Month: July 2016

Independence Day, 2016

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It is just about 10 am and I am spending a leisurely morning, working on my new job: keeping fit and talking about it. No holidays for the committed! One of the categories in this blog is “Places I Like”, and in that category will go posts like this one, where I am going to talk about my favorite place for hanging out in the morning, Steelhead Coffee in California Heights.

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Steelhead is on the north side of Wardlow just east of Orange. It is a small store, seating 26, and I really like the setup of the chairs. I have been coming out of my shell lately and really enjoy opportunities to talk to others, and I find the arrangement of the benches on the east wall very conducive to striking up conversations with complete strangers, something I seem to be doing a lot of lately.

They have a nice assortment of sweets (which I avoid like the plague) but also a couple of savory croissants, one a ham and cheese and the other spinach and feta and both very tasty. On most days you can find either a ham and cheese or spinach and mushroom quiche, both good, but my favorites are the eggs and manchego on toast, and the avocado and heirloom tomatoes with feta on toast. Delicious both, and I will usually have one or the other Monday-Friday! I am still learning this blogging thing, so as soon as I figure out how to have multiple pictures in my blog posts I will post pictures. You can find pictures on my InstaGram account CaptainUnivac.

The staff and customers are incredibly friendly and the atmosphere is always up lifting. This morning we have Kat, Mike, and Oscar manning the fort, and I did see Robbie a bit earlier. They are all serious baristas and are either already masters or committed to learning some nice latte art!

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Sunday morning, July 3, 2016

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It’s Sunday morning, and I just got done hanging out at DRNK coffeehouse and playing some LiteBrite with my young friend Savannah. She is a most delightful young lady who comes in most Sunday mornings. Sometimes it is with just her dad, Drew, and sometimes with her mom Pam and her younger sister Callista.

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Yesterday was a bit of a non-typical day. My plan for Saturday was to do my usual morning workout, ride my bike to Steelhead, for breakfast, then ride over to Yoga World studio for a class at 11 with my yoga muse, Ramona Magnolia Tamulinas, followed by a longer bike ride home, then walking, shopping, dinner, open mic at Fox Coffee House, and then going to hear Cubensis, a Grateful Dead tribute band. That plan was altered when my friend Kerry Winston Ward (fulltiltward on YouTube) posted on Facebook that he and his lovely daughter Indigo were enroute from Cabo San Lucas to Vancouver and had a layover in the afternoon at LAX and would love to meet anyone available for lunch or other adventures. The timing was right, and I haven’t seen Indigo since she and her dad camped out in my living room for a few days around New Year’s, so I altered my plan. I rode the bike back home, drove to yoga, and afterwards up to LAX where I picked up Kerry and Indigo. We had lunch at Ayara Thai restaurant in Westchester where we were met by Jack Kalvan. Then it was back to the airport and back home for a nap. I did make it to the open mic, but wound up bailing on the late night outing to see Cubensis.

I’ll be riding my bike back home shortly, then it is off to another class with Ramona at 11, followed by an excursion up to the Original Muscle Beach (OMB). One of our tribe, Heather Renee, is moving to Portland and today is her send-off day, so it should be a great day at the beach. May be a little cool and cloudy, but that never stops the stalwarts!.

My First Blog Entry, Friday, July 1, 2016

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Well, here goes–my first blog entry! It is now 1:33 pm on July 1, and I am at my second coffee shop for the day, Viento y Agua in (I think) Bluff Heights. The day started with my alarm at 5 am, followed by a very uncharacteristic tapping not once, but twice, of the snooze button. Up by 5:15, followed by strong coffee, a bowl of cherries and grapes, browsing of Facebook, folding of laundry, and various bodily functions best left un-detailed.

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By 6:15 I was into my morning exercise routine. This routine is based largely on exercises and stretches that I have lifted from the two sessions of Physical Therapy (God’s gift to folks like me who want to age and still function) that were targeted at rotator cuff and knee issues, plus some core building exercises and a few handstands.

Rotator Cuff

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That routine takes about two hours, followed by a shower. Then it was off on my bike for a short ride to Steelhead Coffee, my breakfast hangout of choice, where I ordered my customary eggs and toast accompanied by a cortado. Today was a banner day at Steelhead–I have a daily bucket list, and high on that list is this item: “Talk to a pretty girl”. Today at Steelhead I had the pleasure of chatting with not just one or two pretty girls, but five! There was Jasmine, the Yoga teacher who is singing tonight with her band Via Leaves (@vialeaves) in downtown Long Beach, Shauna the wedding photographer and her friend Chrissy who is studying to be a Speech and Language Pathologist and has one more semester of undergraduate work left, Sutton the new barista, and the lovely Freda who is considering a career change after 24 years in education.
I then got back on the bike and rode to LA Fitness (Cherry and Carson) for about an hour. Just a little bit of weight work on the machines, a few squats with 110 lbs (I competed in power lifting at one point in my life and was probably the only power lifter who could bench press more than he could squat), 20 minutes of very slow walking (0.5 mph) on a treadmill with the incline increasing to 15 degrees, and 10 minutes of focused effort on the elliptical machine.

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Then it was on the bike to ride down here to 4th and Termino for some blog work (this post being ample evidence of said work) and a bit of grub. Next on the agenda is a ride back home via the beach and the LA River, then a nap, and then a yoga class at Yoga World Studio with my teacher and photographer Ashley Corbin-Teich (@ashleycorbinteich). Maybe some music tonight, maybe not…