I first attended a show at the Covina Center for the Performing Arts (CCPA) many years ago around Halloweentime.  We saw the cousin of my wife (then girlfriend) sing in the musical “A Funny Thing Happened to Me on the way to the Forum”.  I enjoyed the show very much.  It was very funny.  I think our cousin played one of the Proteans, though he may have had a few lines.  I don’t remember much about the theatre except that it was very far from where I lived at the time in Miracle Mile (a.k.a. the “Trendy Rectangle”) are of West L.A.  I didn’t even remember that it was in Covina or where Covina was.

Years later we moved to southeast Azusa that’s very close to Covina.  At the time that we moved, the CCPA was closed for renovation.  My wife had to remind me that we had been there before.  In late 2007, the CCPA opened newly renovated.  It now has an impressive new marquee that shows the names, dates, and times of the shows scrolling across it.  We always wanted to see a show there and we finally got around to it on Monday, July 27, 2009.

They’ve produced musicals, revues, and plays at the CCPA such as “Smokey Joe’s Café” back when it first reopened in 2007 to a recent production of “Godspell” in 2009.  In early 2009, Jason Robert Brown gave a workshop there.  He wrote the musical “The Last Five Years” and we saw an East West Players production of this musical at the David Henry Hwang theatre in May 2009.  Our cousin was the musical director.  In April or May 2009 we saw on the marquee an announcement for auditions for the Young Performers Institute (YPI).  This is a workshop for kids, teens, and young adults to learn, practice, and put on a revue.  I think the maximum age was 21.  In later June or early July we saw an announcement for the revue, “Live the Music” and we decided to check it out.  We had enjoyed the other revues we had seen such as “I Love a Piano” at the Carpenter (as in Karen) Performing Arts Center in Long Beach in 2006 and another one in which our cousin performed at the Madrid Theatre in Canoga Park in 2003.  We bought tickets for the CCPA show “Live the Musuc” online to pick up through Will Call.  They were sold through Verdini Tickets.  We noticed that the show for Sunday evening, July 26, was sold out online.  The show ran from Friday July 24 through Thursday, July 30.  They scheduled it so it wouldn’t conflict with “Godspell” that was also playing at CCPA at the time.  We got tickets for Monday, July 27 for $15 each plus a $3.50 handling charge.  All seats, both regular and balcony, cost $15.

Monday was the next day and I went to work early so I could leave early.  This gave us time to eat dinner and make it to CCPA before the 7 pm start time of the show.  We drove south on Citrus Avenue, turned right on College Street, and another right into the downtown Covina parking structure.  We drove up the narrow ramp to the second level where the parking spot lines were painted blue indicating three hour parking.  We walked to the theatre and the Will Call window was the last one to the left of the entrance.  They gave us our Verbini tickets and receipt.  As we entered the lobby a young staffer scanned our tickets.  He said we could get water and snacks at the table to the right.  It’s a very nice lobby with red-colored carpet and tables along the walls with show schedules and fliers.  There’s a stairwell to the left that I assume goes up to the balcony.  It was just about 7 pm so we entered the main theatre and took our seats.

Our seats were B12 and B13, one row from the front and to the left facing the stage.  Each row was elevated slightly above the one in front so it was near-stadium seating.  The stage had new-looking wood trim around it.  There was an open pit for the orchestra in front.  About the stage on a high wall was a gold-colored shield with three stars on it.  Surrounding it were gold leaves and branches and there was a relief carving of a knight’s helmet on top.  Below the shield were the words “Le Camp Vault Miex que l’or”.  We noticed a few young men in dark formal suits lurking around on stage and in the aisles.  One of them who was wearing a black bowler had came up on stage and announced with an English accent that he was “John Briggs of Scotland Yard in Covina”.  He said someone hadn’t paid for their tickets and identified the alleged perpetrator as the young man sitting at the end of row B near us.  “Briggs” and the others surrounded him and “Briggs” asked, “What do you have to say for yourself?”

“Huh,” the young man answered.
“‘Huh’ he says,” answered “Briggs”.
“Yeah”
“‘Yeah’ he says.”
“Briggs” asked the man to show his receipt when a woman’s voice from the back yelled, “Boys, stop that!”
“We’re just kidding,” said “Briggs” and the three young men in formal suits went backstage.  

