Day 4 LA

Apparently I wore out my son.  Or the sun did.  I slept til 8 which is late since LA is two hours earlier.  Joel slept til 10.  So while he was sleeping, I walked to the neighborhood coffee shop, Sabor y Cultura.

after showering and got the iced latte. Yum!  I did my quiet time and read til Joel got up.  We hung out and read together in the apartment which I quite enjoyed then walked to a cafe about 10 blocks away for brunch.

More pics of Joel's neighborhood and apartment.

Street view of Joel's house.

He lives in the back unit, ground floor.

View from Joel's window while lying in bed.  

Friends and Family Cafe, appropriate, huh?  

We walked the hot sweaty walk back to the apartment and laid around and read (enjoyable!) until we decided to drive the route that Joel drives every morning, down Los Feliz and a short jaunt on the 5, about 20 minutes to Glendale.  Joel works in the Grand Central Central Creative Campus or GC3.

 His section is just one floor.  It was very modern and very clean and impressive.  There is a large quad area with cartoon statues and a cafe with indoor and outdoor tables, more life a cafeteria.  

Joel's desk:

Snack area:

On the way back to Joel's apartment, even though it was very hot and Joel is very sunburned, we stopped by Echo Park Lake for the Lotus Festival.  This was a celebration of SouthEast Asian culture and had food and ware booths.  It would have been more enjoyable without the heat so we didn't stay long.

More resting in Joel's comfy cozy cool apartment. And watching Joel watch Game of Thrones was a trip.

And then....dinner at Stout Burger with birthday boy nephew Jc, Kristi, and Ryan and his friend who were visiting from Kansas!  

Next morning, up,early, Joel got up to say goodbye and move his car.  It was soo hard to say goodbye.  (Looking forward to seeing Leah and Emmet who,are picking me up at the airport helps).

So I leave you with these random thoughts of LA:

Random LA thoughts:

Anything goes in terms of style including just wearing a towel draped over your head

Homeless people can sleep anywhere

There are no perfect bodies on the beach 

LA people don't greet one another on the street

Joel has a hairy man chest

People eat healthy here

Parking is a bitch

There are lots of palm trees

No one is concerned about all the trash and weeds sprinkled in the succulents and flowers. 

Sidewalks occasionally randomly smell like urine

Grass and open spaces are not necessary for owning dogs. 

Tourists stick out like sore thumbs 

There are waaaay too many restaurants to choose from

Day 3 LA

Woke up early again and while Joel slept I showered, had my quiet time, blogged, then cooked up his breakfast/lunch and packed our picnic lunch.  When Joel got up we headed out to the beach.

So we got on the 101 near his house and then the 405 ( sounds so California cool to say that) 

then drove through the Palisaides area which was super cool to get to Ventura beach.  We stayed three hours!  We ate our picnic lunch and read and listened to all the great parenting going on around us (it really was).  The beaches here are crowded and the surf was so strong that me being a chicken, I didn't go far enough out and the rocks in the surf pounded my feet and left little bruises.  Joel swam way out past the crests.  I roasted like a brown rotisserie chicken and Joel went for the lobster look.  

Then we came back to the apartment and showered and headed back to Echo Park to shop at a cool thrift store.  I tried on a bunch of cool thing and bought a lacy top.  Joel bought a nice shirt and two pairs of sunglasses.

Then we went down Los Feliz and went to the same cool vintage movie theater and watched Baby Driver.  I liked it ok, liked the characters and thought it was well done but too violent for me.  Joel liked it.  The movie theaters here stay dark until the entire,credits run on the screen.  Joel said that Los Angeles people like to watch the credits.

We decided to stay and eat at the nearby vintage cafe, Fred 62.  I had a burger and cheese fries and Joel had a steak and veggies. We ate outside.

Random LA street:

Also while near Los Feliz, there was a block that had dozens of short semis, mostly open, with security guards in law chairs sitting nearby.  Joel,said it was a film shoot.

We came home and chilled and watched an episode of Glow then walked to BR and got me and ice cream cone then walked home and watched another episode.

I like hanging out with the Joelster.  

Day 2 LA

Day 2 I got up and showered and cleaned as a good mom should and did my quiet time outside on Joel's beautiful patio.  When Joel was ready, we walked the half block down to his favorite coffee shop for breakfast.  I ordered strawberry yogurt with granola and Mexican mocha latte but ended up eating Joel's delicious whole grain bread that came with his breakfast plate and saved the yogurt.

