Back home after a great weekend in L.A. The report is not so wonderful about Mummy Plotnik, but she can't get any younger and parts start to wear down. It's disconcerting to hear her bones creaking when she walks, but she can still toddle to the table and puts away more food than a long-distance trucker.
At the game we saw Cousin Brother Two Names and Elsa, dressed in Dodger blue, and Cousin Seattle and C-Herman Punster, dressed in Dodger white, while brother Shmeckl Plotnik wore Don Gambino sunglasses while speaking fondly of Mike Trout. The next day we saw The Great Nefnik and Cousin Flower Girl, and then at the airport on Monday ran into Tiaposian F-Christmas and his lady Alice. So this trip was three innings of ecstatic, a lot happy and only a little bit sad and reflective.
You may wonder why the B*b's B*g B*y, above, is dressed up in Dodger Away-Gray. We can't figure it out either. But before the game, for old times' sake, Brother Shmeck and Plotnik stopped at B*b's B*g B*y in Toluca Lake. In the old days, going back to our deep youth, Shmeck was good for three B*g B*ys and I for at least two, plus a diced ham-and-cheese salad for me and chili-and-spaghetti for him. I thought this was the finest food on our planet.
We decided to split one B*g B*y at the restaurant and take a few to the game. We ordered, the waitress brought the food and the bag of take-out, we split the burger and, believe me, it's the foulest piece of crap-on-a-bun this side of Jack in the Box. GODAWMIGHTY it's awful! Was it always? Really?
HOW has B*b's B*g B*y remained an L.A. icon? The place was packed with young and old. Even Shmeck admitted the burger was basically inedible, and for Shmeck and Plot to share an opinion about food forces you to listen carefully for the truth is being spoken.
We carried the take-out B*g B*ys into the game (they let us bring in sandwiches which could have been filled with C-5A explosives, but not a small bottle of cold water). We offered them to our first set of cousins, who instead pulled out these fantastic-looking roast beef sandwiches they'd brought in, which they ate in front of us, the smells overcoming us with desire as we remembered that the seagulls wouldn't eat what we had brought, and then we tried the other set of cousins, who smiled politely, took the sandwiches to their seats and hurled them onto the field. In the Seventh Inning, Chase Utley slipped on a B*g B*y and accidentally tapped the Mets shortstop on the hind hoof. A B*b's B*g B*y brokeTejada's leg, and that's my story and I'm sticking to it.
