Sunday at Mummy P's

It's Sunday morning in the City of Stilettos. The Great Plotnik remembered the camera and the computer but not the cable, so he can't post baby pictures. He understands his page readership just dropped from 4 to 0, but it can't be helped. He and Duck should be home late tonight and the situation will be rectified.

In the meantime, Saturday was a gorgeous day, which began with playing with Isabella at around midnight and then playing with Isabella again around 7:30AM. Plottie and the Great PunkyDunky rode their bikes up to the newly renovated observatory in Griffith Park, then back down to pick up pastries at the Hipster Bakery and Orange Pineapple licuados at the UnHipster Salvadorean cafe, brought them back to Isabella's house and sat around eating, drinking, and playing some more with Isabella.



In truth, Plot still feels very comfortable in his old neighborhood. Echo Park Lake is beautiful, if gone-to-seed, and there is always a lot of hubbub and garbage on the streets, but it's his garbage. Plot understands things here. They make sense.

Not that Saint Plotniko doesn't make sense, but let's be honest here: Plot still roots for the Dodgers and the Lakers. In August it will be 14 years at the Meatball Kitchen, but his heart did not transplant. If he were forced to keep score, his Northern California scorecard would probably look like this:

Lifestyle: Way better.
People: Way more in common.
Community: Prefer the north.
Weather: Prefer the North MOST of the time, except at night.
Friends: North by a landslide.

However: Miss the heat. Miss the smells of dry chaparral, juniper, lemon blossom, pittosperum. Miss the Latino hubbub, the easy targets of ridicule (the car port with the Lexus, the Ferrari and the Prius). Miss growing tomatoes, chilies, oranges.

Not that Plottie ever did grow very good tomatoes, or chilies, or oranges, but he could have.

Worst of all: miss PD and BZWZ. Miss 5H and Baby I. But that has nothing to do with North or South. This is an issue of life and growth.

We start out with great ambition. This involves moving, aquiring, moving again, beginning a career, settling in.

Then, the older we get the more we realize the grand truth: We are who we always were. Our families matter. Our memories are frozen in time. No one knows us better than the people who annoy us the most. We still want to please our Moms.

It'll be good to be home tonight, but in truth The Great Plotnik wishes he could stay a little longer. He didn't realize it until just awhile ago: He's lonesome.
He won't lie to you.