Harmonic Journal 12/06/15

Harmonic Journal
Sunday, December 6, 2015

"I Have A Little Dreidel", by Mikhl Gelbart, Samuel E. Goldfarb, Samuel S. Grossman, as performed by Rockapella

Happy Hanukkah, everyone!

Harmonic Journal 12/05/15

Harmonic Journal
Saturday, December 5, 2015

"All I Want For Christmas Is You" by Mariah Carey and Walter Afanasieff, as performed by Rockapella

Harmonic Journal 12/04/15

Harmonic Journal
Friday, December 4, 2015

"Santa Claus Is Comin' To Town" by Haven Gillespie and J. Fred Coots, as sung by Rockapella

Harmonic Journal 12/03/15

Harmonic Journal
Thursday, December 3, 2015

"Snow Miser / Heat Miser song" from The Year Without A Santa Claus by Maury Laws and Jules Bass

Harmonic Journal 12/02/15

Harmonic Journal
Wednesday, December 2, 2015

"Sleigh Ride" by Leroy Anderson, as performed by Harry Connick, Jr.

Harmonic Journal 12/01/15

Harmonic Journal
Tuesday, December 1, 2015

"Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer" by Johnny Marks, as performed by Rockapella

Circles In The Sand

 A bunch of us went to the El Capitan Theatre on opening night to watch "The Good Dinosaur."  This was after Linda and I met up with Bro and family at Johnny Rockets and the guy messed up Miss O's order and didn't bother to apologize, much less comp her meal.  Therefore, his tip was less than the standard.  You don't mess up a kid's order and act like it's the customer's fault, you idiot.  Anyway, Bro and family were seated in front of the rest of us.  The Pixar show was kind of fun.  I would rather have had the girl NOT sing, because they don't actually have a good track record of making me happy there with the singing.  No, it wasn't because I was cranky about Johnny Rockets.  My friends thought the same thing.  Blech.  I liked seeing the characters dance, though, and then Dodie was...um...blessed with a huge lump of confetti falling in her lap.  I finally saw the next "Star Wars: The Force Awakens" trailer.  YAY!  Also, "Zootopia" looks like it's going to be hilarious.  I want a sloth.

• My goodness, the landscapes look REAL.  How was that not real water?  Or real blades of grass?  HOW?!
• Is that Yellowstone?  Or is Yellowstone just a remnant of a bunch of places that used to be like that?
• Hi, Heimlich!
• What the heck is wrong with those chickens?
• Mufasa.  If you're not thinking of Mufasa during at least one of those scenes, you need to bone up on your Disney movies.
• Dinosaurs as ranchers, with movements as if they are the horse and cowboy at once.  Awesome.  Also, Sam Elliott!
• "This is Dream Crusher.  He protects me from having unrealistic goals."
• A bit predictable, but I still enjoyed the movie.  Sometimes I like predictable plots.  Otherwise, you just have a bunch of weird irony and life is unfulfilled.  Whoa.  I need to stop being philosophical right now.
• Sticks. Sticks in the sand made me cry.  What. The. 
• I cried so much that the stranger dude next to me asked how I was doing after the movie was over.  He cried, too, BTW.

Yeah, that movie made me a mess, predictability and all.  Don't go if you were upset about Mufasa.  Seriously.

Harmonic Journal 11/30/15

Harmonic Journal
Monday, November 30, 2015

"Give" by Scott Leonard, Barry Carl and Masahiro Ikumi, as performed by Rockapella

Harmonic Journal 11/29/15

Harmonic Journal
Sunday, November 29, 2015

"Je Suis Malade" by Sege Lama and Alice Dona, as performed by Lara Fabian

Have Fun Storming the Capitol!

Glenndy and I attended a double feature of "The Hunger Games: Mockingjay" parts 1 and 2 and were able to see the new film a day before the official release.  Or is that a day and a 1/2 because of midnight?  I don't know.  We got cool pins of the hand signal the rebels do, as well as lanyards so that we could go in and out of the theater.

