Los Angeles Welcomes Gustavo Dudamel !!!

This past Thursday evening I got to do something I have wanted to do for several years now...attend a concert of the Los Angeles Philharmonic Orchestra!!!! But mind you, it was not just ANY concert, it was the Inaugural Concert of It's new Musical Director......Gustavo Dudamel!!!!!!!! Yep, and I got to go....FOR FREE!!! which just made the whole thing a little sweeter!

I have loved what my little brother always called "long haired music" ever since
I was in grade school. Actually I can not remember a time when I did not like listening to Mozart and all his buddies. My Mother thought this was wonderful and bought me several records (yes then we had records)and I would play them for hours.
If this was not a sign to them they had a little Queen in the making I don't know would have given them a clue. (Well maybe one Christmas when I had asked for a certain doll, and got a set of cap guys instead, and I looked up at my Mom after I had opened up the guns and said,"WHY?", that might have also been a clue for them)
Last week as I was listening to NPR as I was driving to work, they made the announcement that the LA Phil was having a special drawing for tickets to the
outside showing of the Inaugural Concert of Gustovo. All you needed to do was go the the LA Phil website and give them your email address and name,and on Tuesday their computer was going to select 2000 names at random and those people would win 2 ticket to the event on Thursday. So I made a note of myself ( as my brother says, "Note to self") and when I got to work I signed up, and forgot about it, sorta.

If you live anywhere close to Los Angeles you have known for several weeks now that Gustavo was coming.You may not have had a clue who he was, but you knew he was coming. He is on all the sides and rears of every bus in town. He face is smiling down from many, many, many bill boards all over town. Thankfully, he is a nice looking man and we don't have to look at a hideous face plastered all over the place!!

So on Tuesday I was at work and something made me remember that was the day they were selecting the names for the concert so I logged on and check and of course there was nothing in my mail box from the LA Phil. And the little voice in the back of my head said, "You really did not expect to win now did you??" So I just went back work and really did not think anything about it. The last hour of our day that day was really slow (you do not say dead in a Doctor's office) so I was killing time before we could leave and I checked my email again and there it was...."Congratulation, you have been selected to attend the LA Phil concert this Thursday evening!". I promise you I read it 3 times before it stuck in my mind.
I was so excited. I have always wanted to hear the LA Phil in concert but the tickets have always been a little pricey for me so I just did not sweat it. But now I have another task I had to do.....find someone who would go with me, because I knew Patrick would say, "That's great Baby, who are you going to take with you?" because I knew he wouldn't go. Not that he doesn't like "Long Haired Music", he's Gay, he has to, its a requirement for us. But I knew his work hours would interfer
with him being able to get there when we had to check in. So I texted our friend,Timmy, and in no time he texted back that he would LOVE to, and we were set.

So Thursday evening I met Timmy at the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion in downtown LA and we went through our security check, I had been sent a special email with a number on it that I had to bring with me and I had to have a picture ID. Once we went through security we were ushered into the outdoor Plaza were Timmy and I and 1500 of our closest friends were going to watch a simulcast of the Concert that was taking place inside beautiful Walt Disney Concert Hall, right across the street. We got to our place around 6, the concert started at 7. So we settled in and ate dinner (Timmy brought some things from a Chinese bakery and I bought what was probably one of the best hot dogs I have ever had from the vendor that was set up by us)and as more people started coming in and sitting around us, we started talking with them also.
EVERYONE was excited. You could honestly feel the excitement in the air.

The darkness started falling around us and the magical time was approaching. Then, right on time at 7pm, the large screen came alive and we were inside the Walt Disney Concert Hall right along with the 2000 people decked out in their tuxes and evening gowns ( and I was getting to wear a comfortable shirt and slacks and in my sock feet!). When Gustavo came on to the stage everyone went crazy. Shouting and clapping and whistling. The energy was amazing.

Now the concert was in two parts. The first half was a world premiere of a new work called "City Noir" by a man named Adams. Well to sum it up quickly for you....I did not like it. It was a modern piece and I am not a fan of most modern classical music.
For about 45 mins I listened to music that I could not get into or make head or tails of. And from what I heard around me at intermission I was not alone.