After breakfast, we returned to the apartment and napped.  Morning naps rock.  Then we walked.  We went all the way up Hollywood blvd to the tourist part where the stars are on the sidewalk.  As a true Los Angeles citizen now, Joel hates that part. There were people of all languages gawking and taking photos and tour busses trying to get you to ride along.  Not sure exactly what they were looking at.  

I saw some sparkly chucks in a shoe store window and went in and almost bought my dream shoes, pink sparkly, but they were about 70 bucks and maybe just a little much (style).  So I settled on some hot pink unique ones that were on sale.  Scott wanted a picture so I texted him one and his response was, "good lord" which continues to make me giggle every time I see the shoes.

We then started the "where should we eat" conversation which takes about an hour because Joel doesn't eat anything I eat and I don't eat anything he eats basically.  Except meat.  So we chose a chicken place that had rotisserie chicken and sides.

 Joel's side was veggies and mine was Mac and cheese.  We were both quite happy.  Then we went to Joel's favorite bookstore and bought used paperbacks then returned to Joel's apartment to rearrange his books.  I love Joel.  

Next, we went the other direction to a very nice area (not that Joel's area isn't nice) and went to a tiny quaint movie theater and watched "The Big Sick".  We both thought it was fabulous.  I love movies and books where the characters are well developed and give bonus points if they are likeable.  I truly liked every character in this movie.  After, we stopped next door at another bookstore.  

We returned to the apartment for round two of "where shall we eat" which frustrated Joel enough that he decided to break his diet and we headed to his old neighborhood, echo park to eat at Masa which is a chicago pizza place.  While waiting for a table, we went to Echo Park lake and listened to some music for a bit then popped by a bookstore cafe that I realized I've been to before with Joel.  

Dinner was fab, it was late and loud and it was the biggest pizza I ever saw.  The leftover box weighed like ten pounds.  Joel got a stomachache so looks like I'll be tackling the leftovers alone.

We returned exhausted and full to the aprtment and watched episode two of Glow then went to sleep. Day two awesome.

Day 1 LA

I love coming to see Joel!

Travel was uneventful except for Joel being stuck in traffic picking me up.  LAX feels like an airport in a foreign country with all the hustle and bustle and the variety of people.  It reminds me so much of the airport in Guatemala City.  

So we were facing traffic to get to Disneyland right off the bat after Joel had driven in horrible stop and go traffic from work, so we slowly made the decision not to go and to workon other options to get to Disneyland this weekend. Later we were glad we did.

So,first Joel shared that he is eating his version of the paleo diet.  Ha!  This is quite unique for my very non health conscious son.  So he talked me into a vegan Cuban restaurant.  What?  I ate fake chicken with potatoes and carrots and peas with rice and fried plantains.  Joel shared his delicious black beans.  It was all surprisingly edible!  

Then we drove through a whole bunch more traffic across familiar street names (from movies), Ventura, melrose, sunset, Holywood blvd.... Joel's apartment is a block off Hollywood blvd. on a cute wide street with palm trees and unique apartment buildings and converted homes.  Joel's house is very craftsmancottage style.  His apartment is in the back on the ground floor. It seemed small but very homey right off the bat but seems plenty big now because it is arranged perfectly with all he needs-- a decent sized kitchen and bathroom and closets, a sitting area, work area, and full size bed.  

So we went walking right off the bat down Hollywood blvd to get some things Joel was out of.  Hollywood blvd has coffee shops and restaurants and familiar places like petco and Marshall's. All with palm trees and lots of people, mostly normal looking and some quite unique, of all races and ages and socioecominc groups.  We went to a basic pharmacy place to get the supplies and saw these cool planters on the way back.

After settling in to Joel's apartment, we walked down to his favorite coffee shop, less than a block, and got some coffee (Joel isn't drinking coffee now!). It was open mic night.  I am telling you it was more entertaining than anything you'd see on tv.  First there was a comedian who read his jokes off his phone who wasn't funny at all.  The audience was so small that he kept reading and commenting on my facial expression!  There was a poetry reader and some not so great musicians then this big lady dressed in black with sunglasses and a hat, had them crank the volume and with guitar accompaniment she sang a ballad about growing up in Tuscan at top volume with lots of vibrato, not on key and complete with all the animal sounds, coyotes, rattle snakes, etc.  It was a trip.  Extreme entertainment.  Then there were rappers who were very energetic and very into it.  They reminded me so much of my students that I must have looked very encouraging because they commented on me liking it.  They were not very good but made up for it with their enthusiastic hopping around and gestures and style.  And how much fun they were having.

We returns to the apartment and watched glow on netflix and got a good night sleep.  Here is my quiet time place right in front of Joel's aprtment and we are about to embark on day 2.