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L.A. Affairs: How I got a second chance at love

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Within the 12 months after my husband’s dying from an enormous coronary heart assault, I functioned, however solely barely. I went to work, I shopped on the grocery store and cooked, and took care of my two youngsters. However a grey patina appeared to envelop me and I used to be starting to wonder if my life was over too, despite the fact that I used to be solely 44.

Nicely-meaning associates and family members tried to set me up on blind dates, however I used to be by no means actually . I used to be working on the Fairfax department of the Los Angeles Public Library on the time, as a librarian, when a person walked in. I observed him straight away, by the best way he carried himself. I might study later that he was a product of navy colleges whereas rising up, after which UCLA and the Air Power.

Russ was hooked on books. And he grew to become a daily patron. Through the hours I spent on the reference desk, he would regularly cease by to make a particular request. As soon as, he requested me to suggest a e book about astrophysics. He had a thoughts like a dry sponge, absorbing info in all places he may. I started to sit up for his visits, despite the fact that no private phrase ever entered our dialog till the day I discussed shifting from Puerto Rico to L.A., and the way troublesome it had been, transport prices being what they had been, to determine which of my books to take and which books to go away behind.

“I didn’t have that drawback,” he mentioned, “After I divorced, my spouse obtained the home and I obtained the books.”

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Ah, I assumed. So he may be single.

However easy methods to let him know I used to be too, with out baldly saying it? In spite of everything, I used to be nonetheless sporting my wedding ceremony band, and the title on my tag was preceded by “Mrs.”

What to do.

One afternoon, I bumped into Russ “again within the stacks,” within the quiet rows amid the books. I keep in mind we had been standing very shut to one another. I swear I felt an electrical present between us. I used to be sporting one among my favorites, a classy Italian knit sheath, and he mentioned to me, “That’s a really engaging gown.”

And identical to that, I had my cue!

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“Thanks, that’s so good to listen to. My late husband was very observant. He died final 12 months and typically I miss the small issues greater than the large. My youngsters are complimentary but it surely’s not the identical…” Was I babbling?

“I’m so sorry to listen to that,” he mentioned. By the top of that dialog, he requested, “Will you’ve got dinner with me some evening?”

Mission completed.

We exchanged numbers however when he known as a number of days later, I panicked. I stalled, utilizing my workload as an excuse as to why I couldn’t meet him for dinner that evening.

Think about, sweaty palms at my age!

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Fortunately, two days later he known as once more. On the evening of our very first date, when he opened the passenger door of his automotive for me, I noticed a single rose mendacity throughout my seat, ready for me.

He defined that he didn’t wish to arrive on the entrance door with it.

“I used to be afraid it would upset your youngsters.”

A stunning, leisurely dinner at an Italian restaurant on Santa Monica Boulevard gave us the chance to speak about ourselves and fill within the blanks. It was adopted by after-dinner drinks and dancing. Slipping into his arms on the dance flooring made me really feel protected and sound.

The top of that good night was a heat kiss.

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That first date was adopted by many extra. Dinner, films, theater, the opera — which we each liked. There was a romantic weekend to Catalina. Sometimes, the youngsters joined us. Russ by no means made me really feel I had to choose between him and them, which I appreciated a lot.

A sample developed and I used to be pleased with the established order. With a full-time job and two youngsters to boost and get off to varsity, I wasn’t considering of something extra everlasting between us.

However someday, as we had been driving down Vermont Avenue, I occurred to say one thing about “our affair.” Russ jammed on the brakes, bringing the automotive to an abrupt cease in the midst of the road. He exclaimed, “Our what?”

I used to be so startled, not understanding what I’d mentioned fallacious.

With the site visitors honking and piling up behind us, he defined why he was so upset. An “affair” is a relationship that has a starting and an finish. And this relationship of ours?

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“This has no finish,” he declared, after which obtained the automotive shifting once more.

I used to be speechless.

A number of months later, I used to be attending a cousin’s wedding ceremony in Fresno and can be gone for the weekend. He drove me to the airport and as we had been strolling by way of the LAX concourse he abruptly put my bag down and reached for me.

“I have to know that we’re going to spend the remainder of our lives collectively,” he mentioned. “You’ll be able to have it anyway you want,” he added.

If you wish to get married we are going to, he went on. If you wish to dwell in a single home, OK. And if you wish to proceed dwelling by yourself, and we maintain two separate flats, that’s OK. too.

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“I simply must know that you simply’ll be with me the remainder of my life,” he mentioned.

Nicely, that successfully put an finish to any concepts I had about an “affair.”

We obtained the greenlight from my youngsters and commenced in search of a brand new house collectively. We slipped right down to Los Angeles Metropolis Corridor for a quiet ceremony. It was a seamless transition. We settled into our marriage as if the establishment had been created only for us. Nothing happy me greater than to please him and nothing happy him greater than to please me.

What higher recipe for happiness?

