i've been busy. well, i've been napping too.
We could have had a second chocolate souffle cake!
At least ten years ago I proposed the following title for the first decade of the new century: the Naughts. Why?
Because of all the stuff we're not going to have: clean air, clean water, a decent political system...
Okay, I was totally cynical ten years ago.
New Year's Eve we had a few friends over--Brent, Therese, Ellie, Harry, and Al--and put together a potluck: lamb chili, croissant sandwiches, potato salad, couscous, boiled shrimp, and various fruit cobblers. We had enough food for the Russian Army, who cabled and said they were still in Chechnya and probably couldn't make it.
We played Rage, we talked, and Darin showed off his new Cinema Display. Before midnight we turned on some of the coverage of New Year's celebrations, which sucked: we saw little teeny tidbits of many celebrations, but not very much of any one particular celebration.
We all agreed that Paris was clearly the place to be this year. If we had to do it all over again...we'd probably still be in Los Angeles, but we would have turned on the TV earlier to watch the Parisian fireworks.
We also all agreed that the absolute worst New Year's Eve celebration was in...Los Angeles. No fireworks--evidently they were a fire hazard (of course, it started raining after midnight). A totally lame shtick of Jay Leno firing a very cheesy looking special effects rocket at the Hollywood sign...which was lighted with colored lights for a whole fifteen minutes. ABC focused on the party at Disneyland...and it didn't dawn on me until the next day that this was corporate synergy in action. Disneyland's party looked pretty lame too: they lighted up Cinderella's Castle (and not even with multicolored lights).
All in all, it was embarrassing, especially after having seen Sydney's and Peking's and Paris' and London's. Maybe Los Angeles just figured that everyone had already gone to sleep by that point and no one cared what we did for a celebration.
Darin said, "This is LA. They figured they could fix it in post."
Maybe you have to be way too into moviemaking to get that joke.
Anyhow, not the actions of a world-class city.
Saturday: brunch with Fernando and Nancy. I think Darin and I might have done other stuff as well, but I conked out in the afternoon and was out like a light for several hours.
Sunday: Darin and I made breakfast of bacon and eggs. We were both darn pleased with the results, although we'd like to find extremely thick-cut bacon. I wonder if Bristol Farms stores have butcher shop bacon--I was surprised to see Gelson's doesn't have bacon at their meat counter.
Then we went shopping for baby furniture. We went to Bellini--extraordinarily expensive baby furniture that underwhelmed us: to get down the side of the crib, you have to pull out knobs on either side. Try that with a squirming infant, or an infant you don't want to wake.
At another store we liked the Ragazzi furniture, though that's also ridiculously expensive.
We went back to Babies 'R' Us and looked at the cheaper Simmons and Babi Italia furniture. We repicked the ones we liked there, and now we have almost picked the crib. We should actually get the crib sometime after the baby arrives.
Then my friend Fritz showed up. I've known Fritz since Day One of freshman year at Stanford. As I mentioned to Darin last night, we knew we were destined to be friends not only because we were at least a year younger than everyone else in our dorm and had started reading at age three, but because we could both name Stephen King's three kids.
Fritz got a master's in computer science and worked as a computer consultant, but he gave all that up to teach high school and then get a master's in conducting from the Cincinnati College of Music. He now works in the traveling company of 1776 as the second violin. Nothing like an eclectic life.
We had dinner at Cafe Bizou--pretty good dinner, and the place was packed--and then listened to Randy Newman's Faust, which is one of Darin's favorite albums and Fritz hadn't heard.
Today Darin and I made another bacon and eggs breakfast, which Darin and Fritz shared (I had cereal, which I have most mornings). Then Fritz took off for the airport.
Then Tiffany came over and I had hot chocolate with her at Pane Dolce. We discussed neurology in LA and David Hyde-Pierce, who's evidently involved with Alzheimer's foundations, which is why Tiffany's met him a few times. She says he's a)a really nice guy and b)a really intelligent guy.
I then conked out for a few hours, before Darin and I went to dinner at Matsuhisa with Fernando and Nancy. Matsuhisa definitely goes onto the Top Ten List of LA. (Darin needs time to think about whether it deserves to go on the Top Ten of All Time. He says, "Probably the best Japanese I've ever had.") Matsuhisa delivers unusual seafood creations and artfully arranged dishes, all of which are substantial, not just pretty.
One of the best parts of the meal was...the dessert! If you go there, get the chocolate souffle bento box. It was unbelievable. I tasted it and said, "I'm not sharing!" They made me share anyhow. I said, "Why did we get the second order of soft-shell crab? We could have gotten a second chocolate souffle cake!"
Matsuhisa's ridiculously expensive, however. We're not going to eat there a lot.
Our celebrity sighting: Nobu Matsuhisa! He chatted with the table next to ours and thanked us for coming as we left.
The answer to Friday's question: Boris Yeltsin, the only President Russia's had so far, resigned on Dec. 31. He clearly wasn't very popular, but this gesture probably ensures that his handpicked successor, Vladimir Putin, will probably win the elections next year. Go Boris. And not a moment too soon.
Nikita Khruschev was Joseph Stalin's successor as premier of the Soviet Union. (Okay, you kiddies: go look up the Soviet Union in the encyclopedia and leave us old fogies alone. Hint: it's not synonymous with Russia.) He's famous for banging his shoe on the table at the United Nations, the Kitchen Debate with Richard Nixon, and the Cuban Missile Crisis.
Darin and I heard an interview with Khruschev's butler on NPR the other day, in which he discussed how Khruschev simply found himself out of a job one day--the KGB guys who were guarding him one day ignored him the next. Which is probably a scary feeling.
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Copyright 2000 Diane Patterson
Send comments and questions to diane@spies.com