Putt Putt on Pine: a Cautionary Tale

When my friend Myrna invited me to participate in Leadership Long Beach's annual fundraiser, Putt Putt on Pine, I took my camera in anticipation of a tame blog entry about this fundraiser where teams of four rotate through Long Beach restaurants playing a hole of miniature golf at each location. As you will soon see, the night ended up being a bit more, well, how shall we phrase it...interesting...than originally anticipated.

First, we picked up our scorecard at Smooth's Sports Bar and headed for Taco Surf for our first hole, a beer and some yummy enchiladas. Here is Monica in action.

Then it was off to George's Greek Cafe for our second hole, a great buffet and...

Ouzo Shots! We felt morally obligated to partake in this $2 bargain. That is Myrna on the left, then Kenya, me and Monica to my right.

Less dedicated golfers might have been distracted but not us. We headed to L'Opera ( a noted restaurant I've been meaning to try) for another hole. I think my score was about a 12 here...

Then it was off to Rock Bottom where we never even made it to the golf area. Instead, we headed to the bar for cocktails. Here, Myrna tries to prove that she can tie a cherry stem into a knot with her tongue. For the record: not accomplished!

We spent a little too much time at Rock Bottom so, instead of finishing our round (of golf that is, we did finish our round of drinks) we headed back to Smooth's for the event wrap up. I thought I would wait around to see if I won anything in the drawings and then head home. I anticipated being home by 10 p.m., in time for a good night's sleep.

Unfortunately, that isn't quite how it happened. Instead, we decided to go downstairs in Smooth's and have one more drink. It is always a bad sign when you end up with random strangers in your pictures, and that is exactly what happened here. Now, Eric, on the right is an old friend of Kenya's so he doesn't count. But, these two gals on the left? No idea! Myrna picked them up somewhere outside and dragged them to our table, I believe. At least they were kind enough to buy us a round of drinks before heading out...

At this point, Eric suggested that we head down to the street to a dueling piano bar which seemed like a good idea at the time.



On the walk, we passed by the Ice Bar, a very weird place not usually on my radar. However, the bar manager out front offered us a free shot if we went inside. Of course, we couldn't pass that up, so in we went. It was deserted and had a very strange vibe. We downed a quick shot and were on our way.

We finally made it to the piano bar where we sang along and did a few more shots. The night eventually ended with a few additional high jinks (which will remain unexplained here in the interest of discretion). Let's just say that you can all draw this conclusion: everyone felt pretty terrible the next day. I'm a big believer in letting off steam every now and again but this experience really made me appreciate my mostly quiet life...

San Juan Capristano

San Juan Capistrano Mission has been on my Refrigerator List since we moved to Long Beach, and a few weeks ago, we finally made the drive down to OC to check it out.

It was a perfect Sunday afternoon, and the grounds were so beautiful.

We spent some time just walking around the gardens.

Then we snuck onto the back end of the tour.

And saw the remains of the original buildings. There was a Baptism (complete with crying baby) in the chapel so we didn't get to see that part.

I'm pretty sure the Missionaries didn't have Koi in their compounds. So, can someone tell me why all the missions have them now? I'm serious--the Alamo has them, too!

Pat thought this area was the most important part of the Mission and asked that I take his picture with this sign.

Here is the close-up: yep, apparently, SJCM is where the the California wine industry was born. Who would have known?


After we had our fill of the mission, we wandered down Los Rios street, a neat little touristy area with shops and cafes. We had a late breakfast so we didn't eat but we will keep it in mind for next time.