Yeah, that’s right. Birfday. I like to say birfday. Whatevs.
~ Breakfast here — one of our favorite spots on La Jolla Cove:
See that outside balcony? Yeah. That’s where we always sit, if possible. Because the ocean is right there. Right across from you. Beautiful view. Several years ago, sitting on our special balcony eating our cheese steamers, we saw a whale. Yep. We’re just sipping our coffee — yo di doh — when suddenly, this massive grey thing with white splotches surfaced not far out in the water. I could not believe it. It could not have been anything else. Not a dolphin, not a seal, not a shark. Dude was a freakin’ whale.
Here’s the inside of our favorite bungalow-on-the-beach cafe:
I had to crop this a lot to get it to fit, but if you look on the left there, you’ll see a tiny edge of the big abalone fireplace that’s always crackling with a fire on blustery mornings. Lovely and cozy. I don’t mind sitting inside on those mornings.
So imagine us here, if you will. If you look at the first picture and count the balcony windows starting from the left, we were sitting at that third window. Sitting two tables away from us, under that first window, were the two loudest, uhm, highest people in the world. I had my back to them and could only hear the conversation, so MB filled in the descriptive blanks. “Okay. He’s probably mid-forties, greying hair, can’t see his face. She’s probably mid-twenties, bleached hair, tight dress, tattoo covering her entire upper arm. Skanky looking.” But this is how the conversation basically sounded as it blasted our way:
DUDE: OH, MY GAWD! ONE TIME I WAS SO F***ED UP, I JUST KEPT THROWING UP, YOU KNOW. I WAS TOTALLY SEEING WEIRD SH**. I MEAN, I WAS JUST F***ED UP, YOU KNOW?
CHICK: HAHAHAHAHA!
DUDE: I KNOW! IT WAS SO F***IN’ FUNNY!
CHICK: HAHAHAHAHA!
DUDE: I KNOW!
CHICK: HAHAHAHAHA!
(pause)
CHICK: I HAD THIS DREAM — BEN AFFLECK WAS IN IT!
DUDE: HAHAHAHAHA!
CHICK: IT WAS TOTALLY REAL!
DUDE: HAHAHAHAHA!
(pause)
DUDE: DREAMS ARE JUST LIKE REAL LIFE.
CHICK: TOTALLY.
(pause)
CHICK: SO THIS CHEAP BASTARD I WORK FOR, HE ONLY GAVE ME AN EXTRA 5 BUCKS TO STAND IN THE PICTURE WINDOW. I LIKE TO BE IN THE VIEWING ROOM — THE OLD MEN TIP GOOD. MARINES NEVER HAVE SH**. YOU WANNA TOUCH MY KNEE, DUDE? THAT’S 20 BUCKS, FOR SH**’S SAKE!
DUDE: HAHAHAHAHA!
It was really romantic, you know, having the middle-aged tweaker and the tattooed stripper as the background music to our breakfast.
~ After breakfast, as we approached our car in the parking garage, there was a tiny old man sweeping the parking space next to ours. Sweeping and sweeping and sweeping. Quite engrossed. We stood back and waited — because MB is a gentleman and always opens the door for me. Finally, he glanced up at us, startled, then gallantly stepped aside as MB opened the door for me. As we pulled away, I looked at him standing there — standing at attention almost, broom in front of him, hands wrapped around the top — and he smiled and waved at me. I smiled and waved back at him. For some reason, I got a little teary eyed as we drove up the hill.
~ Later, we went to see The Dark Knight. The performances were all great. Heath Ledger is creepy, creepy, creepy. Nightmare creepy. Maggie Gyllenhaal has such an odd weary wholesomeness about her — but I always like her. Christian Bale? Basically the best Batman ever. In my opinion, he’s the only Batman/Bruce Wayne who’s actually played the part with a sense of context, a sense of this man’s history. His Bruce Wayne is not very likable; he’s a bit of a jerk, basically; he grew up damaged and traumatized and spoiled and Bale plays him that way. Why would someone like that be this benevolent heroic soul? He’s a tortured person and Bale gets that. Doing the right thing feels like it’s actually a struggle for him. Struggle is stasis; stasis is struggle — that’s the sense I get from Bale’s performance. He’s really one of my favorite actors around today. Aaron Eckhart — also great. Love his transformation. When is this guy going to get his due? He is just always good. Always stands out. The story as a whole, though — to me — was chaotic and about 45 minutes too long. At three different points, I thought the movie was about to end only to be proven wrong. It almost felt like a kind of stubbornness on the director’s part. This iron refusal to end the movie until he’d included every possible perilous situation involving every possible vulnerable character and, oh, several hundred random strangers. Exhausting. The overall effect is exhaustion — but I do recommend it for the performances.
~ As we waited for the movie to start, I noticed a large black 20-something dude and his large Hispanic girlfriend sitting in the row below us. They left a seat between them — which I thought was weird — until I noticed that the middle seat was The Snack Seat. You got epic snacks? Multitudinous snacks? You, my moviegoing friend, need The Snack Seat. Spread out. Relax. It’s just like home, right? Hand-holding? Feh. Maybe your hands will touch in the popcorn bag. Maybe you’ll finger fight over the M&M’s. Maybe you can slap his hand away from your Red Vines. ‘Sfun. ‘Spractical. ‘Sromantic. Through the crack between the seats, I watched the dude start to eat his popcorn. He took a couple of bites and suddenly began throw popcorn on the floor all around him, willy-nilly, while loudly proclaiming, “There ain’t NOTHIN’ fresh about this popcorn!! NOTHIN’ FRESH!!” (So, naturally, my choice is to befoul my personal area rather than getting fresh popcorn or not eating any more of it. “There ain’t NOTHIN’ fresh about these clothes! NOTHIN’ FRESH! I gotta poo my pants!”) Lordy. What a wanker. The Bigs left about 20 minutes before the movie ended. I said, “Guess they got bored.” MB said, “Guess they ran out of snacks.” As we got up to leave, I glanced down at the flotsam and jetsam scattered around their seats, watching as people scowled and picked their way past it.
~ Later, at dinner, MB and I shared a complimentary birthday dessert: La Pyramide d’Opera. Huh? I dunno. I couldn’t really say it. I was frankly intimidated by it. But that didn’t stop me from eating it. Oh, no. My shyness vanished the moment I got a gander at it: A dark chocolate mousse pyramid — hence, the “La Pyramide” part of the name — with a thin crushed hazelnut crust and a dainty scoop of caramel ice cream. Strawberries and blueberries and caramel drizzle as garnishes on the plate. Oh, heavenly yum. I never did learn the origin of the “d’Opera” part of the name. Was a fat lady supposed to come and sing whilst we ate it? The dude from the movie, maybe, to serenade us? “There ain’t NOTHIN’ fresh about this Pyramide d’Opera! NOTHIN’ FRESH!”
~ After dinner, we went for a sunset drive. We turned down one pretty palm-lined street and in the middle of the road, another tiny old man. It was seriously deja vu. No broom in his hand, but he was engrossed, staring at something in the street we couldn’t yet see. As we slowly approached, he looked up, and began to kind of totter off to the sidewalk. We drove by — still very slowly — and he stood watching on the sidewalk, smiling and waving at me. I teared up a little bit again.
My birthday was all about tiny old men waving at me.
I loved that.
