{"id":183,"date":"2006-03-27T20:34:31","date_gmt":"2006-03-28T04:34:31","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.rustinjessen.com\/2006\/03\/27\/rainy-socal-a-sunday-brunch\/"},"modified":"2006-03-27T20:34:31","modified_gmt":"2006-03-28T04:34:31","slug":"rainy-socal-a-sunday-brunch","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/rustinjessen.com\/old\/blog\/rainy-socal-a-sunday-brunch\/","title":{"rendered":"Rainy SoCal &#038; A Sunday Brunch"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><img decoding=\"async\" id=\"image220\" src=\"http:\/\/www.rustinjessen.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2006\/03\/californiapostcard.jpg\" alt=\"Post Card\" class=\"alignright\" \/>Its raining right now here in sunny southern California.  I really do enjoy when it rains.  I&#8217;ve got the patio door flung all the way open just so I can hear the splash of the water and take in that wonderful smell of rain-wet concrete.  That sounds a little smart assish&#8230; but really I do love the rain.<\/p>\n<p>The sky has been threatening all day with dark grey clouds and cold breezes.  Then finally around 6:30 it started to spit, and now it&#8217;s turned into a full on rain storm.  It just puts me in such a relaxed state.  It really makes me want to sit back and be creative.  Make something, or write something.  I figured the next best thing to something really creative was to post a little entry on this blog. \ud83d\ude42<\/p>\n<p><!--more--><br \/>\nSo lets see&#8230; what do I have to talk about today.  Oh!  I know:  This last Sunday Janey and I were invited to a little brunch.  I&#8217;m still a little fuzzy on the actual purpose for the get-together.  I think it started out as a thing between some work friends but since one work friend (who is sort of one of those &#8216;fringe&#8217; friends anyway) is moving away from Disneyland to go back to school to study to be a who-knows-what, it turned into a bit of a &#8220;I&#8217;ll invite myself to someone else&#8217;s brunch and make it a going away party for me me me&#8221; sort of deal.  If that last sentence felt a bit cumbersome and forced&#8230; well then it&#8217;s just echoing the feeling in the room when the above mentioned fringe friend took the microphone for a goodbye serenade.  Thats right folks, she got up and talked to the piano player, got on the mic and butchard at least three wonderful peices of music.  There was quite a bit of skipping around as she seemed only to know the chorus of each song.  But at least the piano player was a sport, and quite talented to boot!  And what a perfect segue to describe the fantastic establishment where we dined.<\/p>\n<p>It was a little spot down in Long Beach called &#8220;Paradise&#8221;.  It was a very clean place with a very eclectic sense of style.  It has a mirrored bar trimmed with blue rope lights.  In the back of the room there was a huge bronze eagle suspended from the ceiling.  It looked like it had been plucked from atop a buttress on some gothic styled skyscraper.  Directly across from the bar there was a black baby grand piano.  Behind it sat a stylish, slick haired man crooning out back-to-back show tunes.  All around the dining room were well dressed men sitting in pairs or foursomes smiling at each other as they clinked their mimosas and laughed.<\/p>\n<p>If you haven&#8217;t made the connection yet friends&#8230; this was a very happy place.  Throughout the meal I kept thinking of the Blue Oyster from the Police Academy movies.  (if you started humming that calypso-tango song that always played when the door slammed behind Mahony&#8217;s unsuspecting victims you are my new best friend)<\/p>\n<p>To make a long story just a little bit longer.  We really did have a good time.  The food wasn&#8217;t great.  The company was alright.  But I was with my girl on a sunny sunday afternoon in Long Beach so I was happy.<\/p>\n<p>Alright kids.  That will have to do for now.  Have a great night, and I&#8217;ll see you soon.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Its raining right now here in sunny southern California. I really do enjoy when it rains. I&#8217;ve got the patio door flung all the way open just so I can hear the splash of the water and take in that wonderful smell of rain-wet concrete. That sounds a little smart assish&#8230; but really I do &hellip; <a href=\"http:\/\/rustinjessen.com\/old\/blog\/rainy-socal-a-sunday-brunch\/\" class=\"more-link\">Continue reading <span class=\"screen-reader-text\">Rainy SoCal &#038; A Sunday Brunch<\/span> <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-183","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-my-life"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/rustinjessen.com\/old\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/183","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/rustinjessen.com\/old\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/rustinjessen.com\/old\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rustinjessen.com\/old\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rustinjessen.com\/old\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=183"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/rustinjessen.com\/old\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/183\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/rustinjessen.com\/old\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=183"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rustinjessen.com\/old\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=183"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rustinjessen.com\/old\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=183"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}