Anyway, neither Cindy nor I remembered crying so much the first time we watched part 1, but I probably just forgot.  I did not, however, forget Katniss' song.  On with part 2, the final portion of the final book of the great Hunger Games series.

• Johanna is the coolest.  Vicious, but cool, and hilarious.
• Love Katniss' outfits.  I'm glad that Cinna was able to design more of them before his demise.
• Peeta made me nervous, even though I remembered what happened at the end of the books.  Thanks for making me nervous, Josh.
• Oh, Gale.  So tortured.
• Effie's eyelashes could stab a person.
• I don't remember Julianne Moore's eyes being that light.  They were kinda freaky as Coin.
• Tried not to cry when they showed Plutarch.  
• I now can't watch Stanely Tucci as Caesar without thinking of Stephen Colbert acting as Caesar's brother whenever a candidate drops out of the presidential race.
• Poor kitty cat.  But at least he knew that Katniss needed him to stay.  
• The monsters in the sewers reminded me of the really old vampires in the Buffy series.
• "May your aim be as true as your heart is pure."  Oh boy.
• Ooh, the kisses!  Especially the one not in the triangle.  That was a surprise!
• "You love me.  Real or not real?"

Great job with the series, everyone.  Thank you for being true to Katniss' story.

DLR LotD 11/28/15

Disneyland Resort
Line of the Day

Saturday, November 28, 2015

"You're just making everybody uncomfortable, like Miley Cyrus." -- Genie, to Jafar, in Disney's Aladdin: A Musical Spectacular

Harmonic Journal 11/28/15

Harmonic Journal
Saturday, November 28, 2015

"Love and the Lights" by Kevin Wright and Andy Zulla, as performed by Rockapella

Harmonic Journal 11/27/15

Harmonic Journal
Friday, November 27, 2015

"You're a Mean One, Mr. Grinch" by Theodor Geisel and Albert Hague, as performed by Rockapella

Harmonic Journal 11/26/15

Harmonic Journal
Thursday, November 26, 2015

"Simple Gifts" as performed by the cast of blast!




Happy Thanksgiving!

Harmonic Journal 11/25/15

Harmonic Journal
Wednesday, November 25, 2015

"American Pie" by Don McLean, as sung by The King's Singers

Harmonic Journal 11/24/15

Harmonic Journal
Tuesday, November 24, 2015

"Kiss Goodnight" by Richard M. Sherman, as performed by Ashley Brown

DLR LotD 11/24/15

Disneyland Resort
Line of the Day

Tuesday, November 24, 2015

"Tita Sherry, I want to ride with you." -- Brady, at Toy Story Midway Mania and The Little Mermaid: Ariel's Undersea Adventure

Harmonic Journal 11/23/15

Harmonic Journal
Monday, November 23, 2015

"True" by Gary Kemp, as performed by Spandau Ballet

Harmonic Journal 11/22/15

Harmonic Journal
Sunday, November 22, 2015

"Have A Little Faith" by Scott Leonard, as performed by Rockapella

Upstairs in the Spectre at Los Gatos

Los Gatos PellaPosse Trip

Days 2 and 3

Friday and Saturday, November 13-14, 2015

I woke up in The City of the Kitties and had my leftover pumpkin coffeecake from Hobee's.  I would have had my cinnamon-orange tea, but I didn't want to deal with finding a way to transport it once the bag was open.  Wendy had wanted some nice coffee from whatever place makes little designs with the cream.  She wasn't insistent on it, but we found a place that did that anyway: Purple Onion Cafe.  I ordered a savory scone, which had chicken sausage, cheddar cheese and green onion in it, along with a small macchiato.  When the counter guy brought us our drinks, he didn't know which one was which, so we kind of guessed.  Wendy took the smallest drink, thinking it was her cafe au lait.  I took the larger drink, thinking it was my macchiato.  She didn't really like hers, so she told another employee, and they said that she was drinking the wrong one.  So they gave her a cafe au lait.  I didn't want the teeny tiny macchiato, so I kept with the cafe au lait.  Sorry about that, Wendy!  My scone was pretty tasty, but we probably won't go back there again because that guy didn't know what was going on and it irritated us.  We had also asked about an event that was happening that night, just to see what it was.  He said that we would need to make reservations online and that they were out of reservations anyway.   We just wanted to know what it was about, and he finally told us.  It was like pulling teeth.  Maybe you shouldn't advertise an event that is now closed for reservations by placing a LOT of the event cards all over your storefront.  I'm just saying.

