WHERE IN THE WORLD ARE BOB AND REUEL? ... AND WHO ARE THIS BOB AND REUEL ANYWAY

LA OVERNIGHT FEB. 14-15, 2015

SAT. FEB. 14

It's Valentines Day--named after the saint for the right to marry which we did short of 9 years ago--so since the fight continues, we will make it a holy day, rather Holiday, and treat ourselves to one of our luxe chock-full LA sojourns.

Our Lyfte driver Tony is only 5 minutes away when I press the Lyfte app button. He's positively avuncular according to his photo and in real life.  A Santa Claus on the lam.  Bit of Aussie accent. He gets a $2 tip and the bill is still under $10.

Pays to get to the Amtrac station early especially this busy weekend, "sold out" as the chatty conductor reminds us, so that we can get ocean side on our upper level business perch.

First thing we text trainer Rocco of our imminent departure so that he can prepare his "hot cross buns" for a rising "moon" as we pass his condo. Bob in the east seat snaps away but the ticket collecting conductor's buns are in the way. "Next time", we text Rocco who probably and to no avail mooned the panoramic scene.

Since I have enjoyed the magnificent surfside scenery before and surveyed it photographically every 20 feet or so I settle down with Robert Ludlum's comic novel The Road To Omaha as Bob stares out at the scene and then sporadically naps very happy to be spared that onerous driving duty. "This is Oceanside."

Small world. Kathy, one of our low impact compadres, is on the train and stops by. She's all dolled up and I'm not sure I would have recognized her.

Approaching the big city, we note how many high end apt and condo complexes are built along rail tracks these days. You pay extra for the noise? The three hour ride almost whizzes by when there's an engrossing novel to keep a passenger entertained.

Cabbie doesn't even wait for his tip. Guess he wants to get back to the station to get a bigger fare than we were with our short jaunt to the Omni. Here our room packet is at the ready and our club floor suite this time has a Grant Ave. view looking out to the hills beyond the new building behemoths that now grace downtown LA. And to the east its Disney Hall and the Music Center and the lovely mountains that frame them in the distance. To the north a glass building looms offering a funhouse warped mirror image of that latter view. Gotta love it.

We’re hungry but at Kendall's Brasserie, we are ignored because the servers are scrambling to get the theatre patrons out in time--you'd think they'd have the routine down by now--but after apologies we are virtually the only patrons in the previously teeming  place at 1:45. Complaining Bob gets a complimentary replenishment of his vino; I've ordered the endless mimosas special so no benefit there. The usual ingredients-filled burgers. (Bob allows me to say I didn't finish mine). $80. Oi. Tip: Next time pack a sandwich for a picnic.

We buy pencils shaped as a G clef at the Philhamonic shop I promising, as a kind of talisman, to buy more stuff there once we get our refi loan. Listening attend on a lobby TV monitor to a smattering of the live Shumann concert which we luckily (considering we finished lunch 35 minutes after it started) decided not to atend. Did hear one guy telling his wife that they could get in at a reduced rate. She: “it's been on for a half hour." He. "What's a half hour?"

 Exhausted from our invigorating forays, we collapse onto our soft bed at the hotel before taking 75 steps to the MOCA museum.

The centerpiece is the Warhol Shadows show and I'm delighted that photos are permitted everywhere (and snapping everything I feel as free as I did in St. Petersburg’s ill-guarded (considering the value of the naked masterpieces hanging on the walls) Hermitage museum).

Taking a hint from the recent glorious documentary about the British National museum I am as delighted by images of visitors observing the art as I am by the art itself. The Warhol exhibit is amazing in its totality of different chromatic takes on the shadow images. Then there's the almost never changing permanent exhibit of the usual wonderful suspects, Oldenbergs, Lichtensteins, Coons, etc. 25 minutes or so and we're done and ready to peruse the store where we are both sad nothing beckons madly.

CHICK CHIC

ORDER AND CHAOS

We having not exercised all day, Bob suggest a walk and walk we do into the bosom of downtown, with it's sleek panorama of skyscrapers, it's omnipresent public art, and fountains although I have trouble navigating the hill and am dismayed to find the street escalator up is semi disabled. It's the descent that defeats us arthritics however.

We'd better fit in our club floor cocktails (it comes with) but there's not much room for h'ors deuvres--tip next time pack a snack (Bob will point out the Subway--love it--across the street) for lunch with some vodka so there's readiness for free supper. Did I say free?

The lounge is crowded though we are able to snare a window. The spread if such is the word is disappointing compared to the pre-remodeling lounge. Some cheese, crackers, veggies, marginally acceptable beef pieces ("a nice pot roast" says B). And candy! Cmon. Not the gourmet delights of yesteryear. Still a supper can (and will) be made of it with no host bar vodka and wine. Ok the decor is probably fresher but we think it's not as luxe. Corporate heads crunching numbers. Do we spend the $70 a night more for this in future? Love decision making.

