Rainy Days

Supposedly, it doesn't rain in California. That's the rumor that accompanied me here and the rumor that has ruined my last 3 trips to LA. "Oh, it doesn't rain here... those clouds up in the sky, they don't mean a thing..."

Except that they do. They mean torrential rain, slow traffic, and soaked shoes. Just before I left for Christmas break I was rained right out of the Beverly Hills outdoor shopping mall. Then, on January 23rd, me and Chad were partially rained out of the Huntington Library, Art Collections, and Botanical Gardens. By partially, I mean it was lucky we could stay inside most of the time.

The Huntington was founded in 1919 by Henry E. Huntington, an exceptional businessman who built a financial empire that included railroad companies, utilities, and real estate holdings in Southern California. That's what it says on the website, at least. What I took from the whole thing was that he had one helluva house! At some point in the last 110 years, his house was turned into an art museum. In addition, his property contains a grand building for the library, one for the American art collection, another for the decorative art collection, a conservatory, and several small buildings in each garden.

The most famous painting at the Huntington is Thomas Gainsborough's Blue Boy from 1770. The boy is Jonathan Buttall and his blue costume is an homage to 17th century portraits by the great Flemish painter, Anthony van Dyck, an artist Gainsborough greatly admired. The Blue Boy hangs in the center of this huge gallery along with about 12 other life-size full-length portraits and several portrait busts. It is all quite elegant and formal and if you find yourself getting in the spirit of things, you can even take afternoon tea in the garden.

The garden is really incredible -- I saw irises, coneflowers, and even cherry trees blooming. In January! The weather wasn't cooperative, but we saw the Japanese and Chinese gardens and the rose garden before it started to rain too hard. If anyone comes to visit, the Huntington will definitely be on the tour.

But only if the weather starts to cooperate. Each and every day since the Huntington trip was pristine -- sunny and 85 degrees. Even though we consulted the weatherman, the second me and Chad left the Riverside city limits, it started to rain! Hoping the rain would subside, we stopped off at the Kinokuniya bookstore in Little Tokyo. This is one of our favorite places because they have really weird stuff, like books about Scandinavian paper crafting written in Japanese and 8000 different mechanical pencils. After an hour in Kinokuniya, everything seems a little bit better, even the rain.

The plan was to go to the La Brea Tar Pits, but we decided to go to the Craft and Folk Art Museum across the street so we could stay inside. CAFAM had two thoughtful, beautiful exhibits but neither contained craft or folk art objects. This was perplexing so we decided to go somewhere that "made sense." The Sunset Strip, of course!

Sunset Strip was closed for the evening unless we had the cash to visit a comedy club or go to fancy restaurant or bar. Cash is hard to come by, so we went to a place where it seems you're not really required to buy anything -- a bookstore! This bookstore, Book Soup, is one of the coolest bookstores ever. It only contains good books. I don't think it has any romance novels or self-help crap -- no books that take space away from the cool stuff. In addition to that, I am positive that I was brushing elbows with celebrities. It was just that I didn't recognize any of them. Maybe they were on shows that only air on HBO or perhaps they were American Idols. Anyhow, it was pretty fun. I began by looking at Damien Hirst's scary taxidermy experiments and ended by examining a book of postcards John, Paul, and George sent to Ringo.

After all of our adventures, we decided to eat at Bossa Nova. We've actually been there before, during our first trip to LA back in September. It's a Brazilian restaurant on Sunset Strip and it scores major points in my book for being a pretty inexpensive place to eat. We could afford 2 entrees, which is a big deal for us since we are getting used to sharing a $3.23 Classic Combo from Del Taco when we go out. Anyway, I got the skirt steak with rice, beans, salsa, plantains, and yucca flour (?) and Chad got salmon and mashed potatoes. There used to be asparagus on the plate, but we inhaled it before the camera warmed up. I also got a Guarana soda, which is Brazilian ginger ale. I think.

It almost makes me forget about Brasa in Minneapolis... almost.