Monday Mug Shot

Redondo Beach, California

This is NOT a coffee mug! It’s a tea mug! Coffee leaves a trace of its aroma in ceramic with time and use. Oh you can’t taste it if you put a robust soup in the cup, hot cocoa or even milk, but for liquids with a delicate flavor, the aroma of the coffee overpowers the taste of the drink! Such is the case with most herbal teas. When I drink tea, it’s herbal tea, most commonly peppermint. I want my peppermint tea to taste like peppermint tea! So, in this mug, sunny and natural as herbal tea and the non-glitz side of Southern California, no beverage but herbal tea has ever, nor will ever, be found in it.

I was in Redondo Beach on Memorial Day, 2000. Mom, Heather H and I went on that trip to see Dodger Stadium...and relatives! We visited cousins from both sides of my family and Heather stayed the balance of the week with her brother after Mom and I went home. There was of course, baseball and some time for other fun too!

In 1993, I was geeky about this new slugging rookie the Dodgers had. He was a phenom at the plate, went yard 35 times in is rookie season! Defensively he didn’t have a rocket for an arm or anything, but as a catcher, working with LA’s “United Nations of Pitching” for a staff, he was great at calling the game and throwing his body out there defensively to protect the plate! Of course, Mike Piazza was the NL Rookie of the Year in ‘93 and easily my new favorite current player! I promised myself that I was going to get to LA to see Mikey play at Dodger Stadium!

Of course that became a more difficult plan in 1998. The Dodgers shocked the baseball world, especially fans in Los Angles, even Tommy Lasorda, when they traded Piazza to the Florida Marlins. That was May 14 when the reigning World Champion Marlins, who’d had a fire sale of all their key players obtained Piazza to join their shell of a team. There was no doubt that that trade was made to get rid of Gary Sheffield and obtain an easier to move product in Piazza. Okay, no doubt in MY mind. Piazza hit .362 with 40 home runs in ‘97. What do YOU think Florida’s motive was for taking advantage of an obvious night of drinking on the part of the baseball schmucks at Fox Entertainment Group? (Yeah, I’m still a little bitter) By May 22, Mikey was on the move again with his third uniform of the year to New York as the catcher for the Mets.

In 2000, everything fell into place for me, with a great deal for air fare with Southwest, the holiday weekend, some extra personal days at work AND the New York Mets visiting the Dodgers! I said I wanted to see Piazza play at Dodger Stadium, even though when I first said that I expected him to be wearing Dodger Blue. I was making that happen!

I put together my travel ad for the group and Mom and Heather were interested in going along. In addition to our family visits, the trip also included a day trip to Catalina Island, including mini golf, and a visit to Redondo Beach.

Redondo Beach is somewhere I wanted to go since I was a teenager. It’s the hometown of Motley Crue’s Vince Neil. I liked Motley Crue, still do enjoy their music now and then, but I wasn’t a huge fan. Of course, when you’re a teenager, “not a huge fan” simple means that you didn’t have a life-sized poster in your bedroom, you still read all the magazines! I wanted to go to Redondo beach, simply because the name was cool. Yes, I kept in my waiting mind 18 years to visit someplace because the name is cool!

Now Redondo Beach is the only place to date where I’ve put my feet in the Pacific Ocean, where I bought my first toe-ring and where I got an awesome tea mug!