Off to the Bowl, Darlings

Have you been to the Bowl? I've been.

Last weekend, Daddy Doc was out cavorting in the wilderness with the Boy Scout leaders again, at an intensive training camp. Very intensive. He hasn't stopped e-mailing his little study group, I'm sorry, PATROL, since he came home in preparing for the next training session. They're all a bunch of overachievers that group is. They're even plotting "extra-credit" activities to surprise their trainers...

I joined my sister in a celebration for her birthday. My sister would probably rather not celebrate her birthday but her friends all love her and want to celebrate HER, so they planned an event that she would enjoy and I was invited along. The funniest part for me was that I met several people for the first time who I've been hearing stories about for years. It was lovely to meet them and I wish I'd had some more time to talk with some of them. One nifty thing was saying "Oh, I've heard so much about you over the years" and hearing back "Oh, yes, we see pictures of your children all the time and we hear all of their stories..." We all knew so much about each other without ever meeting. "Oh, yes, now you had a baby recently, didn't you?" or "Oh yeah, I've met your husband at a Dave Matthews concert before." (Where's my rolling eye guy? I need a rolling eye guy. It's my trademark.) By my count, there were at least 7 pediatricians, 1 PhD in Microbiology, 1 PhD in PolySci, a PhD in Chemistry but not married to me, at least 2 Rocket Scientists and one "guy who only speaks French." (Trust me, that one cracked my cousin and I up, but you probably had to be there.)

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At some point in our youth, I think we were about 10 to 12 years old, our parents started to take us to the Hollywood Bowl. I remember one time in particular was Labor Day, because school started the very next day and I remember falling asleep on the bus ride home late at night thinking about having to be up to start school the next morning.

We never drove to the bowl, we used the public transportation. Yes. Public transportation in the Metro Los Angeles Area. Get-Out! Shut-UP! It's TRUE. The bus would pick us up in the South Bay and take us down to the bowl. We would have appetizers on the bus. When we arrived at the Bowl, the bus would stop in the center of Highland for a Bowl employee to hop on and give us the 411 on how we would find the bus at the end of the evening, as the bus drove "up" the hill. Now, the bus doesn't really drop you off at the 'top' of the hill as my sister would tell you. It drops you off at the base of the bowl, which is partially "up the hill." We would jump off the bus and make our way in to try to find a place to finish our picnic dinner, be it in an already crowded picnic area or at our seats.

The show always begins the same: The conductor comes out and everyone stands for the Star Spangled Banner. There are two beams of light/spotlight thingies (this is why blogs need editors,) that cross over the audience to remind aircraft to please avoid flying over the bowl. They never work. It seems that there's ALWAYS at least one small plane or helicopter that flies around the bowl anyway. 

At intermission, (or as my UCLA football season-ticket holding sister referred to it, "halftime,") my mom would pull out dessert to pass around. After the show, the race to the buses began. Down down down the hill, through the tunnels under Highland! We'd find our bus in the center of Highland and jump on for the ride home, but before passing several Bowl "regulars". There's the guy with a dog puppet. If you've been to the Bowl you've seen him. I think I've seen him on Sunset Blvd, too. He holds the puppet in the air and covers his mouth and sings. You're not supposed to notice that it's the man singing. There was always a sax player in the tunnel, too. In more recent years there's been the three kids who play violins or the three kids who play rock music. Those drive my sister nuts. Where's CPS? Where are their parents? Those two groups also make appearances on Sunset Blvd.

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After I started dating DaddyDoc, there were a few years in there where his parents orchestrated big picnics at the Bowl. They'd rent out a picnic area near Parking Lot D and sell tickets to everyone they knew. We'd get to the bowl early for a long picnic. Then after the show was over, we'd mosey on back to the parking lot, no race for the buses, and waste time socializing in the Parking Lot D picnic area while the parking lot traffic cleared out. The Bowl practices "stacked parking" so if you drive yourself, there really isn't an advantage to racing back to the parking lots. You can't move unless the cars around you move first. If you're not a patient person, I do not recommend parking at the Hollywood Bowl.

Living out in the boonies as we do now, we don't get to the Hollywood Bowl much anymore but my sister and parents still enjoy it immensely. For the past three years now, my sister has attended this same near-end-of-the-season show, which typically lands around her birthday weekend. It's a tribute to Tzchaikosvsky complete with a cannon and fireworks and some marching band with red brooms sticking out of their heads comes out for the end. That's right, folks, my husband gets Dave Matthews, I get Tzchaikosvsky with fireworks on a wood bench. I still think I get the better deal.

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My sister, AuntieDoc and her good friend from residency, Dr. T, orchestrated (get it, ha ha!) a trip to the Bowl for AuntieDoc's birthday. They purchased a block of tickets in Section S, reserved a picnic area, and being 2008, they set up an evite webpage. Everyone was invited to come to the picnic area after 4 for a potluck. GrandmaChurchLady was invited to AuntieDoc's house to babysit the Triple Threat. We packed our bags up and descended upon AuntieDoc's.

I had every seat available in the PerkyMomMobile so we could carpool a group up to the Stacked Parking Lot D. Two volleyballers joined us at the house and then we picked up my lovely cousin N1 and her very witty husband N2 (ladies first,) on our way. We took La Cienega up from near LAX/405 through West Hollywood, to the Bowl. The hardest part was seeing the fabled MILK cafe along the way and not being able to stop.

