That '70s Place

Life for the minimally employed can actually be pretty good *provided you are being financed by very generous patrons [parents] who are very tolerant of the less-than-ambitious appearance of your lifestyle. Though he very much will not appreciate my mentioning it here (but who cares, because he so rarely visits my site), Kevin Yap is one of my compatriots in the land of marginal employment. [If for no other reason, visit his MySpace—linked above—because he's a talented up-and-coming musician. If by chance he does see this, hopefully this plug will mitigate some of annoyance he will feel at having been publicly slighted.]

One of the joys of being a part time worker is all the free time, but until recently I hadn't been able to enjoy so much leisure—partly due to guilt, and partly due to the fact that I had no one with whom to spend it. While the former problem remains unresolved, Kevin has largely fulfilled the need of the latter. Our work schedules roughly coincide, so we are sometime swim-at-CPE/run-at-Liberty-Park in the morning buddies; some days, we hang out just to talk, or discuss a book we're both reading. At night, we've been doing alot of Guppy Tea House, but one can only stomach so many super spicy dumplings in veal broth, honeydew teazzers and so much banana-mango shaved ice (delicious as all that is).

At one o'clock in the morning, one's eating options in the Cerritos area are relatively limited, especially if one is tired of Guppy, and doesn't feel like In-N-Out or Jack-in-the-Box. Which led to our Norms adventure tonight. We drove to the Norms on Lakewood Blvd. in the city of Lakewood. Having never really been to a Norms other than the one in Anaheim, I expected the decor of all the branches of the chain to be pretty much the same.

Wrong! Stepping into the Norms in Lakewood, I thought I had been transported back two decades. (See photo below). One's eye goes immediately for the Brady Bunch inspired lampshades, the sallowness of which augments the already-yellow incandescent bulbs situated inside them, creating an eerie mustard light on everything around it. (Hey, Greg! Marsha! Where are those groovy lava lamps?) And check out the olive green vinyl upholstery of the counter stools, the olive green that was so ubiquitous in the 1970s. (The man sitting at the counter is a customer who, along with the vinyl seat covers, apparently has not moved since the Carter administration.) The "Mel's Diner" inspired waitress uniforms (à la the Alice TV show, circa 1976) only added to the time warp effect, as did the fact that our waitress's diction had remained more or less unchanged since the original airing of that show.

What really impressed me was how reasonably priced the food was. For $9.99, you can get a New York steak (and not a bad one! pretty juicy and tender) with soup AND salad, plus a potato of your choice (baked, french fries, or mashed potatoes and gravy) PLUS dessert! "Are these prices from the 70s, too?" I wondered aloud, only to be informed by my dinner companion that in fact, this is a special available at all franchises of the Norms restaurant chain, completely independent of which decade they happened to be serving from.

It's really late now, and although my grievously light workload tomorrow permits me to stay up longer and marvel at the wonder that is the temporal anomaly of the Lakewood Norms doorway, my heavy eyelids are compelling me to retire for the night. If you're ever in the area after midnight and feel a nostalgic hankering for the Energy Crisis, earth tones, Farrah Fawcett hair, and the days of Woodstock:

17844 Lakewood Blvd
Bellflower, CA 90706-6414