BUT, then came the second half and it was "Symphony No 1 in D major" by Mahler and it was
simply beautiful. As I looked around during the performance everyone looked as if they were in a trance. It was awesome. I really did not want it to end. After each movement, the crowd would go crazy with applause and in the end, Gustavo Dudamel received a standing ovation both in and outside of the Disney Hall. To sum it up,
it was a truly amazing evening. Wonderful music under a clear, starry night in downtown Los Angeles, truly amazing.

later!

p.s. I would like to thank our friend Timmy for coming with me to exeperience this amazing evening. He and I and Patrick have had many adventures in the 9+ years we have been tegether, but it is a very rare thing that I get to spend some quality alone time with Timmy. The hour we got to share before the concert started just
added to the greatness of the evening for me. thanks my friend!
























(to see any of the pictures in a large format,simpley double click on the pic)

Just Another Reason I Don't Take Sleep Meds...

All of my life I have had to be careful when it comes to the medication I take. I have a "delicate" system so I have been told and when most meds says to take two of something I can only take one. When I first started taking blood pressure medications several years ago, the first day I took it I fainted at work because the dosage I was prescribe lowered my blood pressure too fast! (Now mind you I was at work when I fainted but I have been told I fainted in a very lady like manner!!) So the Doctor cut the dosage in half for me and it has always worked fine.

I have never been a fan of sleep medication and have actually only used them twice in my life. Once I was having an episode of insomnia that happens to me very once in awhile so a friend recommended I take a Tylenol PM, sounded good to me, so I did.
It made a Zombie out of me all the next day, I got 2 good nights sleep off of 1 pill!! And then a couple of years ago when I lost my job a dear friend of mind gave me 2 Ambien and told me to only use half whenever I could not sleep because of the stress of losing my job, that was over 2 years ago and I still have one pill left!!

But last week, I came across something that really floored me. Most of you know I work in an Doctor's office and one of the things I do is deal with the Drug Reps. Thankfully the ones who call on our office are all really nice and some I know from the last office I worked in. When they leave the medication samples they also leave he product info sheets that tells all about the medications. It was the end of the day and I was clearing stuff off my desk getting ready to go home when I found one of the product sheets a Rep left that day, it was for a sleep medication. I just glanced over it and could not believe what I was reading. You can actually take this medication (one of my Docs said it applies to any of them) and get up and do things and not remember you did it when you wake up. Now I want you to take a look at the list...some of the things listed I really don't mind not remembering but a couple I sure as hell want to remember if I get the chance to do them them !!!
So now I have another reason not to take sleep medications.....

later!!

Where Did Summer Go?

Well for those of you who may not know it, today is the official last day of Summer.
Tomorrow is the Autumnal Equinox and Autumn officially begins. In Paganism, it is called Mabon. It is the day when the Day and Night are divided equally. For me personally,it starts one of my most favorite times of year..Autumn.

As excited as I am about the changing seasons, I have one question for each of you who reads my blog...."Where did the Summer go?"

It was just a few days ago that we were in Spring time, the flowers were all starting to grow and bloom and we were just starting to slip into Summer time, and all the sudden, here we are at the last day of Summer !! I don't know about you but I had things planned out that I wanted to do this Summer,and not a one of them did I get around to!! I think one thing that faked us out is that we did not have a very warm Summer for the most part. I wasn't until August that it even started getting hot. July certainly wasn't a hot month as it usually is. So with only a few weeks of really hot weather for us here in Sunny Southern California, it just did not seem like we had much of a Summer!!

Even though Summer seemed much shorter this year, I did have several very cool adventures, some I have blogged about and some I will catch up on soon.
For instance, on July 4th, I attended my very first Anime Convention with the Nephew.
If you are not sure just what Anime is, Google it, it is a form of Japanese Art, cartoons to us here. I have to admit I really did not know much about it when I volunteered to go, but I really had an amazing time. It started out in May when the Nephew said a group of his friends were going to meet up on July 4th at the Anime Convention at Convention Center here in LA. Now I knew he would not be allowed to go by himself so I told him I would go with him. So the morning of July 4th, we caught the Metro train in South Pasadena and rode it downtown to the Convention Center.
It was much easier than me driving down and having to pay for parking. I am sure the Nephew had a good time with his friends and I had a fun time getting to know a whole new world I had no idea existed!

