Tennis anyone?

 

     Last week my husband insisted that I go out to the desert and enjoy a few days at the BNP Paribas Open tennis tournament. If you’re not familiar, it’s considered the “fifth slam” and draws all the top players to one of the largest stadiums and events in the world. We’ve been a few times, but since we took our son last year and he wasn’t so into it, my DH thought I should just go by myself and have a good time. Which I did. The plan was go to the day session on Thursday, and then on the way back spend a day at Glen Ivy Hot Springs in Corona, which I’ve been wanting to go to forever. They are famous for their mud baths. Anyway, the draw on Thursday turned out to be pretty weak, hardly anyone I recognized and a lot of qualifiers and wild cards. Don’t get me wrong, these can be great matches. I remember going to the qualifying rounds at the US Open years ago and it was great. It was the first round though, and there was a definite lack of enthusiasm around the grounds. The first place I headed was the practice courts to watch one of my all time favorites Martina Hingis getting ready for her doubles match. She looked in really great shape, so much that I wished she would start playing singles again (fat chance). The over to the match of the day which was the return of Mardy Fish playing fellow American Ryan Harrison. I was hard to tell who was the underdog, as Mardy was once a top player but has 11 years on his opponent. It was a really good match and Mardy almost pulled off taking the second set, but Harrison prevailed. It was nice to see him play well but he ended up falling in the next round. Then I headed over to stadium 2 to watch Hingis and Mirza win their match. General admission in this court can get you really close to the action if you can find a seat. I stayed for bits of a few more underwhelming matches before calling it a day. I had been there since noon and had almost burst into flames, but the evening was really nice. I decided then that I would have to come back for the night session the next day to see Serena Williams make her return to the tournament after 14 years away.
   
     I got to the tennis garden as soon as they let the night session in at 4:30 and watched Nadal play doubles. Most of the top players are playing doubles here and draw huge crowds. Then I checked out the practice court schedule. Federer. There was a bit of a line but I finally got up there, one court away from where he was hitting. For tennis fans, he is god. Not a god or the god, just god. After he was done he was sitting around talking to his team and the crowd near the fence started cheering for him to come over. A girl in front of me yelled “yay Roger, the way you sit in that chair!” and we all cracked up, because I think everyone would have stayed around another hour just to behold him. He finally went over and spend a long time signing autographs and taking photos, so I got as close as I could to his highness.

     

     Then I bounced around a few matches before discovering the wonderful lounge chairs in front of the 3 screens showing the matches going on. I thought this would be a great place to park it while waiting for the night match. The life. Then I grabbed  glass of Pinot and headed up to the major nosebleed seats. Now I have not always been a major Serena fan, but I’ve always enjoyed watching her play. Her entrance, though, and the reception she got was really something special. There was a standing ovation that just kept going on and she was clearly very moved by it. And then there was the match with Niculescu, which was surprisingly competitive. I’m pretty sure I’ve never seen her play, but it was close and very entertaining at times. Serena ended up winning in a tight 2 sets and the crowd was of course pulling for her all the way, but really showing some love to Nuculescu for some phenomenal shot-making. There was a salute to heroes afterward honoring military and first responders. I stayed for a few games of the Kyrgios/Kudla match, but it was late and I had to drive back to LA that night.
   

     I really feel like I learned how to do Indian Wells this time - here’s a few tips:
*Check the order of play online to see which day and session to go to
*Buy tickets online
*Plan which matches you’re going to hit
*Bring snacks, an empty water bottle, sunblock and a hat, and a seat cushion if you’re in the grandstand seats on Stadium 1. If you’re going to a night session, check the weather because it can get cold.
*Get there early to park/walk/get through bag check/buy a draw sheet/hit the head/fill your water bottle
*Check the practice court schedule and spend some time there
*Try to get a seat where the sun isn’t on you the whole time (it sets in back of the mountains)
*If you’re pooped, plop yourself down in front on the jumbo screens, grab cocktail and chillax.
     This is a very chill tournament, so if you’re in Socal you should definitely check it out. Meantime, I’ve been keeping up with the action on Tennis channel and ESPN. Serena, Roger, Djoko and Murray still all in there.

On Wednesday my back finally felt well enough for yoga so I took Dice Iida-Klein's class at Yoga Glo. I had taken from him before and knew he was kind of athletic, so I took the one hour Level 2. It was an interesting Vinyasa flow where something is added on each time. I think we did about 6 cycles and boy it was killer. He is known for his arm balances and handstands and he threw one in on the mat after all that, but there was no way I was trying it at that point. I was just happy to have made it through the class. Later I had some wrist pain that was probably from not planting my hand down firmly enough, but luckily it was gone by the next day. If a teacher is always getting on you to plant your index finger joint down, that's the reason. 