Do all newlyweds really feel this manner? Perhaps the primary time round, and when younger.

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To really feel that means at our age — I used to be 48 and he was 56 once we every married for the second time — felt like nothing in need of miraculous, and that the miracle by no means left us was a miracle in itself.

The creator is retired and lives in Pasadena. Her husband Russ died of a cerebral hemorrhage after 25 years collectively. She is wanting ahead to her 98th birthday in Could.

L.A. Affairs chronicles the seek for romantic love in all its wonderful expressions within the L.A. space, and we wish to hear your true story. We pay $300 for a broadcast essay. Electronic mail LAAffairs@latimes.com. You could find submission tips right here. You could find previous columns right here.

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Lifestyle

In 'Kinds of Kindness,' the cruelty is the point : Pop Culture Happy Hour

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In 'Kinds of Kindness,' the cruelty is the point : Pop Culture Happy Hour
Kinds of Kindness is a surprisingly weird, dark, and bleak film. It’s directed by Yorgos Lanthimos (Poor Things) and it reteams him with Emma Stone and Willem Dafoe, along with Jesse Plemons. Each actor plays different characters in three different stories — which all involve someone going to extreme measures to regain something they’ve lost.
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57 California native plants that survived the Ice Age to live on today

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57 California native plants that survived the Ice Age to live on today

At the La Brea Tar Pits and Museum, Jessie George and other paleobotanists — the folks who study ancient plants the way paleontologists study prehistoric bones — are compiling a list of California native plants that survived the Ice Age and the region’s first huge climate change and are still alive today.

The researchers believe we have much to learn from these resilient plants that adapted after millennia of severe temperature change, drought and wildfire that changed Southern California from moist and cool woodlands to the dry, shrubby chaparral landscape we see today.

Maybe, they say, these hardy plants can help our urban landscapes weather our current climate change.

Note that not all these survivors would be happy living near the Tar Pits today, and those are marked with an asterisk (*). Most pines, for instance, prefer wetter, cooler parts of the state, like the Central Coast, George said, and would not fare well in Southern California’s hot, dry climate.

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If you have a question about whether a native plant would work well in your area, talk to the experts at places like the Tree of Life Nursery and Theodore Payne Foundation, or consult the California Native Plant Society’s handy native plant database at Calscape.

For more on these Ice Age survivors, read our July 1 L.A. Times Plants newsletter.

Trees/tall shrubs

  • Monterey cypress (Hesperocyparis macrocarpa)
  • Cypress (Hesperocyparis sp.)*
  • California juniper (Juniperus californica)
  • Rocky Mountain juniper (Juniperus scopulorum)*
  • Bishop pine (Pinus muricata)*
  • Monterey pine (Pinus radiata)*
  • Pine (Pinus sp.)*
  • Torrey pine (Pinus torreyana)*
  • Blue elderberry (Sambucus mexicana)
  • American dogwood (Cornus sericea)*
  • Eastwood manzanita (Arctostaphylos cf. glandulosa)
  • Big berry manzanita (Arctostaphylos glauca)
  • Coast live oak (Quercus agrifolia)
  • Scrub oak (Quercus dumosa)
  • Southern California black walnut (Juglans californica)
  • California sycamore (Platanus racemosa)
  • Box elder (Acer negundo)
  • Willow (Salix sp.)

Grasses/rushes

  • Sedge (Carex sp.)
  • Spikerush (Eleocharis sp.)
  • Fimbry (Fimbristylis sp.)
  • Barley (Hordeum sp.)

Shrubs/vines

  • Big saltbush (Atriplex lentiformis)
  • Poison oak (Toxicodendron diversilobum)
  • Baccharis (Baccharis sp.)
  • Ceanothus (Ceanothus sp.)
  • Chamise (Adenostoma fasciculatum)
  • Toyon (Heteromeles arbutifolia)
  • California blackberry (Rubus ursinus)
  • Grape (Vitis sp.)
  • Parish’s purple nightshade (Solanum parishii)

Perennial herbs

  • Bur-reed (Sparganium eurycarpum)
  • Water parsley (Oenanthe sarmentosa)*
  • Ragweed (Ambrosia psilostachya)
  • Deltoid balsam root (Balsamorhiza deltoidea)*
  • Thistle (Cirsium sp.)
  • Aster (Symphyotrichum sp.)
  • Blue-eyed grass (Sisyrinchium bellum)
  • Willow dock (Rumex salicifolius)
  • White water buttercup (Ranunculus aquatilis)*
  • Three-petaled bedstraw (Galium trifidum)*

Annual herbs

  • Sunflower (Helianthus annuus)
  • Common madia (Madia elegans)
  • Clustered tarweed (Deinandra fasciculata)
  • Cocklebur (Xanthium strumarium)
  • False rosinweed (Osmadenia tenella)
  • Fiddleneck (Amsinckia sp.)
  • Phacelia (Phacelia sp.)
  • Carolina geranium (Geranium carolinianum)
  • Parry’s mallow (Eremalche parryi)
  • Red maids (Calandrinia menziesii)
  • Miner’s lettuce (Claytonia perfoliata)
  • Water montia (Montia fontana)
  • Little spring beauty (Claytonia exigua)*
  • California poppy (Eschscholzia californica)
  • Purple owl’s clover (Castilleja exserta)
  • Nuttall’s snapdragon (Antirrhinum nuttallianum)
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What does 'The Bear' restaurant review say? We take our best guess

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What does 'The Bear' restaurant review say? We take our best guess

Jeremy Allen White as Carmy Berzatto.