At 7:05 pm the lights dimmed.  The orchestra in the pit played the overture that sounded like “All that Jazz” from the musical “Chicago”.  The music stopped and a spotlight shown on the right side of the stage.  One of the female performers came out.  She welcomed us and mentioned that many of the YPI performers were on scholarship.  She talked a bit about the musical “Dirty Rotten Scoundrels” from which the first two songs to be preformed were from.  From the program we learned that there were two groups of performers: the larger “Red Group” of teens and possibly young adults and the “Blue Group” of 12 kids and pre-teens.  It seemed like two members of the blue group were siblings since they had the same last name.  One of the girls in the Red Group possibly had a celebrity-inspired first name: MegRyan.  There were only 5 young men in the Red Group and 3-4 boys in the Blue Group.  The first number was “Give ‘em what they Want” performed by the Red Group with two young men singing most of the lead.  The next one was “What was a Woman to do” sung by five young women from the Red Group.  The first, who wore a purple formal dress, sang well with a slightly low voice.  The others joined in after the first verse and they sang in a round.  I think one of them referred to “the man in seat B13”, possibly referred to me, though my wife was sitting in that seat.

A young woman from the Red Group introduced the next song as from the “underappreciated” musical “Pippin”.  It was “Corner of the Sky” performed by the younger Blue Group with some of their Red Group “buddies” joining them.   Some stood while others sat and they just wore regular clothes rather than costumes.  One young boy wore a Lakers jersey.  A performer introduced the next number by translating the “wah wah wah” adult voice like that from a Peanuts cartoon.  The song was “Book Report” from “You’re a Good Man, Charlie Brown” and it was performed by a young woman and three young men from the Red Group.  They all had these big ¾ inch thick pencils and children’s books as props and each did their own take on writing a book report.  They were very entertaining.  The next number was introduced by the performer who played “John Briggs” before the show started.  He spoke in a low, scary, but still humorous voice.  The entire Red Group then performed “Façade” from “Jekyll and Hyde” all dressed in 19th century Victorian costumes and walked around in coordinated groups.  They sang well.

I don’t remember the intro to the next song but it featured just one girl from the Blue Group in a red hooded cap as “Little Red Riding Hood” singing “I Know Things Now” from “Into the Woods”.  I though she did a pretty good job.  My wife felt it was a difficult song for a kid.  Some girls in 50’s school outfits with telephones introduced the next song, “Telephone Hour” form “Bye Bye Birdy.”  Some of the female performers wore poodle skirts.  The young man introducing the next song was interrupted by a boy who told him to “look up there”.  The boy then stole the young man’s watch.  He introduced the song “Be Back Soon” from “Oliver!” and then realized his watch was stolen and left to chase down the thief.  The song featured members of the Blue Group as the child pickpockets and a young man from the Red Group as Fagin.  A young girl played the part of the artful Dodger.  The kids did a great job singing and followed the choreography well.  They all wore Victorian outfits of the poor except for Fagin in a black suit.  The next number had all the performers in black.  Ten members of the Red Group performed “All that Jazz” from “Chicago”.  The young woman who sung lead had a low sultry voice.  The last number of Act I had both the Red and Blue Groups combined wearing bright colors for the song “Sunday” from “Sunday in the Park with George”.

During the 15-20 minute intermission I walked around the lobby and side hallway.  There’s a long hallway on the right side of the theatre leading to where the restrooms are.  It also has red-colored carpet and on the walls are framed vintage covers of Theater magazine from the early 20th century.  The restrooms are large and they still looked brand new.  At 8 pm we heard a couple of keyboard notes played, perhaps indicating that the second act would start soon.  The lights dimmed at 8:05 pm.  The first song was from the Blue Group: “It’s a Hard Knock Life” from “Annie”.  The kids did various chores as they sang: scrubbing and mopping floors and folding sheets.  The next song was another from “Into the Woods”: the soulful “Giants in the Sky” sung by the young man from the Red Group who earlier was “John Briggs”.  There was a large beanstalk cutout in the middle of the stage.

When introducing the next song the young woman described how the story of the Scarlet Pimpernel inspired the creation of comic book superheroes such as Superman and Batman.  The song was the inspirational “Into the Fire” from “The Scarlet Pimpernel”.  It was song by young men and boys from the Red and Blue Groups with one of the Red singing lead.  He sang well in a high tenor voice.  As the song got even more triumphant they brought out a ship’s wheel and telescope as if they were on an epic sea voyage.  The next song was “If Mama was Married” from the biographical musical “Gypsy” performed by two girls from the Blue Group.

