Shakespeare by the Sea is one of my favorite LA summertime events. I look forward to it every time. The group provides free plays at public parks all around LA. I started getting into it about 5 years ago. So far, I have seen "Othello", "Midsummer Night's Dream", "Twelfth Night", "Julius Caesar", and Friday night, we have seen "King Lear". They are also doing Much Ado About Nothing", but I've already seen it last year by another group. We may still check it out, but we'll see. Friday night they had it at Polliwog Park, a dog-friendly park in the city of Manhattan Beach. It's a large, 18-acre park with gazebos, a basketball court, a pool, a disc golf course, a botanical garden, an ampitheatre (where the play took place), and a huge pond. The address is 1601 Manhattan Beach Blvd., just take the Rosecrans exit off of the 405 freeway, and make a left on Aviation, and left on Manhattan Beach Blvd. SBTS is an outdoor event, so dogs are allowed. Just be sure that they are trained to sit still and be quiet for other's enjoyment consideration. Being a young dog, we can't fully depend on Tico to do just that for the entire show, so we leave him home for these things for the time being.
Shakespeare by the Sea, or SBTS, take donations. Their actors get paid through these donations, and their program declared that it cost about $7K for each night that they perform, and they will be performing 41 times this summer all over LA. Their main place is at Point Fermin in San Pedro, but I've seen them perform in Torrance, South Pasadena, and of course, Manhattan Beach. They also perform down to Laguna Niguel, Altadena, and Whittier, among the 20+ places they go to.
Friday, I put together what I can find around the kitchen; 4 Guilliano's bread rolls with ham cold cut, and leftover Genoa salami from Guilliano's, and mayo, mustard and spinach for fillers. I also made a rotini pasta with leftover italian sausage with leftover sundried-tomato cream sauce. And with a white merlot I purchased from Sutter's Winery in Temecula, as well as a bunch of apricot slices, we had a nice spread to enjoy the play with. The park has a public restroom a few yards to the right of the ampitheatre. Parking is all over, we found one just across the street from the park.
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| B in the red shirt! |
We have a case of the lazy Saturdays. It's carmaggedon weekend, where the 405, one of LA's busiest freeways are going to be shut down, between the 10 and the 101 freeways. This is a major LA artery; so it will not be pretty to get stuck from the after effect of getting this freeway shut down. Some of our friends found this as a great excuse to get out of town and take a mini-vacation, but alas, we don't gots no money. So the boys and I just did some minor yardwork around the house for the most part on Saturday. Tico was exhausted hanging out in the backyard helping us clean up.
But it's "Office Space" night at the Outdoor Cinema Food Fest (OCFF). This time, they held it at Grand Hope Park in Downtown LA, right next to FIDM, the fashion school. While OCFF is dog-friendly, Grand Hope Park is not. There are ample street parking, but we managed to get a flat parking for $5 a block north of the park. Porta-potties are not my favorite restroom things, but you gots to do what you gots to do. B went all out tonight and brought real wine glasses, forks, plates, brought the chicken pasta with the 20-pound-heavy casserole dish, and we even had greens with anchovies and olive oil for sides. We found a great spot behind the lawn area, and set up our dishes on the cement divider, propped up our chairs, and we were good to go. I was counting on at least a reliable dessert truck, but no bueno. They had Buttermilk Truck, which did have the red velvet pancake bites for $5 that did satisfy my sweet tooth craving. We did not have time to buy wine and got a Heineken instead, but I just realized that the Ralph's and Panini Cafe are just across the street from this place. Since you can eat al fresco, food trucks, are dog-friendly. Where they are currently located at, is another story.
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| Heineken on a wine glass - so klassy! |
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| Downtown LA Skyline |
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| Grand Hope Park's Clock Tower |
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| Milton and Lumbergh! |
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| Where's my slinging frisbee? |
Since the traffic did not turn out as bad as we thought Saturday, the next day we ran out to Huntington Beach Dog Beach for some fun in the sun once again. Tico was entertained with his frisbee, and the other dogs wanted to play with him and his 'ball'. B is still weary about Tico always getting into people's water, blankets, and area; so we always want to keep an eye out on Tico every single time.
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| "Ticomom, we need to talk about your TPS reports" |
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| "Dude, not interested in 40 subscriptions to Cat Fancy Magazine" |
We also stopped by Five Guys burger, since it's in the way. We have one at a mall closer to our house, but we hardly go there for shopping, so this is fairly convenient for us. Five Guys does great marketing, and in due time, it will surpass In-N-Out, if not already done so, in popularity in SoCal. The place has an outdoor patio to tie your dog to the other side of the fence.
This was a fairly mellow weekend for me and the boys. We did not do much of a chore work, and we entertained ourselves with the usual Netflix' offering of 'Ice Road Truckers', 'Gone With The Wind', and even the latest release 'The Fighter' is on. Everybody and their cousins went to see 'Harry Potter' this weekend, but B refused to pay $12-$15 a pop to sit and watch movies unless they have decent reviews first. Which is why we rely on the solid filmmaking of old-time feel-good movies of the 90's and earlier. For $11-$16 a month with Netflix, it's not a bad deal.
And yes, Netflix is raising its rates. Didn't you get the memo?
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