     I finally completed the roman shade for my bathroom, and it looks really cute. It was so labor intensive and took so much time and table space that I'm not sure I'd do it again. There's a store around the corner form me called Fabric Planet that has a great selection of fabric remnants and trim and also does curtains and alterations. I recently ordered some ottoman cushions from Lowe's to match the chair cushions on my patio furniture, but they are a few inches too long. Knowing how I am with projects like this and wanting to actually use them this year, I think bringing them over there might be a good idea.

     I started 2 new books. The one I'm reading is The Bat by Jo Nesbo.

It's the first in the Harry Hole series. I read The Snowman a few years ago which is the 7th in the series, and it was so good I wanted to read them all. It took me a while to track this down because it hadn't been available in English until recently, and I've collected almost all the others. This one is set in Australia but still qualifies as Nordic Noir.

On audiobook I'm listening to Here if You Need Me, which is the true story of a woman who became a chaplain for the Maine State Forest Service after her husband's death.










As far as podcasts go, I've been getting a little bored of the ones I've been listening to a lot, so I tried a few others on my list, like Star Talk Radio with Neil Degrasse-Tyson and another one called Meet the Composer, which is an in-depth conversation and exploration of a modern composer. There's so much stuff out there that I think it's a good idea to actively search out new things and thenactually listen to them. 

     I finished The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up, and it's really starting to change the way I think about things - acquiring them, storing them, getting rid of them, etc. While I haven't put the full system in place, I did try one trick about folding things up in drawers and stacking them vertically. This is really amazing and I highly recommend it. My drawer of tops before was a jumbled mess, and I didn't even know what was in there. After culling what I didn't need, I can see everything as soon as I open the drawer and choose what I actually want to wear, not just whatever's on top. I even did my husband's scrub drawer too so he could feel like a Japanese surgeon. Adorable. I really like what she has to say about the less you have, the more you're able to see what you value and what direction you want to go in life.

 


     

Too much fun

   

     I can't believe it's been a week and a half since I've blogged anything. I was so good at the beginning of the year doing it every day, then every other, but there's just been way to much activities/festivities and fun going on. Last weekend was my husband's birthday weekend. We made it  a weekend because instead of going away we decided to do a staycation here in LA filled with fun stuff that we never do - namely, venture east of the 405. Friday evening I wanted us to go to The Museum of Death in Hollywood, but the logistics of traffic means that we have to put that off for another time. It sounds really cool though, so when we finally get there I'll be sure to report back. We opted to chill at home for a few hours and take naps instead. What we did do was go The Prince for dinner. It's one of those LA institutions set in a historic building, this one in Koreantown. It's also the setting for the bar scenes in New Girl, which we're big fans of , so I thought he'd get a kick out of it. The food was amazing - I had some vegetable dumplings. We've been really getting into Korean food lately. I don't eat meat, but they're known for their fried chicken. The hubs had some kind of chicken dish and loved it. The have a private room for parties and lots of banquets. It's a fun place for a group of friends and a great place to take out-of-towners.

     

This much fun should be illegal

     Saturday was his actual birthday do we wanted to do some grown-up things. Our son went to a sleepover and off we went. We finally made a trip to Greystone Mansion which is an historic site in Beverly Hills. They have tours of the interiors but unfortunately they're only on the first Saturday of the month. We did walk around the grounds which were lovely and had an impressive view of the city. The site is used extensively for weddings and other events as well as filming. I really wanted us to go to the Chado Tea Room after this, but the Hollywood location was in the Hollywood and Vine complex and I could see it would be a nightmare getting in and out of there, so we stopped in a little place along Melrose instead. The Chado is something I first saw on Groupon and it looked like a fun activity. Besides afternoon tea, they have a tea tasting and a store. There are several locations around LA. Since my son really loves tea we might do this with him another time. 

     For dinner, we went to another LA institution, Lucques. I've been hearing about this place forever and have seen Suzanne Goin all over the chef shows. I would describe it as Rustic Continental cuisine. We started with salads of burrata and root vegetables. Hubs had a beef dish which he claimed was devine. I had the ricotta gnocchi, which were these pillows of perfection on top of sunchoke purée, pea shoots, chanterelles, pecorino and pistachios. Wow. I'm obsessed with her now and want to get her cookbooks. Beyond the flavors it was the textures which were really memorable and unique. The dining room itself is pretty small, though there is a patio area. There's a small bar and a cozy fireplace as you walk it. It's incredibly romantic and the service was great.