The next song was a sad one from the musical “Titanic” called “The Proposal” and performed by two guys from the Red Group.  One played a passenger or possibly a ship crewmember having a radio message proposal sent to his beloved on land.  The other played the radio operator who sang about how he got interested in his profession and repeated the line “dit-da-dit”.  The first singer gave his message to the radio operator and then waited anxiously until the operator said, “message received.”  The next song was “What is this Feeling?” from the musical “Wicked” and is sung when Glinda and Elphaba find out they will be roommates at school.  An African-American young woman sang the part of Elphaba and they shined a green light on her when she stood on either side of the shade.  They shined a white light on the young woman playing Glinda.  Others in the Red Group played their classmates who Elphaba startled by saying, “Boo!” For the next song six young girls from the Blue Group sat on the left edge of the stage very close to where we sat.  They sang “Castle on a Cloud” from “Les Miserables”.  One of them sang solo for the line “Cosette, I love you very much.”

The tone changed from the next song from the musical “The Full Monty”.  It was “Life with Harold” sung by the wife of one of the male characters.  During the intro the performers mentioned a recession.  Harold’s wife doesn’t yet know he is laid off and is celebrating their luxurious lifestyle.  Four guys from the Red Group joined the young woman singing lead.  At one point they offer her jewelry.  They made use of the colorful lighting along the frame of the stage to reflect the celebratory mood.  The next song was also fast-paced and somewhat celebratory.  It was “Steam Heat” from “The Pajama Game” performed by most of the Red Group.  They wore black shirts, black pants, and black bowler hats.  The performance included much dancing, waving of the hats, and rhythmic verbal sound effects.  Behind them steam was released onto the stage.

The penultimate song was “Everybody’s got the Right” form Steven Sondheim’s musical “Assassins” that we hadn’t heard of.  It was a triumphant song that the entire company sang.  They lined up down the left aisle, across the stage and up the right aisle.  They wore regular cloths.  A girl wore a Smiths T-shirt and a guy (“John Briggs”) wore a T-shirt with the phrase “I got a black belt in crazy!”  They ended the song to loud applause and they all bowed.  Then, to end the show, they sang the short, blunt song “Goodbye!” from “The Producers”.  With that, they cheerfully left and so did we soon afterward.

I thought they all did a great job especially being so young.  They performed many songs from more recent musicals that I hadn’t heard before.   I think the only ones I heard before were “Corner of the Sky”, “All that Jazz”, and “Castle on a Cloud”.  They also did a good job matching the performers to the songs.  Who knows?  Maybe some of these young performers will be world-famous someday.

After visiting the Grammy Museum at L.A. Live on Wednesday, July 22, 2009, we had dinner at the Panini Café.  It’s nearby in the South Park neighborhood of Downtown Los Angeles.  We left the Grammy Museum at 7:30 pm when it closed (see earlier blog).  We then walked north on Figueroa Street to 9th Street where we turned right (east).  Someone walking the other direction said to my wife, “I like your shirt”.  She was wearing her black T-shirt with the names Michael, Tito, Germaine, Jackie, and Marlon in white lettering on the front.  We passed the Ralphs Fresh Fare that’s now over two years old.  It’s in a building connected to an apartment building where we used to live 3-4 years ago.

Panini Café is in the ground level of the building on the southwest corner of Hope and 9th.  It has outdoor seating along the sidewalks of both streets.  We entered through the north entrance where they have a large bar.  The host said we could sit anywhere so we chose to sit inside in the room past the bar with windows looking out onto Hope Street.  Many other tables were occupied both inside and out.  The table next to us initially had a couple of loud talkers but they left early on.  Across the room from us a group of cops sat at a table.  The room, along with the bar had lots of light wood paneling.  It was well lit, though a ceiling fan above us created a strobe light effect.  Shelves near the bar indicated that they sell their own brands of wine and coffee.

The server soon gave us menus that were large.  Panini doesn’t just serve Italian food but also Mediterranean food.  The menu has separate sections for Panini sandwiches, salads, pastas, and Mediterranean wraps among other items.  We ordered and they were a bit late bringing my wife her glass of water.  The server had to be reminded.  But it didn’t take long for them to bring our food.  My wife ordered the stuffed eggplant.  It was a Mediterranean dish stuffed with rice and cooked ground beef with a large salad and hummus on the side.  It was so much food that she gave me the hummus and pita bread.  The bread was golden and had the right consistency of flour and oil.  The hummus was slightly spicy and enough for all the bread.  My order was also a lot of food: the turkey club Panini sandwich made with huge slices of the fresh bread.  The bacon in the sandwich was crunchy and there were many pieces of it.  The avocado was also an ample amount but not messy at all.  But the best part was the bread: billowy, thick and with its own great flavor.  It was so much food that I could only finish half of it.  I had the other half for breakfast the next day.