Teeny Tiny Macchiato and Regular Caffe Latte

We walked around Los Gatos, which is a quaint town.  I wanted to go into the antique shop but it wasn't open yet.  We thought we might have seen the store owner, but I didn't feel like waiting for her to get the store ready.  We walked along the Los Gatos Creek Trail.  Jeff didn't eat the poisonous berries.  I didn't fall down into the creek when I took pictures.  It was all good.  

Hugging a Tree on the Trail

While we were walking around town, I saw a sign in the distance that I thought said, "American Indian Deli".  Hmmm...I wondered if we could get some kind of Native American food, and Wendy wondered if it was Fry Bread.  We were intrigued, so we walked toward that store.  On the way there, we saw an Olive Oil store, so we decided to go inside.  We started tasting stuff and OMG, it was sooooo good!  I wanted the Mulled Spice Balsamic vinegar.  I also wanted other stuff and couldn't decide.  The guy helping us had just moved there from Rhode Island, and told us that they had other stores.  I told him where we were from, and he asked if San Diego would be close by.  I said, "Not really.  I would just go up here if I was going to do that."  Well, I could drive to San Diego quicker, but I'd rather go up the coast to Los Gatos. :)  The manager was there and told us that they were opening a store in Pasadena next week!  We got really excited, and told her that we would check definitely check it out. We Olive was wonderful, and I invited myself to Thanksgiving dinner at the guy's house because he was going to toss some vegetables in one of the olive oils and roast them or saute them over whatever.  I told them that I would be back after deciding what to buy that wasn't made of glass, since I could just get that at the Pasadena store, and they were so nice that I didn't want to leave Los Gatos without buying something.  We walked outside, and less than a minute later, I decided to get an olive wood dipping bowl.  I walked back to the store and giggled, asking, "Did you miss me?"  They laughed, and I told Ruth that I hoped to see her in Pasadena.

We then found the place that we had been looking for....except that it wasn't actually American Indian.  Rather, it was American Italian Delicatessen.  Yeah, I'm dumb.  We laughed and laughed at how stupid that whole thing was, but without that place, we wouldn't have found We Olive, so it was all just a case of serendipity!

We looked at the movie theater across the street.  See the sign in back of Jeff?

What do you think it means?

I thought it meant that "The Martian" was being shown in the main spectre upstairs, whatever a spectre is.  Jeff was trying to figure out what movie was out that had "Upstairs" in the title.  I told him that Upstairs was where The Martian was showing, in the main spectre.  Wendy, incredulous at our stupidity, explained:  "Spectre" is showing in the main theater, and "The Martian" is showing upstairs.  Ohhhhhhh.  It's still making me have a giggle fit as I write this 9 days later.  The best part of this is that Jeff grew up with a little theater in his town, and they had one film showing in the main theater, and one showing upstairs at all times.  Clearly, the fresh air in Los Gatos has made us idiots.  

Wendy had heard about a bakery in town, and we went to the information center to ask for help to find it.  Unfortunately, it was closed, and the map on the window was not helpful because it didn't have a close-up of the local business locations.  We looked at a pamphlet and it showed the bakery name and its address, but the map wasn't helpful, so we ended up using my Maps app to guide us to Manresa Bread.  They had a roll of paper posted that showed the time that each batch of bread was baked, and crossed them out when they were sold out for the day.  Well, that's fresh, folks!