At the beginning of Summer, I went hiking in Eaton Canyon outside of Pasadena with Patrick and some of his friends. It is a really beautiful place and a great hike. I will be posting about that adventure very soon.

Also this summer I got to do something I have wanted to do ever since I moved here (almost 7 years ago!!), I toured the City Hall here in LA. It is quite an amazing building. I joined the Summer tour put on by the LA Conservancy and it was really enjoyable. For those of you who may not know, I LOVE history, especially the history of the area I live in. When I moved to Palms Springs back in 1987, I dove into the history of the area. By the time I moved in 2000, I could give a pretty good history tour of Palm Springs and the surrounding area!! And I am enjoying doing the same thing with Los Angeles, there is SO much history here, and not just the Hollywood history!!

Of course we made a few trips to Disneyland. Even though we have our Annual Pass, we usually don't go to Disneyland during the Summer much, way too many people!!
A couple of weeks ago we decided on the spur of the moment to go see the fireworks on a Friday night, we figured it would be safe....WRONG!!!!!. I can not even begin to tell you how crowded it was. So we went to Main Street and staked out our space, and once the fireworks were over, we pretty much waited in the stores for awhile and headed back home. There are far more better times for us to go, like next weekend for GAY DAYS!!!!!

We had several more fun adventures this summer. I went to Palm Springs and had lunch with my Gal Pal, LB. I ended up spending the night there with my sister Doris(many of you know him as Jake). Patrick and I went to see the Pagent of the Masters in Laguna Beach(thanks to our friends Cindy and Jeff). A couple of weeks ago we took the Neice and Nephew to the Pantages to see "Legally Blonde" (which was really fun!) and just this past weekend Patrick and I went to see "Stand Up Comics..the Drag Queens" over the Broad Theater in Santa Monica. (I have not laughed so much in a very long time.It was taped and will be on the LOGO channel in 2010, I will keep you posted).

As much fun as we did have this Summer, to me, it is over way too fast. Growing up, the Summer seemed to last for so long. But I have been warned many times along my Journey that as you get older, times passes more quickly. You think so? I am hoping not because I have a whole host of things I want to do that I have not got to do yet!!

Hope you had a fun Summer and now as we slow down and tranition into Autumn, I hope each day brings a smile to you face and may you have many adventures along the way to Winter!!

later.

Dawn...Starting Out A New Day

Since today is Labor Day and I have the day off (Yeah!) I thought I would take advantage of it and do something I have wanted to do for a long time, stand on my favorite cliff over looking the ocean and watch the sun rise.

I had plans to be in San Pedro early this morning to watch my friend Mike run in the "Conquer the Bridge" 5 mile run, so I just got up a little earlier and headed for the cliffs at White Point Beach,on the western side of San Pedro. This place is one of my favorite places to be. It is a high cliff overlooking the ocean and you can literally see for miles in all directions.

This morning I was on the cliff just minutes before the Sun peaked over the horizon (and through the clouds) to start a brand new day. As I was walking along the path to the cliffs, I was welcomed by a light breeze that was cool and filled with the smell of the ocean below. As I reached the point where you could see the beach line below I was surprised at the several other people who were stationed about on the beach and perched on the rocks below, also waiting for the sunrise.

Since it was cloudy I was afraid we would not be able to see the sunrise, but just
as it was time, the clouds parted some and there the Sun was peaking over the horizon. It was so quiet with only the sound of the ocean hitting the rocks below.
It was so beautiful. I just stood there and took it all in.

So often I think we are so busy and hurried in the morning that we miss so many beautiful sunrises. Each day a new day dawns for us and we are too busy to see it, we just take it for granted, and we miss so much beauty.

Just like everyone else I seem to be so busy in my everyday life. Always have somewhere to go and somewhere to be. I have been so "busy" it seems doing "stuff" this year that here we are in September already and I can't even remember what I have doing all this months and how it got to be so late in the year already!!

Standing there this morning, watching the sun peak over the horizon once again, like it has done everyday for thousands of years, I remembered that I need to slow down and take in all the wonderful things each day holds for me, and to pay attention and enjoy it all, everyday.

Hope you will join me in doing that.

later

A Tale of an Electronie Toy Junkie.

