recovered, representing over 231 species of vertebrates. In addition, 159 species of plants and 234 species of invertebrates have been identified. It is estimated that the collections at La Brea Tar Pits contain about three million items.


I remember, so clearly, walking through this park and seeing oozing asphalt. How fun for our grands to make the same memories.


The extinct animals discovered at La Brea Tar Pits were trapped in the asphalt between 11,000 to 50,000 years ago. They may have lived in the Los Angeles region for much of the last 100,000 years. Before that time the Los Angeles Basin was covered by the Pacific Ocean.

Each of the Dig sites provided unique information.
Asphalt (misnamed tar) is very sticky, particularly when it is warm. Small mammals, birds, and insects inadvertently coming into contact with it would be immobilized as if trapped like flies on flypaper. The feet and legs of heavier animals might sink a few inches below the surface. Depending on the time of day or year, strong and healthy animals might have managed to escape, but others would have been held fast until they died of exhaustion, or fell prey to passing predators. A single, mired large herbivore might attract the attention of a dozen predatory birds and mammals, some of which would in turn become trapped and provide more food for other carnivores.




This was the place Steve and I came to which left such lasting impressions: the Observation Pit.
The observation pit (sadly closed) is a partially excavated deposit of fossils and bubbling asphalt enclosed in a circular building that first opened in 1952. With a depth of excavation 12 feet and located on the site of Pit 101, the display in the Observation Pit demonstrates what the fossil localities looked like while being excavated. This building was dedicated in 1951 to the memory of Dr. Chester Stock, the Caltech professor and County Museum curator, who personally described many of the different kinds of fossil mammals recovered from the tar pits.

Like so many things, we only scratched the surface of this amazing place and have made a pact to return again, soon!

“The La Brea Tar Pits were a place where the skin of the world broke open to reveal the magic underneath, and the life-sized plaster mammoth sculptures emphasized a very important message: Do not mess with the tar.”― Greg Van Eekhout, California Bones

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LA Part 1: Walt Disney Concert Hall

Six of us piled into the car and headed to Los Angeles for the Toyota Symphonies for Youth: Stravinsky's Firebird.

Steve and I attended a performance in this series a few years ago. To read more about this outstanding venue click here.
We feel this particular symphony was the perfect way to introduce our young music fans to the concert hall. At the LA Phil, they believe in the power of music to spark imaginations and shape young lives.
The Symphonies for Youth concerts invite children ages 5 to 11 to soak up the sounds of a world-class orchestra while experiencing the thrill of live performance. Steve and I came the first time sans kids and loved it so much we thought we'd see how the grandchildren would like it (they were mesmerized).
Today's performance was based on a classic Russian folktale. Igor Stravinsky’s ballet The Firebird was full of magic and romance (and was a tad confusing for Steve and me since, unlike our children, we didn't do any research beforehand). It told the story of the handsome Prince Ivan, his beautiful princess Katerina, and the magical firebird that saves them from the evil King Kaschei. Confusing or not, it was a wonderful production and an unforgettable event.
We like this symphony series because the performances are short (45 minutes) and the tickets are affordable ($25). In addition, they begin at 11 AM giving us the entire day, post-show, to experience more in Los Angeles. 
We're already planning for next year!
“There is no beauty in Music itself,
the beauty is within the listener.”
― Igor Stravinsky

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History Through Matchbooks...

While I was at Julie's a couple of weeks ago, we took a trip down Memory Lane and had a wonderful time remembering when while looking through her parents' collection of matchbooks (I wish I had the large glass fish my parents used to store their matchbooks. I miss all we discarded throughout the years).

A little history... Although paper matches were patented in the 1880s, an early paper match "folder" was patented in September 1892 by Philadelphia patent attorney Joshua Pusey. However, the matchbook, as we know it, was patented a few weeks later by Charles Bowman.
Matchbooks reached their golden age in the 1940s and 1950s, with fine artwork and a dazzling variety of types and sizes. In the mid-1980s, the American match industry collapsed, a victim of high labor costs and overseas competition, and with the current anti-smoking campaigns and disposable lighters, the easy availability of the matchbook has been on the decline since the early 1990s.
Many of Julie's treasures were ones I would have found in my own collection and many are ones I wish I had today.
The California Driving School is one of the largest Professional Driving Schools in America today, and one of the largest in the world. It started decades ago in Los Angeles, and has spread throughout the state. Interestingly, it taught Julie's mom when she came to California as a non-driver.
Even Army Recruiting used this type of free advertising. Wild.
The Space Age was depicted in matchbook art in the form of a set of 4 different designs for the NASA Lunar Missions. The Space Age is a period encompassing the activities related to the Space Race, space exploration, space technology, and the cultural developments influenced by these events, beginning with the launch of Sputnik 1 during 1957, and continuing to the present.

So much evidence of 'what once was' was found including several souvenirs from casinos in Las Vegas. Imperial Palace was an Asian-themed hotel and casino that operated from 1979 to 2011.



This brought back a flood of memories. My Mom and I dined at The Magic Pan and being as my Mom was a smoker, we probably had many of these around our house. The Magic Pan was a chain of full-service restaurants that specialized in crêpes, popular in the early 1970s through early 1990s. The first Magic Pan was a small place in San Francisco established by Hungarian immigrants Lazlo and Paulette Fono. The Quaker Oats Company acquired The Magic Pan in 1970, and it became the company's primary restaurant chain. I loved their split pea soup, with a dollop of sour cream (or sherry if you preferred). Wow.
Jojos Restaurants was a chain from 1971-2003. I worked there for a few years until is was taken over by Coco's. Waitressing paid for my college and Jojos was a great place to work.
I began in 1978 as a hostess.
When I turned 18, I a transitioned to food service (where the real money was). This photo was taken in the men's room with two coworkers (I'm on the left). I'm not quite sure why this photoshoot happened but the memories the matchbook and photos evoked are good ones.
Oh man, Pompeii's Nightclub in Cathedral City (Palm Springs)! This was certainly Julie's contribution to her parents' collection.
Built in 1957, the building was originally a dining club called Romanoff's on the Rocks. After a number of changes in owners, it became Pompeii's Nightclub in 1983 (ten years later is was closed due to an arson fire). Everyone our age made the drive to party in this new club. Both Steve and I went separately. What a crack up.
Whether the matchbook will eventually disappear all together in the future is anyone's guess. Because of its American origins, the matchbook has always been basically a phenomenon of the Western World. The rest of the world has always mainly stayed with the matchbox. One would think, at least domestically, that the matchbook would stay alive for its advertising advantages alone...we'll see. I know vintage ones are costly so maybe the powers that be will bring them back!

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