Out of the Ordinary and Into Routine

Last night I felt great when I got off work. I had a long bad day, I was tired and a bit hungover all day long. Once I found myself in my car, speeding home on the freeway I felt great and alive all out of the abyss. When I arrived home Chris and Angela were sprawled out on the couch, dead from a day of working out, swimming and then shattering both of their diets. I refused to join them in their sloth and gluttony, for the moment. I changed and went to the Gym where I worked my chest, shoulders and abs. I came home and showered and asked the two couch slugs if they wanted to go for a drive. We decided to go up to the observatory and then down to the pantry to eat. The observatory is closed on Mondays, but you can still wander around the grounds and enjoy the stunning, twinkling view of Los Angeles. I put fifty cents into on of the telescopes and was proud of myself for being able to find the theater across from Chris' house, and Angela was able to even read the posters of what movies were playing, several miles away. We watched the city twinkle for a spell and then moved on.
We drove down Normandie to Wilshere, a route that is only fun in the evening as Normandie can bottle neck is some idiot wants to turn left down streets a person has no business visiting. We took Wilshire downtown and then did the backwards one way dance till we parked across from the Pantry.
The Pantry is LA Tradition, there are no locks on the door and it has never been closed since 1924. The freeway forced it to move in 1950, and when they moved they served lunch at the old location and dinner at the new, and they've been going ever since. During the 1994 earthquake when power was out, they cooked by candle light to cover breakfast. We had a random sampling of dishes between the three of us, and even I broke my diet. It was fun though, and after my last two body busting workouts I feel fine about my dalliance with the darker forces in food. My favorite of all the dishes was the french toast.
After dinner we drove to Pershing square and walked around. We watched the Los Angeles ice skaters and had a bit of a chuckle at their expense. Pershing Square is no longer the den of Hustler's from "City of Night". It's secure and reasonably clean. Downtown Los Angeles has come such a long way since I first moved here. It's nice to not feel in peril all of the time while moving about it, but I miss something of the grit of a dead city.
We recently revisited the movie 500 Days of Summer, and Angela had been curious where the main guy character's favorite spot in the city was. We walked up Olive to 4th, where the park benches they sit on in the movie are located. The park was locked, so we admired the view of the view they admired, and finally back to the car we went.
We drove Broadway through Chinatown, and we all remarked how much we like Chinatown and how we need to spend more time there. Broadway lead us across one of my favorite bridges, taking us out of Downtown, into Mission Junction where I made a left on Pasadena. From Pasadena another left took us to San Fernando and into Cypress Park, and Glassell Park, and Finally back into Atwater Village. I drove us around the quiet streets of Atwater for a spell, and then home. Very active and out of the ordinary for us on a Monday night, I settled down then on the couch feeling relieved and relaxed, soon finding myself sleepy and into the bed.

Normalcy is now back on me. I arrived at work at the same time as one of the Technicians. He had brought with him a friend of his who will be helping us out for the next couple months. It's show season and we are once again a flurry of activity. I checked my morning email and generated an invoice. I had three full cups of coffee and a handful of pistachios for breakfast.
I assigned all the technicians to their various tasks and sent them away. I settled in and began my round of news and blog readings. I chatted some with Devin to let him know I was disappointed not to read anything new from his blog this morning. I realized I was a being a bit unfair since I had not blogged today myself.

Tonight I will swim, hopefully it won't leave me feeling as sore as it did last week, but if it does that is fine too.