I woke up this morning back in my city. Well, kind of. I guess I woke up in North Hollywood, but you know what I mean. I'm back in the Los Angeles area.
The hotel is really only a few miles from our old apartment in Burbank, my last address in California and down the street from my old office on the Warner Bros. lot.
After everyone was awake, I grabbed Marty and went to get a few things that we decided not to pack -- or were restricted from packing by government regulations. Plus, I wanted to reacquaint myself with my former haunts.
And, Marty was a baby here. His first home was Burbank from the day that he came home from Cedars-Sinai. Drove by the Ralph's supermarket where baby Marty would regularly gawk at the breasts of the actress types shopping there.
I drove by the Warner's lot, just because. I spent some really good parts of my life there and I just wanted to be looking at it for real again.
Marty was more interested in if he was going to be able to buy candy at the store. We ended up stopping at Krispy Kreme instead. The lady running the counter for some reason thought that I was buying a doughnut just for myself. So, she slipped Marty a sample and then gave him a bag with another doughnut in it. The big problem with that was the doughnut that I bought was also for Marty...who didn't protest suddenly having three doughnuts. I, on the other hand, was trying to figure out a way to explain that to Amy.
We met my sons' godmother and her husband for lunch at a famous Bob's Big Boy. With all of the Big Boy stuff around, I thought that Marty might be amused -- Casey is less picky about restaurants, if its got food, he's good with it -- but he was not.
Still kind of jet-lagged from yesterday, Marty started acting out. I took him for a walk around the block, passing an actor (Gruber Allen) that I've met a few times but who wouldn't have remembered me and even if he did, I was trying to deal with a son on the brink.
When I got him back to the restaurant, he sat down for about 2 minutes before asking if we could take another walk. I looked at my hamburger with its one bite, and agreed. Turns out that he didn't want to go back in at all this time...leading up to him yelling, "I hate Bob's Big Boy!" right by the entrance, causing a gasp by the fellow patrons.
I explained to him that was impossible, because no one hates Bob's Big Boy, but he wouldn't budge from his position.
Finally, I convinced him to go back in long enough for me to eat, but it wasn't exactly relaxing.
The kids' godmother decided to hang out with us for a bit, while her husband left and we ended up at Amy's favorite coffee house in the world, Priscilla's. It's really only her favorite because it has a vintage table top Ms. Pac-Man game, but everyone has favorites for their own reasons.
We then went to Johnny Carson Park, next to NBC Studios, which was a little surreal. When Marty was young, Amy used to take him to that park frequently since it was only a couple of minutes from our apartment. I still remember getting a phone call from her after she had spent some time there talking with actor Eric Stoltz, while Marty played with his dog...and only realized why he had seemed familiar until she had been home for an hour. The boys have watched home movies of Marty at that park, so it was kind of strange to see the much larger version of my son now playing there again...or sort of playing since he was still in a bad mood from the trauma that is Bob's Big Boy.
The evening went far better. Right after we had bought the plane tickets, my next purchase was for the Hollywood Bowl. They were doing selections from "Fantasia." The Bowl is one of those places that I've always loved...more so than a lot of other people. Its one of those things that's kind of "my" Los Angeles. I've attended work events there at different times, spent a handful of Fourth's of July there, and used to go 3-4 times every season. If I still lived here, I would still go multiple times a year.
I wanted the kids to get to experience it, so I went to the market and bought food for a picnic and we got there a little after the doors had opened. It was apparently a sell-out because it was plenty crowded. In fact, when we got to our seats, the people behind us had already spread out their food on our seats. Its such a congenial atmosphere though that it wasn't a problem.
The show itself was superb. The Hollywood Bowl orchestra playing the classical music from "Fantasia" live while the corresponding clips played on big screen was extremely cool. Even better, instead of just playing it straight, they included four different selections that never actually made it into the movie...one of which didn't even make it being animated, so it was just the storyboards with the music.
Unfortunately, the ending -- which was complete with fireworks -- started with "The Dance of the Sugar Plum Fairy." Marty and Casey have spent their whole lives going to sleep to soft music. It was dark, they were each under a jacket, and there was lilting music going. They went to sleep.
Suddenly, the orchestra launced into "Trepak," with the "bump-pa-da-bump-bump-bump" and the fireworks started going off. Startled the heck out of my sleeping sons. Casey sprang back awake, but it took Marty a good couple of minutes to work out if he was dreaming or not.
By the time we got back to the hotel, everyone was wiped out again. This time, however, unlike yesterday's flight delays, it was all worth it. Even the Bob's Big Boy parts.
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