DAME EDNA. GLORIOUS FAREWELL CONCERT. And she (actually he-Sir Humphries in the great British drag tradition) is glorious. Much the same shtik as we’ve seen before, referring to the balcony as paupers, the sweet but lethal put-downs, the gladiolas, the self-aggrandizement in words and song accompanied by lithesome dancers, the reference to her so very gay son Kerry and acknowledgement that much of her audience is, well, so very gayIt’s all improv as she selects audience members to embarrass, including one young gay man and one elderly woman to “marry” in tribute to Valentine’s Day then telephoning his mother with the good news. The woman upstages her but for a moment when she announces that her sex life is her vibrator. Nice to laugh so much.

SUNDAY FEB 15

Big decision (of such life is crowded) whether to swim before breakfast, take a shower than head upstairs to the Club Lounge or . . . , Anyway very pleasant swim in the heated pool and the breakfast later is a nice surprise, hot dishes, eggs, lox, bagels the whole shebang redeeming the allure of the club room as the premium Omni choice for us. Backdrop however is the crawl on CNN's interview with Leon Panetta criticizing Obama's lack of "fire" and the need to get jiggy (not his phrase) with it in Yemen and the Ukraine. He's as much of a hawk as McCain only he seems credible. Yikes.

Peregrination time. But heading north toward the music center now.

Catch a tour of the Disney Hall garden. Lilian Disney's ceramic rose petal. (Her original $50 million donation got the whole Hall project going.)The trees lifted by cranes. Gehry making the exterior fabric like waves of the ocean. Kids performance amphitheater. Orchestra enters through the underground tunnel. Peter Alexander's is the only art in bldg. water and sunset. Donor wall is felt but looks like concrete. Lecture hall. (Very pretty in the daytime when we've not seen it notes Bob.) Weddings there. Added acoustical holes later. G designed from the inside out. Front can rise like a garage door for emergency exit. (G thought of everything.) The bar in the lobby is new and designed by a woman not G. No one knows if he'll approve. Me. Snap snap. This city is so damned photogenic and the Disney is the most photogenic thing in it to my way of thinking.

We talk on our way back to the hotel about the potential renovation/expansion of our home (ok it's an apartment). Where will we live asks Bob. I say we move into areas where work is not being done, like once the guest suite is finished in the garage we're there, there's the Palm Springs condo, etc. Bob says it's too early to think about it. I say I must. He answers "You have too many responsibilities. That's why your hair is gray." In-joke."Putitively", is the reply.

As we wait for our show sitting on a ledge watching the crowded (all 4 venues have productions and we've been warned about parking--big ha!--plaza in the gorgeous air--the weather has been magnificent while so much of the rest of the nation struggles, 1700 flights canceled, (watch it. Hubris hubris.) I hear a woman say "I'm Mahlared out." Understood.

Heard in the row in front of us. "She'll be fifty when she gets her PhD. Bob and I will be supporting her the rest of her life." Though our exchanged seats are on the side, they are much closer (and much cheaper--we got free TKTS to a Kirk Douglas theatre production as refund) than our usual subscription seats. Next year, we'll pick and choose, train up, also take in a concert and or an Ahmanson presentation, and stay over in this manner. Oh la.

THE PRICE. LA TAPER. Arthur Miller. One of his deep thought plays of familial dynamics, ethics, values written two decades after Death of A Salesman. With Kate Burton (wife of the  Center Theatre Group's Artisic Director, Michael Richie and daughter of Richard)  John Bedford Lloyd, Alan Mandell and Sam Robards (yes the son of Jason Robards and Lauren Bacall).

First act old couple behind us chattering as they try to adjust their hearing devices. The wife, "Take my word for it, it doesn't work." He doesn't (take her word) and lets everyone know. "They should take away their subscriptions," advises Bob. At plays end I will see these ancients sitting there with their canes and marvel.

"Peculiar play" Bob says. Excellent acting though we're having trouble hearing. A bravura performance by Mandell as the 89 year old furniture buyer who, conscripted by the policeman brother, who sees himself as a failure, to buy the furniture accumulated by his once wealthy then failure father, spouts a Jewish philosophy. Pacing is very slow. "But that's Miller," says Bob. There's the usual Miller dynamic of brotherly resentment. And there's the policeman brother's wife in the mix.

This is not top tier Miller a la Death, All My Sons, View from the Bridge. I guess it ranks with his Marillyn Monroe play, what's its name, but nevertheless he's in the top tier of American playwrights and "attention must be paid".

Over as scheduled at 3:30.

We got the routine down. We’ve got a late departure permission from the hotel.

Cab to station. Board 2nd car behind engine on track 10--it's business class and we discover it's almost full from its initial Santa Barbara stop. Thank goodness we find a two seater and thank god a conductor lady of mercy distributes snack packages to us. Trail mix, potato chips, cookies. And lovely Bob commandeers (they're apparently complimentary) a couple of bottles of white wine from the service table. Score another point for Amtrac! Age old dialogue: guy behind us confessing to his apparently new anamorata that he realizes he’s never found any fulfillment with his wife. Happy Valentines.