SURFIN' SAFARI SUMMER ONE - DAY SEVEN - July 11, 2019


Pet Store on Washington Blvd.

Anna and I tried our luck with rush hour in L.A., by slipping out at 4:45. It worked. In under half an hour, we cruised to home court - Marina del Rey - where the waves were not good. When you are surfing frequently, as we are this summer, it’s not the end of the world if you get a bad day. There will be others, soon. So I swooshed around for an hour, getting in touch with my board, thinking of Bruce Lee’s words:


Tacos "al pastor."




“Empty your mind. Be formless, shapeless, like water…if you put water in a teapot, it becomes the teapot. Water can flow or it can crash. Be water my friend.”

I caught two waves, which is one more than any surfer is asking for. You don’t want to get shut out. If there aren't always good waves, there are always street tacos and we tried a stand at a desultory spot where Sepulveda and Palms intersect. It didn’t have the clean, colorful Mexican feel our prior streateries did, but it’s street tacos. You gotta take a chance. They were the best yet and cost $10 for eight, $6 below the going street market average. It got busy and became a bit of a scene. We stayed around and chatted, finished our beers, and jump-started a Chicano guy’s truck. Our life is nothing if not glamorous.



The Scene at the Taco Stand.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

THREE SURFIN’ SAFARI SUMMERS: In the summer of 2019, three years after my wife Anna Huling-Siciliano was diagnosed with Alzheimer’s disease, it became clear that I was losing her. Time was precious, health precarious, money short, and I decided to mine the riches of Southern California and launch a defiant series of regional Surfin’ Safaris as health-driven, couple-shared adventures out of the mausoleum our home had become. As a family we’d always been beachgoers and it seemed a safe bet for my wife who was slowly losing her mind. She could sit on a blanket - as she always had - while I surfed. Things didn't work out to be so neat and clean, but that's the story. Reporting being of a second nature to me, I concocted Facebook posts after each outing through which I intended to keep friends and family apprised of Anna’s condition, and to put them at ease about her quality of life (ie; how I was treating her). Of course, others could read the posts, which were grouped under the ti
Read more

SURFIN' SAFARI SUMMER ONE - DAY TWO - June 15, 2019

Image
      We went out to the Marina late afternoon. It was cold and windy and the water was mushy and I didn't want to go in, but have decided it's not a true Surfin' Safari Summer outing unless I get beat up by the ocean a bit. Managed to work into a wave that I'm still thinking about hours later.   We took Washington Blvd. out to the coast and stopped for lunch at an Oaxacan place. We shared a "Tlayuda." It is hard to make the case that Los Angeles is a handsome sort of city, but there are pockets where the best elements of Southern California are assembled to charming effect. This spot is one of them.  
Read more

SURFIN' SAFARI SUMMER ONE - DAY ELEVEN - July 27, 2019

Image
  Anna Suffocating on the hard facts of my life, done with work for the week, I grabbed the co-pilot and lit out for Topanga State Beach at 5 p.m. Safari Summer has taught me that certain surf trips are not as hair-raising and impossible as I’d assumed. It took less than an hour and decompression kicked-in with the first whiff of salty air drifting up Sunset Boulevard. Topanga Beach lies at the mouth of Topanga Creek,  where it empties after a journey through the natural jewel known as… Topanga Canyon. Back when there was plenty of California to go around, it was colonized by hippies. In the ‘80s, some developers decided to turn Topanga into gold. The hippies, by then, were prosperous merchants with a residual talent for political organization that knocked the developers clear back to downtown Los Angeles (never to return). An alternative culture took root between the shady canyon’s walls. There is a new-age, witchy-woman-in-seven-veils feel to that insulated little world. For me, the
Read more