I don't know about you but I am glad this Monday is over!! Mondays for me are the hardest day in my work week, and today was no exception. Some time I will share with you what a day in my work life is like, but for today, lets just say when the day was over, my butt was dragging about two feet behind me!! But now that Monday is over, bring on the rest of the week!!

Some of you know that over the last couple of weeks I have been having problems with my cell phone. Now at one time I swore I would never have a cell phone, I just did not see the need to have one, no one needed to get ahold of me that bad, if they did they could either call me at home or in the case of an emergency,call me at work. But then I met Patrick, and things changed. After we had been seeing each other for a few weeks, he totally surprised me with....a cell phone. I remember it was about as big as the phone here in the house and it was blue (I like blue!). It was connected to his phone on his calling plan and we could talk to each other and it did not cost us anything. It was good think he did that, with him living in LA and me in Palms Springs. I remember seeing his phone bill one month and we had talked over 3000 minutes that month, imagine how much our phone bills would have been. Ma Bell would have really loved us!!!

So a couple of weeks ago my phone started having problems charging. I found out it was the internal connection on the phone that was broken and I had to wiggle the end of the charging cord around to get it to charge and then one day it just wouldn't charge anymore, and I was without a phone. That was ok for a couple of days and then
I started going through a sort of cell phone withdrawal. I am sure they have to have a group like AA for former cell phone users!! So finally Patrick went with me to Verizon to have my phone check out and yes, it was dead and could not be repaired.
Of course they would be happy to sell me a new phone but it would be January 2010 before I could upgrade to a new phone and get a deal. So I decided I just could not spend the money right now so I had them switch my phone plan back to my old Razor phone I still had, that would work just fine until January. Have you ever had to go back to driving an old car with a standard transmission once you have driven a new
fully loaded Jaguar??? Trust me there is ALOT of difference!! But you know, you have to do what you have to do now a days and the Razor would just have to do till January.

On Thursday Patrick called me at work around noon and told he was going to surprise me with something but he found out he had to tell me....he had bought me a new phone and it was going to be activated that afternoon and he had to tell me because my
Razor would not work anymore. Can you say EXCITED!! Well to say I was excited is an understatement. But I would have go wait until he go home to see what it was.

Well, let me tell you what my Hunny got me, it is the Verizon EnVtouch. It is really beautiful and I can not even begin to tell you here all the features it has. It is like he bought me a new computer with alot of bells and whistles. It is amazing.
I even makes phone calls!!! It is going to take me awhile to learn this one but it is going to be fun learning it!

That was Thursday. So Friday morning I get up and started my daily routine. A part of my daily routine is to plug my iPod into my computer so it can update my daily podcasts I listen to. Well the screen came up to update and then something happened, it said "there are songs you bought on the iPod that is not in the iTunes
on your computer, do you want to add them to iTunes?" Now I thought this was strange but I had seen this once before when I had bought some music from iTunes and did not like it and deleted it from my iPod, so I click yes.....and then the unthinkable happened. it cleared ALL the music off my iPod and when it was finished (I had walked away once it started and did no notice it then) all that was on it was about 480 songs... I had over 5000 on it to begin with. I wish I could fine the words to express to you ALL the emotions I felt right then, but I just can't. When I went back to check it before I left for work, I just sat there, with eyes as big as plates and my mouth totally wide open, and I remember I was breathing pretty heavy.
I wanted to scream but it just wouldn't happen.I looked over at Patrick and said,
"It cleared my iPod"....it was a sad, sad scene.

There was nothing I could do right then as I was leaving for work. I kept thinking about it all day. I had been collecting music for the last several years from different places and I knew alot of it I would probably never come across again.
But what can you do? So when I got home I started looking over to Apple.com and tried to find some answers as to what to do but found nothing. So I went to my Music folder on my Computer and started looking around, for what I am not sure but I had to be doing something till Patrick got home. And then, right there in my Music folder, was a fold that had ALL the music that had previously been on my iPod. But for some reaond it was not in the folder that currently held the music that was on my iPod now. This really confused me (which is not a hard thing to do when it comes to computer stuff). So when Patrick got home,instead of finding me in a stupor like he and left me that morning, I was sitting there with my confused face on. So when he came into our office, I calmly told him what I had found,and he looked at it and said," you just have to make it read the list from that folder", and walked over and sat down at his desk. Why sure!! I know how to do that, NOT!!! So he came back over, and clicked a couple of buttons and BAMM, it started downloading all my old music from the folder I found,back on to my iPod!! It was just that simple, for him.
Well it actually took about 2 hours for ever thing to reload to my iPod. After it was finished I had lost all my play lists and the counters at the end of each song was blank, so I lost all my numbers of how many times I had listen to each song and when.
But at least I had all my music back!! I was very thankful