At our bidding they gave us our check.  We paid and walked north on Hope to the Red Line/Purple Line station.  The sidewalk was closed between 9th and 8th Streets so we had to walk over to Flower Street and walk by the front door of the apartment building where we used to live.  It didn’t look like much had changed since then.  We got to the subway station at 7th and Metro.  Unfortunately the next train wasn’t coming until 8:50 pm.  This was going to cut it very close for us since we hoped to catch the 9:00 pm Metrolink train from Union Station, the last train of the evening.  The subway took a little longer to get to Union Station because it opened on the opposite side of the platform from where it usually opens.  When we arrived we had barely 3 minutes to catch the Metrolink train.  We ran up the escalator and through the station.  My wife didn’t bother having her 10-trip ticket punched in the machine.  She had the conductor do it and he had to borrow our pen.  He also noticed my wife’s T-shirt.  The train actually lingered at the station 5-7 minutes after its scheduled departure time at 9, but it eventually left and we made it home.

We first heard of Sidral Mundet apple soda from the Jarritos website.  I stared drinking Jarritos soda back in 2008 because it is made with cane sugar.  I try to avoid the high fructose corn syrup that’s in most popular sodas.  The CVS near us sells Jarritos in flavors of lemon (limon), fruit punch, orange (mandarin), strawberry (fresa), pineapple (pina), tamarind, and Jamaica.  They also sell alcohol-free Sangria Senorial that’s also made by Jarritos.  We looked at the Jarritos website and learned of Sidral Mundet.  It seemed to be very popular in Mexico.  They even have silly commercials where a guy gets together with a pretty woman by chance after drinking some Sidral Mundet.

Since learning about Sidral Mundet, I’d been checking the soda section of CVS every time I went there to see if they have it.  They never did.  But on July 26, 2009, a Sunday, I was at Target looking for Ziploc bags and passed their soda section.  They had Jarritos for 69 cents, much lower than the $1.39 at CVS.  They also had Sidral Mundet.  It comes in clear 12 oz glass bottles with a small red and white label at the top that says, “Sidral Mundet, Marca Reg.” (Registered trademark)  The name Sidral Mundet is in raised lettering on the bottle itself.  I looked up the words in the name.  Neither word translates directly to anything but “sidra” means cider.

On Wednesday, July 29, 2009, we tried the Sidral Mundet.  It was worth the wait.  The apple flavor and carbonation are both strong and complement each other well.  It’s more of a soda than a sparkling cider but still has lots of apple flavor.  It’s even better than the apple soda we got at BevMo in 2008 (see the Root Beers from BevMo blog).  I’m glad we didn’t’ have to go far to get it.

On the bottle cap:
Ingredients: purified carbonated water, sugar, blended apple juice, citric acid, caramel color, and sodium benzoate (as preservative).
Sidral Mundet, Reg. SSA No. 148846 “A”
Apple Soda

On the back:
Nutritional Info . . .
Ingredents: (same as the cap only it says natural sugar and omits the word “blended” from apple juice)
Dist by: TIPP Distribution, L.P.
El Paso, TX  79901
1-888-668-2639    www.sidralmundet.com
Made in Mexico

In December 2009 we found out that the new King Ranch Supermarket also carries Sidral Mundet and five other apple sodas.  We tried one of the others, Sidral Aga, and that was pretty good.  Another cheaper one tasted a bit too artificial.  We later found some Sidral Mundet green apple soda drink and that was good.

(Possible spoilers)

I first heard of Octavia Butler when I attended Cal State L.A.  We watched a video where a teacher led a discussion of one of her books, Parable of the Sower, in a high school English class.  I also learned that Octavia Butler attended Cal State L.A. many years ago.  From the discussion, the book sounded intriguing.  I have always been a fan of science fiction and fantasy but I had never heard of an African American female science fiction writer.  Sower seemed to take place in the near future and have a young black woman as protagonist.  The future was bleak but there was some hope.