We arrived and parked and hiked up to our lovely shaded Picnic Area 13. I highly recommend this picnic area. It's grassy, it's shaded, and it's closest to the potties. We spent several hours dining on deliciousness. I now need to hassle a number of people for recipes. Dr. T's wasabi salad was yummy. The ribs were perfect. The little sandwich snackerthings were yum. Loved the Mango Salsa. I even tasted the eggplant dip thing with a piece of the big huge flatbread and I LIKED it. Eggplant. Who knew? You can't go wrong with shrimp and Trader Joe's cocktail sauce, you just can't. I really wish I'd tasted one of the summer rolls but I was so full at that point that I couldn't make room - they were so big! I brought two desserts. One is my own little "invention" that I call "peanut butter cups" - think Peanut Butter Blondie with a dark chocolate kiss upside down in the middle of it. I make them in mini-muffin tins. Perfect. I also made our notorious Gooey Butter Cake. I sort of felt a moral obligation for that one. They both seemed to be well received. I nursed a lovely pomegranate martini until the Diet Pepsi finally arrived. The bottle had fallen on the ground and gotten quite shaken up, but regular readers should not at all be surprised that I managed to get that bottle cleaned up and opened without exploding. When a girl needs her Diet Pepsi, she needs her Diet Pepsi.

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Finally, several hours later (no really, it was after 7:30!) we packed up to drop things off at the car and head into the Bowl! It's very amusing that you really don't have to worry about taking anything into the Bowl. Because people are brining picnics, there are few limitations. I thought the "bag check" seemed even sillier and more nonsensical than the Disneyland "Bag Check" - I mean, really, no glass or alcohol or food is restricted at the Bowl. We carried in the last of the Gooey Butter Cake and by "We" I mean, my cousin's husband N2.

Let me tell you about N2. He's quite witty.

On the way up La Cienega he was hassling my, my sister and N1 about a certain issue we hold near and dear to our hearts, but then N1 called him out and he had us rolling in the car with a story about how the same little issue has crept up in HIS life. It was a doozie of a story, too. N1 and N2 are a very fun couple together. When introduced to Dr. L who was born in another country, N2 asked her "Oh, where in that country?" She answered with the name of the city an N2 said "Oh, yeah, ok!" As in "Oh, of course! I know that town. Great place." N1 looked at her and said "Yeah, no, he has no idea... he knows nothing about the that country." Dr. L, AuntieDoc and I cracked up.

So here we were, climbing the hill into the Bowl, with N2. N2 is a rather tall fellow, with the same genetic curse that GrandpaRocketScientist bears and that my sons may encounter as adults, so he has come to appreciate "Stylish Lids". Tall fellow, stylish hat, carrying his Sam Adams Oktoberfest Autumn Brew thing in one hand and a plate of Gooey Butter Cake in the other. Got it?

We get to the bag check and one among us has told the Bag Check Gentleman that it is AuntieDoc's birthday. He's a social fellow, chatting us all up, wishing her Happy Birthday, N2 says "DUDE, you need to have one of these. You're going to thank me" And makes the guy take a piece of Gooey Butter Cake. N2! Those are for Halftime!

A little further up the hill, we approach the ticket turnstyles which all seem to be staffed by kids who look barely old enough to legally work in the state of California. So what does N2 do? Well, of course, he offers them all Gooey Butter Cake. And they look at the tall dude with the stylish lid like they're terrified. Location #1 won't take it so he turns to the next kid. He won't take it so N2 keeps after him. I wondered if the kid thought they might be pot brownies or something. Finally, we suspect that the kid was afraid to NOT take a piece of cake and he took one. Yeah, we gave N2 some grief for scaring the poor kid but he insisted that he did him a huge favor and that he's probably thanking him for the opportunity to taste such a divine treat.

Eventually we found our seats and settled in for the show. The first half featured an amazing violinist who played several "solos" and "features" without any sheet music. Really amazing. At Halftime, Auntie Doc's partner, Dr Disneyland pulled out the rest of the potluck leftovers and was shilling shrimp and sauce and Fritos scoops among the crowd. N2 went to fetch coffee for himself and N1. I didn't see a cup for me... hmm... (AuntieDoc says I didn't hear when he offered to get me some. Ooops. That's ok!)

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The second half featured a tragic symphonic love poem about a mean nasty jealous Italian dude who finds out his wife is in love with his handsome wonderful brother and so he stabs them both to death. Happy Birthday, AuntieDoc!

Finally it was time for the 1812 Overture thing. The fireworks went off, the cannon boomed (although we never actually saw it) and the marching band with red brooms sticking out of their heads attempted to stand on the archway in front of the stage but apparently they don't teach math well at their little school because they were amusingly off-center. The UCLA Lawyer in front of us enjoyed laughing at them with me and AuntieDoc.

Not needing to take the buses home, we dilly-dallied on the way down the hill. We learned that N2's powers of observation are woeful. (Have you seen the rest of our group yet? No, not yet. Wait a minute, N2, isn't that them right there?) We picked up free totebags from Gallo Wine the official wine of the Hollywood Bowl. We passed the singer with the dog. We saw a saxophone player but my sister says it's not the one I remember. We got back to the car and said good byes to the crowd.

N2 navigated our way back to the freeway. I got the PerkyMomMobile on the freeway without killing us. Not my fault that no one in the car believed I would clear the road before that other car hit us. Only N2 admitted to almost passing a brick. We listened to a mix-tape and amused ourselves by harassing AuntieDoc just a wee-bit. I'm giggling remembering it. 

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I still need a few recipes from people from the potluck. It really was a fun night and I was glad for the opportunity to spend the time with my sister and my cousin and with many of the really, truly neat people in her life. I'm not just saying that. Y'all know I don't blow smoke. Our other cousin, N1's sister, had to cancel because she didn't feel well. That's the only thing the night really did miss. I completely understand why she had to miss but we missed her, too. 

That night the Triple Threat and I spent the night at AuntieDoc's and spent part of her actual birthday with her and watched her open her presents from us, before we drove on home again. Happy Birthday, AD!

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