Day 17 - California Reopening Plan - Phase 2
Silver Lake Reservoir
7:00-8:00 - I’m up, but tired. I drink my Hydroflask and listen to What a Day and Start Here. I take out my braids while I listen.
8:30-9:00 - The dog starts barking so I take her out, then give her cheese. I take a moment to admire my yard, yet again. The dog shit on the astroturf.
9:00-10:30 - I get dressed in the same clothes from yesterday and mix it up today by wearing false eyelashes. It goes without saying that I always make my bed. I take out my bathroom trash and fold and put away my laundry. I start my new “Supplies” list - I do this every Sunday and add to it when I notice we are running low on non-perishables (I usually place my order on the following Saturday). I drink my coffee.
10:30-11:00 - L. and I leave and she takes me to H-Park to show me where the hiking trail is so I can go by myself and see the bison. She and R. went to H-Park yesterday and they had a good time so I asked if she would show me the trail. I like the park quite a bit and will probably return tomorrow, on Memorial Day. I’m seriously thinking about going to each of our 34 parks because I’d really like to see what my community has to offer. Maybe I’ll incorporate my experience at each park into this blog.
11:00-12:00 - we drive to LaMill Coffee in Silver Lake and listen to The Dream podcast. Once there, L. places an online order from the car. I order the breakfast sandwich and their signature coffee- she gets some sort of Matcha drink (bleh) and something else. Ten minutes later, she picks up the food and we drive around the corner to the Silver Lake Reservoir. There are signs on the chain link fence saying we have to mask and I do…but L. doesn’t. To be fair, a few other park-goers also don’t mask. I feel like people are looking at us and then I think joggers/strollers are looking at L. because she’s not masking…or maybe it’s because my daughter is young and beautiful? It’s hard to say…when I tell her to mask, she states that she is only walking from the car to a park bench and then we’re going to eat, so what’s the point? I don’t disagree.
12:30 - 2:00 - we sit on the bench and look at the Reservoir, which is really just a huge, cement ‘pit’ where the community’s water supply is housed - I posted an actual picture. Oddly, it’s very peaceful. I ask L. to see what the homes are going for directly behind us and she pulls up Zillow to check - $1.8 million!! We eat our food and talk, looking at the water. This is so great!
R. is in a band - he calls them projects - and L. plays me a song from a recent project he was in (band’s name was Vista Point) so I can hear how he sounds (she pulled it up from Spotify). It’s quite good! In this piece, R. was vocals and electric/acoustic guitar - he laid the tracks over each other. His voice is interesting in that you cannot clearly identify the gender. Of course, I’m not a music critic but I can see that his sound would play well across different audiences. He wrote the lyrics, but I couldn’t quite make them out - I would attribute this to the sound quality of L.’s phone, placed on a bench, outside, NOT R.’s singing. I think this particular piece may have been written in a minor key and it had a melancholy tone - truly, it’s my kind of music, enough so that I would buy a ticket if the venue only consisted of 10 people, in accordance with Phase 2 California guidelines, and everyone was social distancing. j/k :-) I was pleasantly surprised.
There is a unique quality to his music. I know this because, in almost all instances when I listen to music, I can identify an earlier influence, usually from my generation, but I can’t with his. To try and describe R.’s music, using my generation as a reference point, doesn’t do his work justice as I am limited by my narrow reference points/music that I’ve heard as a Gen-Xer. I guess what comes to mind regarding unisex vocals is Boy George, BUT this is a far cry from R.’s sound and not fair. L. next played some music from a current artist [I cannot recall the name], whose gender is indistinguishable from his voice, and that seemed a more accurate depiction… If I absolutely had to make a point of comparison, I would say R.’s music reminds me of a cross between Paramore - Crush, Crush (but the unplugged version) and Lykee Li - I’ll Follow You, but even that’s not accurate because the lead singers are girls, although both pieces have the same melancholy tone.
***I have to say that later in the evening, L. told me that R. compared Nirvana to pop music in that the formula of Nirvana’s music, i.e., the structure of the songs, is similar to the basic hook of a pop hit. No. Maybe Smells like Teen Spirit…but have you listened to the entire Nevermind album? To call that album ‘pop’ is sacriligious. :-) Nirvana is a grunge-metal band and there is no comparison between Kurt Cobain [I’ll also give a shout-out to his wife on this one and lump Courtney Love/Hole in the same category as Cobain] and Debbie Gibson. One last point - Call Me Maybe was the 2011 pop hit of the summer…that song sucked. Can we really put Carly Rae in the same category as Nirvana? I don’t think so. :-)*** SIdebar: I’m really not that serious, BUT Nirvana does go down as one of the greats…
2:00-3:30 - I ask L. if we can drive by Lake Castaic to locate a hiking trail that was published in SCV Magazine’s most recent edition. We follow the author’s instructions and arrive at a dangerous trail, scaling a steep cliff, in one of the most secluded areas I’ve ever seen. Pass. We turn around and drive home. It’s Memorial Day weekend and the lake is packed - most people aren’t masking. The Silver Lake residents are hard core - almost everyone there was masked - but not here, at Lake Castaic. Although the lake is close to my house, I’ve never thought of going there. Maybe I should reconsider…
3:30-5:00 - We’re home and I read All You Can Ever Know outside, on my patio.
5:00-6:00 - I watch another episode of Bosch and eat avocado on toast.
6:00-8:30 - I catch up on my blog posts.
9:00-10:00 - I clean the kitchen and make my coffee for tomorrow. I eat more turkey strata, standing up at the counter, while I do dishes.
10:00-11:30 - L. and I watch Married at First Sight. Luke is just not attracted to Kate and tells her this, but is he really such a bad guy? He’s more honest than Matt was with Amber in Season 9. I’m conflicted…