SURFIN' SAFARI SUMMER THREE - DAY FOUR - June 16, 2021

 




Anna was watching the east coast 6:00 p.m., broadcast of The Rachel Maddow Show (TRMS) as I headed out for a sunset surf at home court Marina del Rey.

A heat wave has been forecast and a couple of safaris were envisioned as a countermeasure and because it’s gosh-darn Surfin’ Safari Summer-time.

But Anna did not want to go to the beach. Perhaps being rounded up like a ewe every time she wanders a few meters from the blanket is not so appealing to her.

Her illness has left her son a steaming heap of rubble without a compass, without joy, but he has been around it for one-third his life now - the woman wearing two different shoes yammering at a mirror across from his room - and assured me he had a handle on things.

I made them the Bulgolgi pork tenderloin from "Hello Fresh" and split the scene.

Sunset was 8:07.

Los Angeles is very much “open,” but it is far from “back.” This is a city people come to from other places and the pandemic emptied things out. Mature people with crazy haircuts and lofts, one kid, and handsome, creative careers went home. Home to Missouri, Montana, Louisiana wherever they hailed from, because there’s no net to break your fall when you've moved away and set up shop in Teflon City.

Across the street from our apartment building is another that housed a lot of young actresses working in restaurants to stick around. It is a time-tested formula. They were all gone within a month of lockdown.

Others in the neighborhood worked in Hollywood, belonged to one of the unions and had a deeper financial reserve and system of mutual support. They left after about three months, if they didn’t leave earlier, unwilling to go through their money when there was no end in sight.

My sense is that urban centers lived a more sinister pandemic experience than than did suburban and rural places. It certainly wasn't very nice around here and there were plenty of reasons to bail beyond simple penury.

The point being there was no traffic and shore was reached in the time it takes to listen to the Allman Brothers’ “Mountain Jam,” once through.

It was a beautiful windless night. The Marina is not a glamorous destination, but it is a gift. Right smack in the middle of the city, ever abandoned, kissing the sea in all the wrong places.

The surf was not good. It was rough and the waves were inconsistent as to where they were breaking. I stayed patient, looked for a specific wave in a certain spot and got a great ride. I exited.

Surfing is so much like fishing. You are catching things in the water. You catch one fish, you’re happy. You catch one wave ...as I have said in prior Safari Summers: You do NOT want to get shut out.

Another run through the “Mountain Jam” and I was home, where all was well and Anna was watching the 9 p.m., west coast transmission of TRMS with the same intensity she had been three hours prior.


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