L.A. Field Trip Before Return to Perfection

Star of the Show

If you take a good look at the word “grandparent” it is possibly the most accurately constructed word in the English language. I loved being a parent and up until the past week, possibly the most redeeming experience of my life. Being a grandparent is certainly that, grand on a scale I couldn’t begin to describe. You get to see your own “kids” going through the same experience you had. The life long effort to tell them how important they are to you as parents is complete. My daughter admitted yesterday that she truly didn’t understand how important she was to us until she met her own daughter. Of course it’s easy when you have such an extraordinary child; get used to this, I’ll be serially bragging on my granddaughter for the foreseeable 20-30 years. I tried to load a video below which shows her waving to her adoring crowd.

Telling Daddy About Her Day

Gramma Time

As with all newborns there’s a definite cycle to the day, feeding, diaper changing and the crucial quiet times to allow sleep for both mom and child. During the afternoon quiet time yesterday Wingman stole me away to do a hasty tourist trip around the nearby L.A. environs. We went up to the Griffith Observatory where the movie geek in me almost exploded, so many movies having filmed there, including Terminator. Although we were in the middle of a huge park you got a real sense of how immense Los Angeles is spread out to the horizon on all sides. We came back down the hill to grab lunch at Tam O’Shanter’s restaurant which was a favorite of Walt Disney and recently featured in the Tom Hanks movie Larry Crowne. While eating lunch there were a couple Disney studio workers discussed work at the nearby bar, it was all very Hollywood.

Wingman in Griffith Park - Hollywood Sign in Background

View of L.A.

They Fired up a Tesla Coil for Us

The Observatory

Tam O'Shanter's

Chavez Ravine

View of L.A. from Elsyian Park

Some Sort of Art Memorial in Elysian Park

We wandered some of the back roads and turned into Elysian Park and Angel Point which provided additional views of Los Angeles including directly into Chavez Ravine and Dodger Stadium. It was strange to be in the middle of a teeming city and feel so isolated as the Angelinos had other things to do on this Friday afternoon. It was a nice quick trip around town and the above mentioned movie geek was in full flower spotting scenes where the too many movies I’ve seen were filmed. We returned to the apartment to find the First Blog Reader holding court with her thralls, amongst whom I proudly count myself.

Pee Wee Assisting with the Blogging Yesterday

My daughter's cat has really taken to the new addition to the family, demonstrating that my granddaughter's charms extend to the animal kingdom as well. The cat seems to have acquired social skills since moving to L.A. When they lived in the NYC the cat would try to find the nearest hiding place when we arrived. It could have been some early life experiences with Buddy the Wonder Pooch with whom we were associated. He seems to have forgiven us our canine predilections. He even jumped into my lap to assist with blogging yesterday.

Long Day Daddy

Since we’re leaving today we offered the new parents a chance to escape themselves for a couple hours last night after the star of the show launched one of her naps. The new mom was reluctant to leave though and we got one last night hanging around together which is better than anything else anyways. Wingman and I took a stroll around their neighborhood and I was struck by how peaceful and idyllic it was. It certainly not the L.A. you hear about in the news. We had the late shift and explored our inner geek once again with a showing of Star Wars movies preparing for the December return to a galaxy far, far away. The ladies of the house only nodded sagely at our affliction. Today’s going to be tough since we won’t see any of these L.A. personages until February. We’re going to put a serious dent in Facetime bandwidth over the next couple months.