It was later the next day that I was thinking about all the gadgets are on my new phone and how thankful I was that I got my music back on my iPod and it was then that I realized without a doubt......I am an electronic toy junkie!! How did I ever
live a fulfilling life before I got a cell phone and an iPod???? Some answers to life's questions you will just never know!!

later

Hiking in the Lower Arroyo Seco Nature Park

This past Sunday was such a beautiful day I just could not stay inside!! Right now I have 3 hikes I would really like to do, one involves the bridges over the LA River, one involves the Historic District in downtown LA and the third one is hiking in the Arroyo Seco outside of Pasadena. Since it was a perfect day to be outside, and the fact that I have been wanting to be out in the "woods", hiking in the Arroyo Seco won out!

Now for those of you who have not idea what the Arroyo Seco is, it is a water way that flows from the San Gabriel Mountains down through the commnunites of Altadena, Pasadena, South Pasadena, Montecito Heights and Lincoln Heights and joins the LA River close to downtown LA. The Tongva people (native people of this region) called this tributary Hahamongna, which translates "place of flowing waters and fruitful valley". But the early Spanish expeditions looked at the area in a totally different light and named it the Arroyo Seco which means "dry creek". If you have ever driven over the Colorado Street bridge in Pasadena, you have passed over the Arroyo Seco.

Now I have driven over the Colorado Street bridge many times since I have lived here and I have always wanted to be down there in the Seco hiking but I really did not
know how to get down there. One of my blog buddies, Jonah, (Pacific Blue Sky Diamonds Blog) talks about running in the Seco and how beautiful it is and I have always wanted to experience it for myself. So recently I came across a great book of hikes along the L A River, "Down by the Los Angeles River" by Joe Linton, and in it it has hikes ......in the Arroyo Seco!!!! I was excited. So this past Sunday
I took my camera, my bottle of water, and my red cap and headed down to the Arroyo Seco!!

Now the part I decided to hike is known as the Lower Arroyo Seco and my hike started at the Lower Arroyo Seco Nature Park. I like this area because it had a parking lot to leave my car and....it has restrooms!!

The area is really beautiful, even in the dryness of summer. The trail is well marked and there are all kinds of wild life from birds to butterflies and squirrels to hot guys running shirtless along the trail(my personal favorite wild life!),
After walking a short distance, you come to a stream that has flowing water and tall grass. Even though you are slap dab in the middle of a metropolitan area, you would think you are miles from no where. It is so quiet and peaceful that you can hear the water running along the stream. I have so many different kinds of butterflies it was amazing. I can't wait until Spring when all the wild flowers bloom!

The trail itself is on level ground, there is not elevation so it is an easy hike.
As you go further East, you come closer to the Colorado Street bridge, except this time you are under it!! I could see it in the distance and all though you can hear the cars on the bridge, you can not see them. The closer you get to the bridges the more amazing they are. As you drive over them you really do not pay attention to how huge they are, but as you stand and look up to the under belly of the bridges, it is simply breath taking how huge they are. As you stand there and look up you can't help but be amazed at how they could build something so huge and yet so beautiful.

The trail goes well beyond the bridges and I walked to the end where the trail ends at Arroyo Blvd, so I turned around and hiked back along the trail until I got back to the parking lot. It was a beautiful hike in such a peaceful place. I encountered several other people out waking,many with their dogs. I had a really fun time.

This next weekend I hope to be back in the Arroyo for a different hike. With the weather here in LA being so wonderful right how, how could anyone stay indoors!!

later!

Mike the Poet

Mike the Poet was my tour guide in July when I attended the Downtown LA Artwalk. Here is a video of our tour,and yes I am in it,see if you can find me!!