Little Green River

Saturday: After putting in laundry, Nelson and I went up to Linde to hang out with Suite Hedonism. We went to Costco, made a massively awesome dinner (spinach, cucumber, and corn salad with vinagrette, jambalaya with kielbasa, polenta, and pasta for Nelson), played poker, and watched “Shaun of the Dead,” which Nelson hadn’t seen. He liked the Queen songs in the movie. :)

Sunday: In the morning we went to the Claremont farmer’s market and bought onions, strawberries, broccoli, and a case of oranges, which we haphazardly brought back to the apartment several blocks away using Glenn’s skateboard. Next time we use the car, methinks.

In the evening, Nelson wanted to go to 300. Kathleen had mentioned that there was a drive-in theatre in Montclair, so we checked out their website and found that they were showing it. So we went, paid less for two movies than you pay for one in a normal theatre (despite drive-ins being so much cooler!), and had an awesome time. I hadn’t anticipated much liking the movie, as Frank Miller is not known for his enlightened portrayal of women and excessive gore can get to me, but as it turned out I loved it. The queen is human, yet bad-ass as heck–they treated her and Leonidas’ relationship really well, much better than the comic book. Sure there’s gore–it’s a hand-to-hand-combat war movie, after all!–but it’s stylized comic-book gore. I barely noticed it at all–for me, the focus of the movie was the plot and tactics. And pretty film. So much pretty film. Definitely worth seeing in theatres.

Nelson and I didn’t actually watch the second feature, we were too busy talking about the movie and tactics and everything. Nelson’d read the original comic book, and knew something about the battle/ancient military strategy (he took Latin in high school), so it was cool hearing his take on it. And then we went home, ate broccoli, and talked about giant rodent wars. ‘Twas a lovely date. :)

Monday: Nelson decided he wanted to go to an open mike. We looked on openmikes.org and the only open mike in the area on Monday was in Orange, CA–24 miles away. I looked at the map. “Wow, that’s almost to the beach.”

“…”

“Day trip to the beach!!”

So after lunch we spontaneously drove to Corona Del Mar, climbed down the technically-handicapped-accessible-but-suicidally-steep path, and hung out at the beach! We ate strawberries and grapes, walked the length of the beach and back, and waded in the waves. This beach, just south of Balboa (where I went with my family frosh year), was much rockier, with a cave and tidepools to explore. Clambering around rocks in the ocean waves nearly naked with no foot protection, both of us got scraped up a good bit. I injured my leg when I slipped on a rock I couldn’t see through the water, then got hit with a wave so I couldn’t regain my balance. But it was so cool! There were rocks with mussels and barnacles all over. There were lots of anemones, which closed if you poked them. I held a cute little hermit crab with tiny red antennae! Squee! Tidepools are so much cooler outside of a museum.

We went to dinner in Orange, at an Italian place called Aldo’s Ristorante, then walked two blocks north to the open mike. Lots of antique/non-chain stores, a roundabout, non-Mediterranean architecture… The neighborhood was eerily similar to Lancaster, PA–it felt much more East Coast than West!

The open mike was okay–the owner wasn’t particularly personable, and few people attended. But the audience members were neat–the guy who played after us, Kurt Hunter, was really talented and humorous–and it was fun rocking out.

Six more days and my conclusion already is: spring break is awesome.