I read Parable of the Sower two years ago and enjoyed it.  It is about one main character, Lauren Oya Olamina, whose neighborhood is destroyed by the class struggle and chaos.  She travels north walking on the California highways gathering together a group of old and new friends.  She has hyperempathy causing her to feel the pleasure and pain experienced by other people she observes.  It is caused by a intelligence drug that her mother took.  On the road she meets other “sharers”.  She also begins writing about a new religion she plans to start called Earthseed.  There isn’t much detail about it, mostly just verses appearing at the beginning of each chapter.  The book starts in a negative world but ends on a positive note.  It’s told in the form of Olamina’s journals.

The Parable of the Talents is the sequel to Sower and begins five years after the end of the first book.  Like Sower the title is based on a parable from the Gospel, this time referring to the one where a master gives one servant five talents, another three, and a third just one.  The first two invest their talents while the third just buries his.  I never completely understood that parable but I can kind of see how it applies to the book.  Talents is a much more complex story than Sower.  It isn’t just told through Olamina’s journals but also those of her daughter reading them and other characters.  The book covers a longer time span and has more characters.  It covers the larger events occurring in the U.S. and the world, along with the characters’ stories, more extensively than Parable of the Sower.

Butler’s portrayal of the future seems chillingly realistic given what’s been going on lately.  When I read Sower in 2007 I thought the story’s breakdown of civilization was pessimistic at best.  But when reading Talents in 2009, a period of upheaval know as “The Apocalypse” or “The Pox” beginning in 2015 and lasting until 2030 doesn’t sound so farfetched.  Much of Sower took place in 2023-2027 and most of Talents takes place in 2032-2035.  Interestingly, Olamina was born in 2009.  Later in the book she refers to a 37-year-old as “middle aged”.  Also interesting is that another character, Bankole, believes that the Pox really began early than 2015, possibly as early as before the turn of the millennium.

Parable of the Talents mentions several places that are familiar to me.  In Sower, Olamina escaped from her destroyed neighborhood of Robledo (fictional name), a suburb of Los Angeles.  With all the upheaval in California and the contiguous United States, Alaska becomes a more popular destination than ever.  The migration there becomes so great than it secedes from the U.S. and allies itself with Canada.  This isn’t so farfetched since there is currently an Alaska Independent Party (AIP).  I believe former governor Sarah Palin’s husband was briefly a member of that party.  In Talents, the U.S. fights Alaska and Canada in the disastrous Al-Can War.  Olamina’s daughter spends her childhood and youth in Seattle that is damaged by missile attacks in the Al-Can War.  While planning a trip to Portland, Oregon, Olamina talks to a man from Salem, Oregon about the road ahead.

In Butler’s Parable world the future of education looks very bleak.  During the 2020’s, “many public school systems around the country gave up the ghost and closed their doors.  Even the pretense of having an educated populace was ending.  Politicians shook their heads and said sadly that education was a failed experiment.” (Butler p. 330)  By the 2030’s, more than half of the population cannot read at all.  Olamina has hope for the future of education in her ability and willingness to teach.  At her short-lived Earthseed community she has each child work on one individual project per year as part of their education.  Doing so causes most kids to notice that two unrelated projects influence one another in unexpected ways.  “This helps the kids learn how the world works, how all sorts of things interact and influence one another.  The kids begin to teach themselves and one another.  They begin to learn how to learn.” (Butler, p. 136)

Olamina also finds hope for the future in her new religion, Earthseed.  The concepts and ideas of Earthseed are more fleshed out in Parable of the Talents.  Its main precept is “God is Change”, not some benign being but cold, unfeeling change.  People can shape God in positive or negative ways.  It seems intriguing.  In the book people join because it allows them to be part of something bigger than themselves.  It gives them a purpose.  Earthseed’s destiny is to “take root among the stars.”  In all the chaos of the Pox, all research into interstellar space travel is canceled.  Earthseed is a way to revive this dream since, according to Olamina, “preparing for interstellar travel and then sending out ships filled with colonists is bound to be a job so long, thankless, expensive, and difficult that I suspect only a religion can do it.” (p. 323)

Parable of the Talents is so much more than a science fiction novel.  Yes, it’s about the future and there are some new technologies such as “dreamask” virtual reality simulations, electronic collars used to keep slaves and prisoners in line, and some now familiar things such as the Internet or “nets” as they’re called in the book.  But this vision of the future is really only the setting.  It’s a story about pain, loss, and ultimately, hope.  It’s about love, friendship, and trust.  But the overriding theme is family and all its complications, especially when affected by loss and forced separation.  The points of view of Olamina and her daughter are very different.  Communication through journal writing is the structure of the story.  Olamina describes how things get so difficult that she doesn’t know how to deal with it.  But somehow, writing about it always helps.  And then there’s the purpose that everyone wants.  Olamina writes, “If you want a thing--truly want it, want it so badly that you need it as you need air to breathe, then unless you die, you will have it.  Why not?  It has you.” (Butler, p. 363)

