A Slew of New Experiences

As I sit in my office alone since the boys are all at the Toronto Film Festival, I think back to last weekend, and those three glorious days. Nothing really beats a three-day weekend in Los Angeles. There is always a ton of stuff going on. First on the agenda was First Fridays in Venice. Many other towns have similar festivities, but Venice centers on trendy Abbott Kinney road. I am not always the biggest fan of Venice, but it has its shinning moments like the pier, Washington Boulevard, the cannels and now First Fridays. All the boutiques were open late and offered a variety of sweet and salty appetizers. The street was packed with people, but you were still able to walk. Well that was until we got to the food truck lot. I found out beforehand the Grilled Cheese truck was making an appearance in Venice. A variety of other food trucks lined the main street, but I was on a mission to find the Grilled Cheese truck. After walking basically the entire length of the street, my friend and I stumbled upon where it had been hiding. The food truck lot. The street had been crowded, but this lot was mass chaos. The first thing I noticed was the line down the street for the Grilled Cheese truck! No!! I knew it drew long lines, but I never imagined a line this long. As my excitement began to deflate, my friend and I weaved our way around the other food trucks. This just wasn’t going to happen. There were way too many people in a tiny area for my preference. Maybe I am a little claustrophobic or maybe it’s my fear someone will yell “fire,” and I will be trampled. Needless to say, I don’t like being crammed between two strangers as if I was in a cattle corral. We decided to just go check out some of the shops and see if the line would fizzle down in an hour. I am now officially obsessed with Abbott Kinney boutiques. All had super cute merchandise, and most wasn’t too expensive. I can’t wait to come back once I have a little more cash flow! Making our way back to the lot, we quickly realized the line had grown instead of shrunk. Boo. We admitted defeat and got a table at a sushi joint next door. The food ended up being amazing so I couldn’t be too upset about not getting my greasy, macaroni and cheese filled grilled cheese sandwich.

After a long work week, I literally had to peel myself off of my bed around 10 a.m. Saturday. If you know me well, you know this is not like me. Weekday, weekend. It is all the same to me. I like to be up by 8 a.m. After a week of moving and a hectic week of work, I wanted nothing more than my bed. I knew I needed to get up though and start unpacking the mess of my apartment. My stuff is literally everywhere, which makes me feel terrible for my roommate! Unfortunately my body wouldn’t cooperate and after two hours of unpacking, I gave up. I still wanted to be productive, so I finished reading a script for work. New moto- always working. I had to see The Help for work and planned on meeting up with my friend in Century City. While I got to the theater early for a little pre-movie shopping at the mall, I didn’t think to get my movie tickets. Twenty minutes before show time, I sauntered over to the pay kiosis to purchase the tickets only to find out this theater has assigned seating. Assigned seating?! Are we back in college? Ugh. The only tickets were on the very front row. No thanks. If I am paying almost $14 to see a movie, I don’t want to be craning my neck for two and a half hours! My friend and I decided to catch up instead over beer, appetizers and college football. When I got back to my apartment, my roommate was getting ready to go out. She invited me, and I was happy to come along with her and her friend. We ended up going to three bars along the Sunset Strip that I had never been to before, Bar Marmont, The Standard and Saddle Ranch. Each bar was basically complete opposites of each other. I love being so close to true LA nightlife. It is definitely what I was missing in Brentwood. I ended my long weekend with finally seeing The Help. I can be overly critical of movies adapted from books I have read, but I have to say The Help won me over. The casting was perfection! It absolutely made the movie. I recommend everyone seeing this movie.

I hope this week’s adventures made up for some of my lame previous “new experiences.”