Tuesday, April 08, 2008

Me and my Shadow


I stopped to talk to Sandy the can lady at Lake Balboa today. She told me she went to Van Nuys High School with Natalie Wood. She also said she used to visit Roy Rogers' ranch and pet Trigger.

We were looking at General Petraeus' hairpiece on tv today and wondering why he wears one. Last fall on tv he was favoring a Julius Caesar piece with frontal curls. This one is more youthful but conspicuous. You'd think with all those ribbons on his jacket he wouldn't worry about his hairline.

At the airport I find it interesting how the caps that pilots wear give them such authority. It makes me want to wear one myself.

Imagine if they wore baseball caps:

Would you choose that airline?

Sometimes you'll see one of these guys take the big hat off, and suddenly he'll look like a guy at Chrysler when you bring your car in for service, but with the hat on... I'll buckle right up for you bud.

Here's where we had lunch today: The Smokehouse, in Burbank, across the street from Warner Bros.



It WAS fine food, at a fair price. We had fish and chips. We met our friend Linda P there. We try to meet weekly. Jon and Linda went to the same high school-- but not with Natalie Wood. Last time we all had hot turkey sandwich. It's that kind of place. You sit at a booth slung so low you're afraid your chin will be in your plate.



Jon said that in the 70's this place was really popular, and when you'd come in for lunch people would be three deep at the bar. These days the lunch hour bar is always empty, but the tables are moderately full. By the way, that's our new cel phone that Linda's attempting to demonstrate. (We're still confused.)

10 comments:

Linda Davick said...

Sally, wear the beret you wore in the 10-year-old beatnik photo and you will have no problems in life.

That looks like a swell lunch place. But the most exciting thing--YOU GOT A CELL PHONE! What kind? Have you watched Whinsey on it?

Anonymous said...

YOU GOT A CELL PHONE! I'm still confused and rely on Pat to set everything up.

Anonymous said...

Judging by your shadow, it was 6:49PM

Namowal (Jennifer Bourne) said...

So you've crossed over to the cellular side! Congrats!
The shadow picture reminds me of the Brocken Spectre Illusion:
http://www.madaboutmountains.com/50319n.jpg
Your photo could be the Balboa Spectre.
I never understood men who wear troupes or comb-overs. I read it as I'm a vain, insecure weenie (and I think you're stupid enough to believe I'm not balding.)
Interesting point about the airline hats triggering authority. Baseball caps (or propeller beanies) wouldn't do the trick.

Sally said...

At lunch we were laughing about how pathetic I am with the remote control, though Linda has similar problems. So we come home and I suggest we watch Keith Olbermann at 5. Jon says "Just turn it on, it's set for that." I turn it on, the big static storm. He comes in, "What did you do?" "Nothing, I just pressed on." Grabs a few remotes, hits a few buttons, there's Keith!

It would be even worse if airline pilots wore baseball caps turned around backwards, Jon pointed out.

We have a Verizon phone because we need to use it in Colorado. It has v-cast available (for a month) but we haven't used it yet. I won't be able to see Whinsey on it, Linda. So far it's just been an annoyance. Did you take it? Did you lose it? Where's it?

Namowal, couldn't understand the Spectre pic. Fearless, it was about that time but am in California.

about the hairpiece: imagine it must get rearranged when he takes off and puts on the mighty general hat.

Anonymous said...

I just can't stop thinking about the hot turkey sandwich--brings back such memories! Pat keeps switching back and forth between cable and dish services, and I just gave up learning how to use a remote or record a program because it kept changing.

Linda Davick said...

Actually, he probably has a rug already sewn to the underneath of his general hat, so that when he's ready to put on the hat, he sweeps the hairpiece that's already on his head into his pocket--and voila! no muss, no fuss. Sometimes he might forget to sweep the one that's already on his head aside, and that's probably why sometimes it looks like he has frontal curls ---may be the effect of two rugs, one on top of the other.

Namowal (Jennifer Bourne) said...

For clarity, the Brocken Spectre is an illusion that appears at high altitudes when the sun is low in the sky, and projects your shadow onto the mist below, much the same way the morning sun projected your shadow on the grass, including the distortion (long legs, small torso etc..,

Anonymous said...

Was the shadow photo inspired by Henning Mankell's Shadows in the Twilight cover?

Sally said...

thanks for the info, Namowal. Sal, the cover of that Mankell novel looks so similar, but the photo was just something I took when I looked over at the hill and there we were.