We went to Las Vegas of the weekend of June 26-28.  I took a vacation day on Friday, June 26 and we rode as passengers with Mom and Dad, my in-laws.  Mom was going to see Eric Clapton and Steve Winwood with some of her sisters and nieces.  We left Socal on Friday Morning and got to Vegas fairly quickly, only stopping at a new-looking rest stop somewhere between Baker and Primm.  Michael Jackson had died the day before so they were playing his songs on KOST as we drove out of the L.A. area.

It was warm in Las Vegas.  The temperature would get up to 100 degrees on Saturday.  The evening of Friday Mom and Dad drove us to this shopping center on Maryland Parkway on the same street as a hospital and a JC Penny store.  The shopping center used to include the Zappos shoe store that my wife visited the last time we went to Vegas.  There was also a Red Ribbon bakery, a Valerio’s bakery, and an Asian seafood supermarket.  We parked near an eatery on the south end of the shopping center: Jason’s Deli.  Mom and Dad had eaten there several times before.  It was in its own building.  We entered and walked to the back right corner to study the menu.  It’s a large space with many 4-person tables and booths along the walls.  There’s a large salad bar on the right side.  The menu is also large with different sections for “Real Choices”, “Soups, Fruit, & Salads”, “Build Your Own” sandwiches, and wraps, “Po-Boys” (mostly sandwiches), “Paninis and Wrapinis”.  It seemed like there were many healthy options and they even listed the calories, fat, and sodium content of the “Real Choices” options.  The prices were fairly reasonable: $6-$8 per entrée.  We place our orders and sat down at a booth.

They gave us glasses for our drinks to fill up at the dispensers near the salad bar and numbers so they could find us when they served our orders.  They brought out the orders fairly quickly.  I got the Mediterranean Wrap, a new item under the healthy “real choices” section of the menu.  Most menu items came with cheese and this was one of the few that did not.  It was wrapped lightly like a taco in a small wheat flour tortilla rather than tightly like a burrito.  It was very flavorful with slices of oven-roasted deli turkey breast, cucumber, purple onions, Roma tomatoes slices, and greens.  The red pepper hummus and Kalamata olives gave it a strong, salty flavor so it was never bland.  That was a good idea to use hummus as a spread for a wrap.  I had several choices for accompaniment including fresh fruit, steamed veggies, and baked potato chips.  I chose blue corn tortilla chips and homemade salsa.  They were good and crunchy and the salsa had just the right amount of spice.

My wife enjoyed her quarter-muff.  A full muffatetta is made with a round loaf of bread about nine inches in diameter.  I believe the sandwich originates in New Orleans.  A whole-muff would have been huge and her quarter-muff looked pretty big.  It contained premium ham and hard salami, provolone, and homemade olive mix.  She got the quarter-muff deal that came with a choice of any cup of soup or fresh fruit cup.  She chose red beans and rice soup, one of the soups of the day and consistent with the Nawlins theme.  

While there we noticed several young people who looked like college students.  That made some sense because UNLV wasn’t very far away.  A notice near the salad bar said that Jason’s Deli was voted as a healthy restaurant by Health magazine.  Another notice near the door said they were voted one of Las Vegas’ best restaurants by a local newspaper.  We got a take-home menu that listed all the locations of Jason’s Deli.  There are many with most of them in Texas.  There’s only one California location in Riverside.  We later learned that the first one opened in Beaumont, Texas in 1976.

We finished our dinner and Mom wanted to shop at Valerio’s and the Asian seafood supermarket.  There was a Jollibee in the market.  Jollibee is one of the most popular fast food restaurants in the Philippines and there are many in the U.S. including at least one in West Covina.  We got to see their menu.  They serve spaghetti that I hear is sweet, burgers called “Yums”, fried chicken called “Chicken Joy” and several breakfast options including longanisa sausage or hot dog with eggs.  I don’t they’ll be voted healthy by Health magazine.