List of Yumminess

 I ordered a banana chocolate almond croissant because I couldn't resist the thought of bananas and chocolate in my favorite kind of croissant.  I also just like to say "croissant" in the French accent.  I decided to save it for the next day's breakfast.  Throughout the morning walk, we noticed that there were a lot of dogs around Los Gatos.  We didn't see any cats, except for a mural on an apartment building. So why isn't the place called Los Lobos?  Wendy noticed that all of the dogs knew that they should stop in front of our hotel because the hotel puts out dog treats in a little container for all to partake.  No wonder we like this hotel!  

We walked back through town to our hotel to get ready for our afternoon in Santa Cruz. They had some snacks for the guests, so we took some for the rest of the day.  Actually, I ate my banana right away, while we perused the rose garden that was outside the other set of rooms.

I made reservations for us to have dinner at The Crow's Nest at sunset, and we were off to Santa Cruz.  We made our way to the famous Boardwalk, and walked along the beach for a little bit.  Wendy dedicated some sand to Steve and sent him a picture.  He later posted it on social media and told us that we rock and we're great fans.  Well, thank you!  We love you, Steve!

Boardwalk

Shadow Puppets

Living

I wanted to get some saltwater taffy, but most of the boardwalk shops and arcade games were closed.  Jeff dared to step foot over the restricted area just because.  We made ourselves hungry by checking out the different food booths that were closed.  People did start to show up later in the afternoon, and some booths started to open, but alas, they were not the ones we wanted to visit.  

We went to Neptune's Kingdom to use the restroom, and we checked out the mini golf course, which had a pirate theme, and a really cool special effect of smoke rings flying through the room when the pirates shot their cannons.  I wanted to have my fortune read by the pirate, so we all decided to get a fortune.  Wendy was annoyed by the lame gypsy, and the Brainiac fortune teller didn't even give a card to Jeff.  We had enough money on our card for Jeff and me to play BurgerTime.  It was so much fun to play that game again, but I forgot that I didn't have unlimited pepper and used it up too soon.  Jeff did so well that he got 4th on the board!  Yay, JEF!

We checked out the little museum upstairs, which had old school penny arcade games and pictures of the evolution of the boardwalk.  Look!  A mermaid!

It was finally time for us to go to The Crow's Nest.  We were hungry, so we didn't mind that our dinner time was so early.  They seated us at a table where we could see the horizon to the west to watch the sunset, and so that we could see the lighthouse.  We enjoyed seeing the changing colors of the sky as time passed and the sun set over the ocean.  

I ordered a cup of claim chowder, as well as the special salad with romaine lettuce, shrimp, strawberries, hazelnuts, havarti cheese, and avocado with a very light balsamic vinaigrette dressing.  The claim chowder had too much lemon in it, but it tasted OK.  Why do people put lemon in cream-based soup?  I don't understand.  I did, however, really enjoy the salad.  Also, it had an edible orchid.  So pretty!

Jeff enjoyed his pork chop, which was really big.  Wendy ordered a margarita pizza, but didn't like it as much as we enjoyed our dishes.  Sorry, Wendy.  

I had my eye on the dessert menu because I wanted to taste their semifreddo, which was made with maple syrup.  It was tasty, but not as good as the semifreddo that I love at my favorite Italian restaurant.  I mean, they didn't even give me the right kind of semifreddo shovel spoon, but The Crow's Nest is not an Italian restaurant, so I understand.

We somehow successfully made our way back to Los Gatos without getting lost.  Now that I know how to get around there, I'll forget by the time we return.  

The next morning, we checked out of the hotel, and took look at the plaque in the lobby that Jeff T had mentioned.  It had photos of Marilyn Monroe's wedding to Joe DiMaggio, which took place at the hotel.  Cool!

I drove Weff to the airport and dropped them off before getting gas and returning the rental car.  The TSA line was pretty long, so I didn't get to see them again before they boarded their plane.  I had a little while to wait, so I had an early lunch of sushi.  Mmmm...sushi.  

My flight back to Burbank was not quite full, and it was thankfully uneventful.

I had a great time in Northern California with Weff!  I'm looking forward to our next trip together to see Rockapella.  Thank you, Pella, for bringing us together!