We’re back in Disney Land – haven’t been here since 2008. I am doing a crap job of recording meals we’ve had – but to my credit, we haven’t had anything that was truly wonderful – at least in my humble opinion (which is really not so humble).
The first night here we drove to Huntington Beach, walked around a bit, and ate at a place called Duke’s. I made an open table reservation. We were starving and cranky, and, in her punctual Dutch manner, Joelle just could not understand why we had to wait 30 minutes when we had a reservation. Once we finally got seated, the service was still a little slow, but we got an appetizer – a kind of crab Rangoon, cream cheese & crabmeat in fried wonton skins – and that helped tide us over till the entrees. We all opted for fish in different preparations – Joelle had salmon with Parmesan & garlic and after her first bite said it might be the best salmon she’d ever tasted. Mark ordered tuna and had to send it back to get it made a bit less rare. I had opa, with some kind of dark crust on top of pickled bok choy. I got an ice cream scoop of utterly plain white rice, but Mark got a wild & brown rice pilaf that was good albeit with a slight undertone of bouillon cube.
On Thursday we started with a little mismatch – Mark had visions of a hearty Southern California diner-type breakfast, and Joelle wanted lunch with mimosa at an outdoor cafe. We ended up grabbing some Starbucks, then driving to Santa Monica pier and Venice Beach. We saw a great tumbling act on Venice Beach, 4 guys, “the Calypso Tumblers”, who did all sorts of contortions, hurling themselves around on the cement with no pads, told good jokes, and closed by jumping a row of 10 people. We got lunch at a cafe, but Joelle just stuck to fruit with her mimosa. I had a basil-tomato panini that was more like a toasted sandwich, and kind greasy, but OK. Mark had an omelette & potatoes, so he did manage to get a form of breakfast. We suffered through traffic and, when we finally got back to the hotel, I discovered to my horror, that I had needed to swap our ALA Disney ticket vouchers for the real thing at the convention center – that was all closed by then. I managed to talk our way in – another example of bad customer service for Joelle – and we had an ok Disney night. Rode Pirates of the Caribbean, ate ice cream, bought Minnie Mouse ears for Joelle’s little sister, watched the fireworks over our shoulders as we walked out.
Friday was my big workshop day. I started with a triple shot skim latte, which is basically what I’ve been making for myself at home (since my brother got me started on when I visited in May). I make espresso in my 6-cup stove top pot, and while it’s coming to a boil, I heat about 3/4 cup skim milk in one of my big 16-oz. china mugs, and pour in the espresso when it’s ready.
For lunch I had a prepackaged convention center muffin. We were going to baseball, so I figured I’d go hungry till I could get a BBQ sandwich & fries & a beer at the stadium. I ended up in a brew pub outside the stadium, waiting for Mark & Joelle, because I believed the map librarian who bought our ticket block – he said I couldn’t leave their tickets at willcall because they’d already been picked up. Joe & Terry started calling him the ticket Nazi, but he wrangled 35 tickets on the 3rd baseline, and they were only $25 a piece. Instead of BBQ, I had coconut shrimp and a fat tire in the pub. And watched the game on TV. And when Mark called around the 4th inning to say they were still probably an hour away, I dared to approach the willcall window. And, when I inquired, expecting to be told “no”, the ticket guy simply handed me an envelope and said, “print the name”.
Saturday morning I kind of wandered from session to session, not finding anything I really was interested in. I met one of my students, who lives in San Clemente. She was at the conference with her mom, who’s also a librarian. We walked up to downtown Disney and ate salads at La Brea Bakery.
It turned out to be a good thing that I had a nice lunch. For dinner, we were supposed to meet some librarian friends at a brew pub that was just past the Angels stadium on Katella Ave – about a mile and a half from our hotel. They made it there; we spent over an hour in gridlock traffic, and finally bailed when we were probably only 1/2 a mile away. The problem was Snoop Dogg at the Honda Center. We ended up at a neighborhood Italian place, Carolina’s, kind of divey but the food was OK – see below. The main casualty of the evening is that by the time we were finished eating, it was almost 10:00 p.m. – so we missed seeing the Rock Bottom Remainders, with Roger McGuin sitting in. But I can still watch them on YouTube, and in fact the vid from the night before at a club in L.A. is way better than any of the iPhone movies shot by the librarians.