The next day, Saturday, we drove to the Palazzo hotel where Mom’s sisters, nieces, cousin, and brother-in-law were staying.  I believe her cousin got room comped.  It was a large suite, similar to the nearby Venetian where we stayed in October 2008, but newer.  The room was on the 16th floor and had a great view of the area to the northeast of the strip especially of the Wynn golfhouse, pool, and conference room buildings, the Las Vegas monorail, and beyond.  I saw this large sign near the monorail and I couldn’t figure out what it was for.  I thought it might be for the Las Vegas Hilton, but I couldn’t see that hotel nearby, so that wasn’t it.

We walked to the Venetian to see the tribute to Michael Jackson at Madame Tussaud’s Wax Museum.  On the way we noticed a few changes to the lobby and Shoppes at the Palazzo that had been made since we were there for the first time in June 2008.  There were all these colorful umbrellas hanging from the ceiling.  The large gold cup behind the front desk was now full of flowers.  Near the entrance to Madame Tussaud’s they had set up the very life-like Michael Jackson in a shiny white and gold outfit.  People had left signs and gifts in tribute including a Buddha statue and a sign that said “You were the Thriller of our lives.”  Many people hung around taking photos.  They had a guestbook that would be sent to the Jackson family.  We signed it.

Later we walked to the Encore hotel just north of the Palazzo across Sands Ave. and past the Wynn.  The Encore on the outside looks just like the Wynn only it’s curved in the opposite direction.  We crossed the overpass over Sands Ave. and entered the Wynn hotel.  With the hot weather outside it was more comfortable to walk through it to get to the Encore.  We had last visited the Wynn in 2005 during our honeymoon.  It looked very similar to the last time.  A few differences were that the Italian restaurant then called Cursa Cucina was now called La Strada and the store with the giant shoes above the doors was either no longer there or at least the shoes were no longer there.  There was, however, a shop at the Wynn and the Encore called Outfit that had a giant cloths hanger above it.

The halls of shops at the Encore had skylights and since it was afternoon we could take full advantage of them.  From the ceiling hung these elaborate chandeliers of purple and other colors.  At other parts there were these shiny gold-colored chandeliers with a single gold spike at the bottom.  On the floor colored tiles formed the shapes of butterflies.  Near the casino was a colorful forest and an entrance to a bar or restaurant with these shiny peacock sculptures.  In another part the walls had large red sculptures of flowers and near the theater there were many red butterfly sculptures on the ceiling.  We briefly walked around the conference rooms.  One of them would host a Teach for America reception that evening.

We walked back through the Encore and Wynn, exited and crossed the overpass over Las Vegas Boulevard to the Fashion Show Mall and we walked around there for a while.  It’s a very large indoor mall with many levels.  It has many stores including common ones like Macy’s.  They had their own fashion show there.  The runway rose right out of the floor.  The models were all women and they wore outfits from Macy’s that were more conventional than the ones we saw at the Fashion Empire 2009 Mood Indigo Fashion Show (see earlier blog).  During one part they played the Michael Jackson song “Pretty Young Thing”, a fitting tribute.

We returned to the family’s room at the Palazzo hotel.  For dinner, Mom and Dad and the others brought food from Jason’s Deli.  For the others they brought many containers of pasta including the chicken Alfredo and the Portabello Garden pasta.  My wife enjoyed the latter.  For me they brought a BLT that was made with three pieces of bread, one in the middle.  It had lots of delicious bacon along with lettuce and tomato between all three pieces.  It was very good and plenty of food.  It came with a bag of Jason’s potato chips.

After dinner we walked over to Caesar’s Palace hotel to check out the Forum shops.  I hadn’t been there since my first trip to Vegas nearly ten years before.  It had these curved escalators that I didn’t remember from my first time there.  We thought we might have some gelato and sorbetto from a gelato counter but it turns out that sorbetto had milk in it.  We checked out a collectables/memorabilia shop, the large FAO Schwartz, and saw this historical society cart with crests for nearly all families’ names.  We found ours on this poster for Ireland.  They also had posters for Scotland, England, and Spain.  We found a few more names in our family.  It looked like you could order decorative custom plaques with your family’s crest.

We returned to the room at the Palazzo, rested and got a ride back to my in-laws’ condo.  The next morning we had brunch at the condo of eggs, canned corned beef, vegetables, rice, and other foods that Mom had bought at that Asian supermarket.  I heard about the concert they attended.  Apparently, Eric Clapton and Steve Winwood did not perform any of their more popular songs.  They performed together the entire time and nothing was performed “unplugged”.  After packing up we left Las Vegas and drove to the casino and outlet mall in Primm, Nevada that’s just inside the Nevada border.  I had read earlier that the car in which the famous 1930’s bank robbers Bonnie and Clyde were killed was in the casino at Primm.  We quickly located it in a glass case along with mannequins of Bonnie and Clyde.  As expected, it’s full of bullet holes on the driver’s side.  They also had the now tattered shirt that Clyde wore displayed in a glass case along with video, old photos, and newspapers.