     

     In the theme of the weekend, I planned a lot, but we ended up doing about half. After dinner, we realized that we had 4 hours to kill before the late-night event, so we decided to once a gain go home and take naps, but not before grabbing some tres leche cake at Whole Foods to sing happy birthday with. Then we were off to North Hollywood to Zombie Zoe's Underground Theatre. I was trying to find something really unusual and there's a lot out there, including roller derby and burlesque and Mexican wrestling, but none of those we going on that night. After searching around I came to this theatre doing some weird stuff, so we went to see an 11pm show called The Nightmares Trio. I've seen (and done) quite a bit of experimental theatre, but never anything quite like this. This production had 3 very compelling performers and a musician. It was dark and sexy and touched on a little bit of everything and somehow tied it all together. You should see it, and if you like it, like we did, you'll be back. Outside the theatre I saw a friend from college that I hadn't seen for years. He was a long time fan and was getting set to mount a show there himself, so we got to meet Zombie Joe. We talked about the writing process for these shows and some of the other things they do there. They've been in the space for more than 20 years, and though it was a struggle getting attention up in the valley for a long time, they've lately gotten a lot of critical love from the LA Times which has been great for them. 

     Sunday we had to take our son downtown for rehearsal, so we took that opportunity to visit another LA landmark, Grand Central Market. This was kind of like the Original Farmer's Market by the Grove, but much more crowded, bustling, ethnic and downtown. After walking the whole place, we settled on Berlin Currywurst as they had a tofu option for me. You can specify the level of heat, the way it's served and the toppings. It was pretty good, but I have to say not nearly as good as Wurstkuche. The sausage was small and the bread was overpowering, but the flavor was pretty good. We ordered the fries which were amazing. 

     After this we stopped in to The Last Bookstore. This is an old bank building which has been converted to a retail and art space. Downstairs is the bookstore which carries both new and a curated selection of used books, CDs, DVDs and vinyl. Upstairs has the rest of the books in a warren-like maze of rooms, art gallery spaces and Gather, downtown's only yarn store. 

     I finally got to go inside as every other time I've been down here it was closed. It's a very tiny space with a small selection of yarn, some of which is from indie dyers. I had planned for us to go on a walking tour of downtown with Free LA Tour, but the skies looked threatening and my hubs, being a good dad, sacrificed his jacket to the kid. Once again we opted to go home and take naps, which was a good thing because it then proceeded to rain like hellfire. The plan was to go back later and pick up our son, then head to the San Gabriel Valley for dim sum. It was still pretty crappy out so we punted on the road trip, took him home and got noodle bowls from Whole Foods. And that was the weekend! Planned lots of stuff, did half of it, took naps. It was pretty adventurous for us considering the stuff we usually do in LA (mostly within a mile of our house).

     Last time I mentioned a rather aggressive yoga class I took at Yogaglo. Well, I ended up straining my lumbar spine so bad that I could barely move for days. 11 days later I'm still having a hard time bending down even to put on clothes. Now, this could be owing to a lot of factors - lack of conditioning, my own lumbar history, age, but I've been practicing for 21 years and I've never experienced anything like this. I'm very good at making adjustments for my body, especially when it comes to forward bends. The problem is that I really believe these kind of asana should be proceeded my 45 minutes to an hour of vinyasa and standing poses. In contrast, this was only an hour long Level 2 class and had almost no warm up. I feel a little arrogant questioning the wisdom of this teacher, but this was my honest experience. The take home lesson? I really understand the value of all that hard work you have to do in order to safely do advanced asana. I'm not always a fan of it, but it's for your own protection, among other things.

 

 

     Besides being a gimp this week, this was the week of rehearsals and performances for my son with the LA Opera Off Grand, which was at the Cathedral of Our Lady of the Angels downtown. He's playing violin in the Production of Noah's Flood. This was a great opportunity for young musicians and community members to work with world class artists including conductor James Conlon. This series has been going on for 9 years and this was the first time I'd heard of it. I can't say it's all that fun getting form the Westside to downtown during rush hour, even on the weekends, but it was only a few times and I think it was worth it. Hopefully I can convince him to do it again next year.

     The other fun thing we did as a family was get new iPhones, which were a long time coming as ours were barely functional. We also finally dumped AT&T for T-Mobile. Had to buy the phones at full price but don't have to worry about a contract. So far we are loving the iPhone 6, though migrating was a little confusing. Some of my photos seem to be lost in the mix but are floating around here and there. I have a pretty Spigen case and got a white phone for a change. I also opted for the shatter-proof case recommended by the clerk, as apparently these phones are super fragile. Best of all, no overages with T-Mobile, which were what made us leave AT&T. 

     I'm one my way with the second Aegean Sea mitt. Once I get this very long post up, I can maybe make some progress on it.