The Long, Hot Weekend: Saturday

I had planned on dropping by to see my folks for a bite of lunch and to drop off my rent check, then maybe swing up PCH to cruise around Laguna before heading home to relax with soft music and a good book. Moments before I left my house, RG called wanting to know my plans for the day. We made plans to check out The Grove, a semi-new shopping center in Los Angeles, after my short visit with the folks. However, nothing goes quite as one would like so my "short" visit lasted much longer than expected. We stopped by my Grandma's after lunch because she had called that earlier to say that she couldn't see. As it turns out, she had her eyes closed while watching Wimbledon and "didn't see" the finals match between Venus Williams and Lindsey Davenport. My Mom and I made her bed for her, then Mom showed me how to dispense all Grandma's medications so that they will be able to take a few weeks off in September. She takes eight pills in the morning and only one at night, but requires help or she may take too many or forget to take them at all.

Back at my folks' house, my Dad dragged out a snake that a neighbor loaned to him. Their front yard has been a soggy mess since the heavy rains of January and February, and the water doesn't seem to have anywhere to go. The city sent two engineers out to assess the problem and felt that one of the drains might be blocked by mud or a tree root. I heave the snake unit from the side of the house to the curb, don the nifty leather gloves and begin threading the snake up the supposedly clogged drain. It stopped about 12 feet up the drain, either because of a blockage or a turn in the pipe, and I asked my Dad what the next step was. He looked at me, shrugged his shoulders. I sighed dramatically and decided to try turning the crank on the snake. The long shaft swirled around and around, and I inched it farther up the drain while more muddy water spewed into the gutter. I must have done something right! My Dad turned on the garden hose and sprayed water into the other end of the drain. More murky, mucky water poured into the gutter, but the snake would go no further. I continued cranking until 15 minutes later, my arms aching, I pulled the snake from the drain and told my dad to call a professional.

Then, we washed my car. More like I soaped it up and scrubbed the hubcaps while my Dad rinsed away the suds. By now, my watch read 3 PM, and I was expecting RG at my house by 3:30. I quickly cleaned my hands and face, and called RG. Change of plans: he was at CS's in La Habra, and I should meet them there instead of my place. I kissed my folks goodbye, grabbed a bottle of water from their fridge and sped up the I-5 to the 57 to Imperial Highway in about 40 minutes. RG and CS were waiting for me in front of Borders as I found a parking spot, and soon we were on our way to Los Angeles.

The Grove turned out to be a fairly interesting open-air mall. Crowded with people. Live jazz music. Children throwing coins into a huge koi pond. A two-level, omnibus-like trolley carting people between the shops and the Farmers' Market. Dozens upon dozens of perfectly coiffed and dressed gay men. The entire shopping area resemebled a small European street, with tall, skinny shops sandwiched between other tall, skinny shops and with smaller sidestreets featuring cobblestoned walkways. And they weren't just any shops: Fabergé, Bodega Chocolates, Sur la Table, Anthropologie, Crate & Barrel, a three-story Barnes & Noble, etc. (We stopped in the Crate & Barrel where RG dropped about $80 for a heavy cornbread pan and two pillows.) We wandered through some of the shops, ogled many of the hotties wandering around in groups, then finally decided we'd had enough and headed to West Hollywood for dinner. Yes, at Hamburger Mary's. And yes, we stopped at Circus of Books afterwards, but I was a good boy and didn't buy any porn. We ended the night at Fuel in Studio City, playing quite a few games of pool and trying to tempt the bartender into removing his shirt so we could see his tattoo better. I've never seen a bartender blush so much in my life! He was a good sport, though, and put up with our antics.

We left Fuel around 11 PM and still managed to run into a long patch of stop-and-go traffic on the drive home. Only in LA will you have that much traffic at that time of the night! I finally made it back to my house close to 1 AM and fell asleep on the couch, fully dressed.