The other signs of fall in Long Beach are Midterms, talks of flushots, and of course, a pumpkin patch. Without these things, I might think that we are still in August. I, the lucky girl I am, got to go to Pa's Pumpkin Patch just off PCH last week. Chad and I went, saw the goats, sheep and alpacas, found the biggest and misshapen pumpkins that Pa had, and then Chad bought me a gourd. It is green and yellow and warty and the perfect companion to my mini pumpkin I got in September. (I was impatient.)
I went to Hollywood on Wednesday and saw Jon Lovitz perform his stand-up comedy. He was very funny, but the most exciting part was driving to Hollywood. I tend to forget that it is so close, that all these famous California locations are less than an hour away. The city is dusty, the cement sidewalks are cracked everywhere from tree roots and probably an earthquake or two, and a lot of time it feels like there are more cars than people. But the Los Angeles gives off this intense feeling of life and ghosts at the same time, so you are completely surrounded by lights and other people and, well, cars. You are so enveloped in these other forces that there isn't a moment where you can look around and not feel intrigued by something you see. Plus, I think the guy that sat in front of me (who just happened to be the tallest guy in the room) was famous in some way. He looked familiar, so two points for Hollywood in really having celebrities.
Another great California city is San Diego, where I got to go see my favorite band, Gaelic Storm in concert. I wasn't completely convinced, even at the end of the show, that despite how absolutely gorgeous the early 1900's theater was, that it the appropriate setting. I couldn't dance at all, and it is really, really hard to listen to Irish music and not dance. My consolation, however, was that after the show, two of my friends and I got to go visit with the band for a little while. I like to say we all went to get dinner, but really it was just Genevieve who got dinner, and everyone else just ate her French fries. Band tax, I guess.
Dictionary.com lists limn as it's word of the day, but I would like to propose one of my new favorites: Honorificabilitudinitatibus- the state of being able to achieve honors, and the longest word in all of Shakespeare's works. And, since we are on the literature subject, if anyone would liek to read along with the book club I am in, we just finished Atwood's The Handmaid's Tale, and you still have time to Read Dahl's The Witches.
Happy Halloween!
