Tag Archives: balboa park

Just Life, The Zebra, Throwback Thursday

My Thursday was a Thursday so I’m inventing Throwback Friday.

My Thursday was a Thursday so this is throwback Friday.
Me. In the 80’s. Not in a poodle skirt, but rocking the hell out of my Alice dress and flip flops.

When I was a little girl, I was fascinated with the 1950’s. I think all of America still is, to be honest. But particularly in the 1980’s I remember a significant amount of 50’s themed things – 50’s day at school, watching Grease at sleepovers, 50’s diners, Barbie even had a 57 Chevy. The same era a Sonic drive-in opened up briefly in town. I made a personal goal to drive there in a 57 Chevy of my own someday while wearing a poodle skirt. And then Sonic closed only a few months later and basically ruined everything. Also I got bored of the idea. But mostly it’s their fault.

Someday you should ask me about how I also planned to have my sweet sixteen birthday on this one floating castle that turned out to be the kind of party boat that’s not really apprioriate for kids. The world conspired againt my childhood dreams.

My mom was born in 1950 and so the 1950’s were her decade in the same way the 1980’s are mine. 30 years apart, each. And, just as the 50’s did in my childhood, the 80’s are making a comeback now (god help us all).

But the thing is that the 1950’s were FOREVER ago when I was a kid, but the 1980’s were basically just a few weeks ago if you ask me now.

Is this how it was for my mom? Did the 50’s feel like last week to her when I was obsessed with them? Do my own kids think the 1980’s are a million years ago? For research I asked them and I got insightful answers such as, “The 80’s were like 100 years ago, right?” and “You mean people from the 50’s are still alive?” Ah, youth.

It’s not news to say that time is relative and that it gets shorter as you get older, but I still can’t wrap my brain around it. This year it’ll be 20 years since Kurt Cobain died (the marker by which I organize everything in my lifetime). But it feels like just a couple of years ago.

As Einstein once said about time, “What the hell man?”

Local, Random

My New Favorite Picnic Spot

New favorite picnic spot.

Lovely, isn’t it? It’s right in town, but full of nature. It’s on a hill with views in every direction – Spanish style buildings peeking through trees on hillsides, a glimpse of downtown, the bay sparkling beyond the airport, underbellies of planes as they roar threateningly above you on the way down the unusually steep hill to land at the airport. What? That’s not lovely to you? Perhaps it’s not idyllic, but it’s kind of awesome in a Wayne’s World sort of way. Or if you like to pretend you’re Jack Shephard dying in a bamboo field.

Feeling a little Jack Shepherd.
That’s a little one.

I sat there with a friend yesterday talking for hours about life and humans we know and drinking Hawaiian Mochas* and judging airlines for how clean the bottoms of their planes are, and we learned some things about this park.

1. Aliens landed there. We heard them. It was a very 1950’s-Martian type alien noise so I’m thinking flying saucers.
2. Something (possibly the Predator or maybe well-camoflauged velociraptors) was jumping around from tree to tree, clearly planning to kill us.
3. A few times the sky literally ripped in half right above our heads. It’s hard to see such a thing because sky just looks like sky, even when it’s ripped in half, but we heard it.

landing

OR? Maybe this is just all related to the sound waves, wind, and sky-tearing that comes along behind jumbo jets. If you prefer living in a boring world where velociraptors don’t glide gracefully from tree to tree, that is.

NOTE: My daughter hasn’t even seen Lost, but I just noticed that this photo that she took and the one above it are right next to each other in my photostream. LOST IS REAL, YOU GUYS.

pretty eye

*Coconut, mocha, banana, and cinnamon. Yes banana. It’s DELICIOUS. Don’t judge.

Hawaiian mocha. Coconut, banana, mocha, cinnamon.