A Fun Week at the World Figure Skating Championships 2009 in LA

I had a great time last week attending the 2009 World Figure Skating Championships, being held for the first time here in Los Angeles. Here's my little review on the event:

The Great:

1. Our fabulous seats! Our row 4 all-event tickets ended up being the front row in our section - no heads in front of me and right near the ice! There was a rail in front of our seats that you could put your feet on and a walkway in front and below us where photographers went into the press area. Our section was right next to the end of the arena where the different countries and their commentators were broadcasting from.

2. Brian Joubert - swoon, my newest fave - what a cutie (and an audience flirt)! As one female said sitting nearby "instead of throwing flowers I'll throw myself on the ice for Joubert" - - um, well said.

3. The beautiful costumes - seeing those costumes up close as the skaters skated by my seat was really neat. I especially thought all the ice dancers were gorgeously dressed. Wow! I also took a fancy to Carolina Kostner's finals dress - with it layers of beige and brown under the skirt, looked really pretty up close.

3. I saw a number of figure skating stars of yesteryear around the arena during the week - Debi Thomas in the concourse, Jenny Meno in the ladies room, Scott Hamilton, Sandra Bezic, Kurt Browning, Tracy Wilson, and Philippe Candeloro in the broadcast area near us, Dick Button and Michelle Kwan were broadcasting across the arena from my seats (could only see with my binoculars) - and skater (now coach) Elaine Zayak and best of all, my favorite skating heartthrob of yesteryear, now coaching - adorable Alexei Urmanov whose cute face caught my eye as he stood in the Kiss and Cry even before I realized who he was - still looking real good, I must say!

4. Johnny Weir was in attendance signing autographs in the concourse. I also saw Evan Lysacek signing autographs during the ice resurfacing during the Ladies finals.

5. I calculate I spent around 55 hours in my Staples Center seat watching skating over the course of the week - that may sound like a lot to some, but it went by super, super fast for me! What a great time.

6. As a long-tine figure skating fan - I have followed the sport since I was a very little girl and saw Peggy Fleming skate in the Olympics - this was such a great opportunity to see an event like this, and all the great skaters that I love, up close and personal and in my own hometown - hurrah!

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The Neutral:

1. The Ryan Seacrest lookalike/soundalike/same sense of humor as Seacrest guy who was doing interviews with audience members during ice resurfacing - why is it when someone is popular, they have to always hire people that are exactly the same?! What about some variety in the world?!

2. It was very, very cold in the arena - at least where I was sitting - so I wore layers of clothes, a scarf, and two pairs of socks (to help keep my feeling quite frost-bitten feet warm). The last two days of the event I found to be a bit warmer, and only needed my one woolly jacket.

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And a few minor complaints, all related to the venue - not the event itself!

1. Poor selection of foods to eat in a large-sized arena that should have had more choice - and way over-priced!

2. I didn't like the way between competitions they cleared out the arena and wouldn't let people sit in there, even when the gap was only an hour. One of the evenings people were buying their dinners, and with nowhere to sit (only a very few small tables in a few spots) I saw people sitting on the floor in the concourse to eat!

3. Expensive parking!

HMS Bounty - Los Angeles Restaurant and Bar

Three of us ventured to the HMS Bounty last night - inspired by a cool website called Los Angeles Time Machines, we are planning on making excursions to some of the historic restaurants and bars listed at that site, especially the ones we haven't ever been to. This was my first visit to the HMS Bounty - originally called "The Gay Room" when it opened. It is on Wilshire in Koreatown directly across the street from the former Ambassador Hotel where the Cocoanut Grove was located (the ruins of this hotel are still - barely - there; as of this writing you can still see a few letters from the word "Ambassador" on the side of a piece of the building still standing). The HMS Bounty is a dark, old-fashioned looking restaurant decorated with a nautical theme - faux portholes and paintings of ships on the wall. The long wood bar is backed by strings of red, white, and green lights, a ship inside glass and other decorations. Referred to by some as a "dive" this place seemed pretty nice to me, with a good vibe. We sat in one of the comfortable red booths for dinner and all had the "Famous Baseball Steak", medium rare, which was really juicy and tasty and came served with some yummy mashed potatoes au jus and broccoli. Later we sat at the bar - a friendly spot with lots of regulars - for a few low-priced stiff cocktails. The HMS Bounty is a neat, historic place - with good food to boot. By the way, it is attached to the historic Gaylord Apartments (once a hotel) - you have to walk through the lobby of the apartment building to get to the restrooms. There are a few display cases off the lobby with historical memorabilia inside, menus, vintage movie star items, even an open hotel registry book from the 1920s. I would like to go to as many historic restaurants in L.A. as I can before they end up shutting down - a restaurant called Monty's in Pasadena, quite local for me, sadly shut it's doors before I had a chance to get there. I just dread the day when a place such as, for example, Musso and Frank's in Hollywood closes down and is replaced by a Cheesecake Factory!