FX


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FX

Haven’t watched the season finale of The Bear yet? Then you probably don’t want to read this. Don’t blame us for spoilers. 

So what does that review say?

At the end of the third season of The Bear, Carmy (Jeremy Allen White) looks at his phone late one night and sees a review of his new restaurant, The Bear, in the Chicago Tribune. All we see are flashes of words and phrases, some seemingly good and some seemingly bad, and then Carmy says, “mother——,” and that’s the season.

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And look: The idea is to leave you uncertain about what the review says, and to be clear, the review could say a lot of things. Trying to decode the words we can see and come up with an idea of whether this is a good or a bad review is rank speculation. Rank, I say! So let’s speculate.

I’m really not excited to reveal how long I spent doing this, but what I am about to show you is the best rendering I can manage of the words (and parts of words) that they show in this little sequence. I present them in the form of a poem, since I can’t offer you screenshots. (These groups of words, of course, are undoubtedly not in this order in the actual review. And yes, I think this is a show that’s probably playing fair; I think these probably are all consistent with the actual review that we will eventually learn much more about.)

of flavors both d
the confusing mis
any apprehension

an almost sloppy fas
f innovative d
nu was a testa
complex array
, as each dish arrived, there
were excellent, sho
rt, leaving me fee

focus on pushing
true culinary gem
my experience at

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tto, offering a
palpable dissonance b
ng the chef’s brilliant cr
disappointed and craving
Feeling disapp

and downs, t
inconsistent
as resting on

undeniable inco
of delicious pe
tchen couldn’t

e. However,
was simple an
s the potential

Berzatto p

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s not subtract f

felt overdone

incredible
Carmen Berzatto

re tired a

t stale a
talent

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Clear as day, right?

For my money, the most interesting phrase comes from the screen that highlights the word “delicious.” Below that, you can see “tchen couldn’t.” My guess is that the full review uses the words “kitchen couldn’t.” And I’m going to further guess that “undeniable inco” is part of something like “undeniable inconsistency” or “undeniable incompleteness” — in other words, something negative. And in the middle, the word “delicious.”

So: what if the review is basically saying that there is an inconsistency in the operation because the kitchen isn’t doing a solid enough job?

That would also fit with this bit right here:

tto, offering a
palpable dissonance b
ng the chef’s brilliant cr
disappointed and craving
Feeling disapp

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Now, the “tto” is probably the end of Carmy’s name (although I suppose a word like “risotto” is possible). But right in the middle, you have “the chef’s brilliant cr,” which might be “the chef’s brilliant creations” or “the chef’s brilliant creativity” or something like that. And before that, you have “dissonance.” And after it, “disappointed.” Again, what if this is saying Carmy is a brilliant genius, but something is amiss in the staffing and the execution?

Could this also be what “an almost sloppy fas” is about? What if that says the dining room — Richie’s beloved dining room — operates in an almost sloppy fashion? It also occurred to me that it could be a reference to The Beef, that The Beef was “almost sloppy fast food” or something. Or perhaps Neil Fak is a little too sloppy for this reviewer’s refined tastes.

Here’s another interesting part:

f innovative d
nu was a testa
complex array

That middle line should be “menu was a testament,” right? The menu is a testament to something? Probably Carmy’s brilliance? The changing menu he’s been obsessed with? And that would fit with “f innovative d,” which could be, say, “of innovative dishes.”

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A prediction

Go back and read it all, like a poem, all together, and let it wash over you. Here’s what I think the review might say: Carmy is an amazing chef, full of potential, creative and amazing. But the rest of the team is not living up to his great ideas. In other words, I think the review says everybody else at The Bear needs to get on Carmy’s level.

If it says that, then that would explain why, after reading a review that (probably) calls him “brilliant,” he swears angrily. It would also complicate his obsession with his own standards to see the system he insisted on (the changing menu especially) wind up making him look good, but interfering so much with how the place runs that other people look bad.

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I want to stress that if this is all completely and totally wrong, it will be no surprise. The whole thing could be a misdirect, every word could be misleading — “the chef” might not be Carmy, “nu” could be “Keanu” instead of “menu,” you get the idea.

But to me, it would be consistent with this season if Carmy had the most pyrrhic of pyrrhic victories, and this review gave him what he wanted at the expense of the people he works with.

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