We walked around the outlet mall a bit and mostly waited for the others.  We eventually drove back, stopping in Hesperia to have dinner at an In-and-Out burger.

This is another one I picked up from the limited audiobook selection at the Covina Public Library.  I thought I had read it before in elementary or middle school, but the story did not seem familiar.  I believe it’s the most famous classic book by Jack London, though after reading it I’m not sure I’d call it a classic.  It has good writing, but I’ve read better non-classics.  It’s probably all just a matter of personal taste.  Of course, I’d heard of The Call of the Wild and White Fang.  My mom told me once that she read that Jack London would always try to write for an hour every day after getting up in the morning.  Chris McCandless, the subject of the book and film Into the Wild was a big fan of Jack London.  Other than having lived for 13 years near the area about which he wrote, I have another personal, but also stretched connection to London.  After moving to L.A. many years ago I met up with a friend from college.  That first weekend we went to the Huntington Library and Gardens in San Marino to meet up with some of her friends from high school and check out an exhibit of woodcuts by Alberecht Durer.  When we got there we also saw an exhibit of original manuscripts by Jack London including “The Cruise of the Snark” or something like that.  Something else that occurred on that outing was that I met one of her friends from high school who would later become my wife.

Getting back to The Call of the Wild, the main character is a dog named Buck.  Though it’s told in the third person, the story is told from Buck’s point of view.  He seems very anthropomorphic, able to understand what people say and grasp human characteristics.  He also interacts with other dogs.  Buck is a big dog, a St. Bernard mix who weighs 140 points, as much as some adult humans.  His weight actually fluctuates between 115-150 pounds depending on his living conditions.  The story is about his journey from a large, rich estate in northern California to the Klondike gold fields of the Yukon during the gold rush of 1898.  There’s much mention of places I’ve visited or at least heard of: Seattle, of course, a city that grew very large as a “casting off” point to Alaska and the Yukon; Skagway, the small mining town where my dad lived as a child and youth; Dyea, the former town that’s now just a campground that my family pronounces as “dye-ee” but the reader of the audiobook pronounces as “dye-eh-ah”.

London really captures the setting, the environment, and the life in the Yukon at the turn of the last century.  He’s done his research on how the seasons change from icy and dead winters to gorgeous and living summers.  Alaska and western Canada were like the wild west with saloons, miners from all over the contiguous U.S. (CONUS) pouring in and not knowing what they’re in for.  As a dog, Buck’s life is ruled by “The Law of Club and Fang”: the fangs of the other dogs and wolves and the clubs of humans forcing the dogs into submission when necessary (or not).  There are great descriptions of the terrain: the ice and snow that require breaking out dogsleds frozen to the ground; the creeks, rivers and frozen lakes that can make for easily or perilous crossing depending on the time of year, the deep forests, and the wild animals.  All seem fairly accurate except the description of Indians that use bows and arrows: harpoons may be more accurate.  I guess we didn’t cover native warfare when we learned about Alaska history in elementary school.

What’s very interesting are the dynamics of the sled dog team of which Buck is a part.  The other dogs are mostly huskies and often have human names.  One of them, called Dave, is very sullen and doesn’t associate with the others.  He’s very hard working, though.  There’s the struggle to be the alpha dog, the conflict between taking care of oneself and supporting the team.  Though they don’t seem to speak to one another, the dogs all have different personalities and communicate through their actions.

London’s descriptions are always intense and epic: the beauty of the landscape contrasting yet coexisting with its perils; the extreme suffering, hunger and desperation, the great love of a loyal master, . . .  It’s almost too extreme like some kind of bipolar disorder: great joy followed by excruciating pain followed by epic conflict and on and on.  There’s no leveling off, no mundane times, or perhaps they’re just omitted.  Buck seems almost too perfect: strong, enduring, adaptable, almost supernatural.  He seems to have no weaknesses, is able to perform just about any feat of strength, speed or bravery and is unyielding to anyone or anything.  I guess he needs to be that way to survive the whole story and the intensity keeps the story going and kept me listening.