I Don't Like Earthquakes!

Well, yesterday there was an earthquake at about 11:42 am - it shook fairly hard, and went on fairly long - I was really shaking - not just during it, but quite a few minutes after! They are calling the quake, centered in Chino Hills, a 5.4. Anyway, scary stuff - but I must say this one, though the biggest I've felt in years, was in no way even remotely comparable to the terror of the two "Big" Earthquakes I have been through - probably the two scariest events of my life. In the 1971 Sylmar earthquake we lived in Northridge, I was ten years old, and I was pretty traumatized for awhile after that. During the quake I just lay there in my bed as it shook - in shock, I guess. But for days, weeks, even a few months after I was scared to go upstairs in our house - every time I did it seemed like there was an aftershock. We didn't have electricity or water for what seems like at least a week, in my memory anyway - good part though - no school for a couple of weeks, and we did get to go to restaurants for all our meals for several days (all I can remember is going to the "Copper Penny" coffee shop again and again). The 1994 Northridge earthquake was very, very scary too. I lived in Agoura and - though they tell you to go under a doorway during an earthquake (today the news is saying that is a myth - go under a table) I just sat up in my bed during the quake, screamed (I think) and watched the TV set at the end of the bed lift up and down off the table. Wooo - just thinking about all this makes me shake!!

Fireworks - L.A. Fourth of July

Okay, the other day was the Fourth of July - - now when I was a kid, the Fourth of July meant going to our local park, having a picnic on a blanket in a park completely filled to the brim with picnickers, then watching fireworks when it got dark. We normally went to Northridge Park, the closest park to our house - but in the 70s my dad started taking us to Granada Hills Park because the festivities included, in addition to the picnic on a blanket and sack races and fireworks, the "Miss Granada Hills" beauty pageant (held outdoors amongst the picnicking families with stage and ramp). We were all for this - and the park got a massive crowd! In those days you rarely saw people setting off their own, practically professional quality (where do people get these?) illegal fireworks, but lately - boy, this year the area where I live in L.A. seemed almost like a war zone with the massive amounts of fireworks, firecrackers, smoke, and boom, boom, kabooms that went late into the night - at least until two in the morning. It makes me a bit nervous, what with all the dry brush around here - from the roof of our house you can see fireworks going in a complete circle around us, we can even see both Dodger stadium and Rose Bowl fireworks when they are having them. This year we went to a barbecue where we sat in relative's steamy backyard covered bar area in 100 degree heat and had your typical fare of hot dogs, hamburgers, potato salad, coleslaw, baked beans, corn on the cob, beer, wine, ice cream cones, and heavy drinkers - oh boy!

Wicked - Pantages Theater in Hollywood

Last night I saw Wicked at the Pantages Theatre in Hollywood. It ended up being real good - a really lavish production, I must say. The costumes were spectacular, the story a clever spin on "The Wizard of Oz", the vocals excellent, and most of the songs were pretty good. The way this was staged was really quite amazing - I loved the big show-stopper number right before the intermission where they sing "Defying Gravity" and the "Wicked Witch" rises up into the air and appears to really gravitate via the lighting that is done for this number. Neat gigantic bat creature floating overhead, a booming-voiced mechanical "Wizard" that comes rolling out onto the stage, the lighting up of the Emerald City all in green lights - very cool, and love those winged monkeys. One of the best shows I've seen at the Pantages in a number of years. And hey - Jo Anne Worley, well remembered by me from those days when I used to watch Laugh-In every week when it was originally on (yes, I was a mere tot then) - was in this production. I used to go to this theater a lot back in the 70s and 80s when my dad would get season tickets - the sound system is WAY better now, and luckily the absolutely gorgeous art deco interior, original from the 1930s, is still intact (love the deco mirrored powder room in the left-lobby ladies room) - bravo.