LA Randomness

OK, you all know that Ted and I went to Los Angeles last weekend and had a great time at the Cruel World Festival, but surely you have questions. Such as, How did you get there? Where did you stay? What did you eat? Did you see any stars? What else did you do? If you do not have these questions, skip this post. If you do, I am here to give you answers.

How did we get there?
We considered flying, it’s a quick one, but when you factor in time getting to the airport, being there ahead of time, and the fact that we would need to rent a car once there (well, I guess we could have taken Lyfts and Ubers, but that rarely occurs to us), we decided to drive. Our region this time was the northern area of LA, and it is a 5 1/2 hour drive, so not horrible. Our cars, Fancy and Boomer, are 20 and 17 respectively, and we weren’t eager to find out whether this was too much for them, so we rented a car. You know what? Cars have changed a lot in the last 17 years. Shoutout to our trusty Hyundai, which we named ‘Reliable’. Reliable did a great job, and we enjoyed listening to Sirius XM all the way home. On the way down we mostly listened to music from Ted’s phone, though we did throw in a podcast for fun. Ted loved having the seamless integration with his phone, having the car read texts to us, being able to answer vocally, etc. The seats weren’t terribly comfortable, I doubt we would buy this exact car, but now we know some features that we liked.

Where did we stay?
The festival had package deals with nearby hotels. We sorted through those, looking for one that didn’t charge too much for parking, wasn’t crazy expensive, and also had better reviews than ‘the carpet in this place is gross’ or ‘fine as long as you don’t want to sleep in the bed or take a shower’. We ended up at the Hotel Mariposa, which is in Studio City or North Hollywood or something. Our room was very clean and nice and the bed was comfortable. The staff was helpful and friendly and generous with the pour on our evening glass of wine. Definitely would recommend. The picture above is clearly mine, and the hotel is the building on the left. The taller building looked like cosmetic dentistry to me. Big building, but this is LA, and everyone (including the front desk clerk at the hotel) is an actor.

What did we eat?
On the drive down, we stopped for lunch at Denny’s, which was Denny’s, and it was fine. I love a club sandwich, and that’s what I had. For dinner, we went to Hugo’s, the little restaurant across the street from the hotel that offered a 10% discount for hotel guests.

Ted had the steak, which he liked, and I had a salad, which I loved. It was really good, and if I lived nearby, I would make that a regular place for dinner. I’m not a big fan of tofu, I had mine with chicken. No picture of the steak, it was a hanger steak I think, and he had it with veggies on the side.

Brunch the following day was at Bea Bea’s in Burbank. I had these lemon ricotta pancakes, which were delicious but honestly a bit too sweet for me. If you like birthday cake, you might love this. I don’t think I would order them again, but I’m glad I tried them, I see them on menus from time to time. Ted had a low carb protein egg dish, as is his way.

This was the day of the festival, so dinner was the delicious Korean quesadillas. Here is a picture of them after I scarfed down the first one. Ted had something, but I don’t remember what. Chicken?

Our final morning, we went back to Hugo’s, which was amazing. This Flex Hash is probably one of the best breakfasts I’ve had in my life. SO flavorful.

Ted had the Protein Scramble, but this is not my picture. He had his with fruit. He liked it a lot, but not as much as I liked my Flex Hash.

Ted in front of Hugo’s, giving serious thought to Los Angeles and its artsy vibe, which he’s digging.

Did we see any stars?
On our way into town, I saw Aimee Mann and some other people going into a Starbucks. Was it really Aimee Mann? Who knows, probably not. But she was cool, dressed in black leggings and a leather jacket, tall and thin with that white blonde hair, so in my mind, it was Aimee Mann.

What else did we do, besides the concert?
A few weeks before our LA weekend, my friend Tracy messaged me and told me that she was going to be in LA performing in a two woman play. I met Tracy years ago, via her blog, when she was single and living in Los Angeles, working a 9-5 cubicle job and dreaming of acting. She mostly worked in theater, which she loved I remember one post where she said she had to go sit in the toilet stall and sing show tunes to get through the 9-5 job. How can you not love someone like that? She met her husband on eHarmony, and they married and moved to Texas, closer to her family. He got a job as a minister. (Pastor? I’m not sure of the difference…) and they adopted 3 beautiful children. We met in person a few times over the years, she was the first blogger I met in real life, when she came to Burlingame for her wedding shower (her father’s family lives there). Before she moved to Texas, she was in a play in LA, and my friends Cherry, Liz, Dorothy, and I all drove down to see her. (Cherry, Liz, Dorothy, and I all met at a job in the late 90s, and they are the women that got me into blogging, but none of them have blogs anymore.) She and her middle child came to California again to visit family, and we had a get together. That’s a lot of talking for me to tell you that when I found out that she was going to be in LA performing the same weekend that Ted and I were going to be there for the festival, I said, HECK YEAH.

The play was The Secret Comedy of Women, which is a two woman play put on by the women who created it. Tracy and the other actress are understudies, and they were there for just 4 days, which happened to be while we were there. It was a lot of fun, and they were both great. The following morning, we had brunch (my lemon ricotta pancakes) with Tracy at a restaurant in Burbank (not a CareFast medical thing, that was next door).

We drove to pick Tracy up for brunch, and we got there early, so we walked around the neighborhood a bit while she finished getting ready. We saw this sign, which Ted said sounded like B-52 lyrics. “Get Big! Get Loud! And Shout! Go AWAY COYOTE, GO AWAY!”

It was great catching up with Tracy. I spent a bit of time trying to convince her to start up her blog again. I told her about all of you, and what a fun community we have, and that I thought she would fit in really well. I hope she does.

After brunch, we stopped at Macy’s to buy Ted a new belt. I saw this outfit, and wondered if the Miami Vice look is coming back. Is this an LA thing? I’ll have to check out my local Macy’s and see. Also, what’s with that underwear ad in the background? NSFW.

Update: After writing this post on Friday, Ted and I went to dinner near our local Macy’s, and we went in and looked around for the Miami Vice vibe. I did not see it, instead I saw this horrible outfit. I mean, the shirts are fine, but the shorts are dumb.

Back to LA fun.

We’re early Gen X, so we had a couple of stops we had to make on our way out of town on Sunday. First we went to see the house from The Brady Bunch. Extra credit to the folks who bought it and fixed it up so the inside now looks like the set, and for putting the station wagon out front.

Our final stop was more somber. We were big fans of Beverly Hills, 90210 back in the ‘90s, and I had been to see Casa Walsh once before, early in 2020. Ted wanted to see it, so we drove up to Altadena. The devastation from the fires back in January is horrible. Here is Casa Walsh, and the house next door has burned to the ground. There was a big dumpster just to the left of this picture, in the driveway, I’m sure the house has a lot of smoke damage.

These are the remains of the two homes across the street, both are gone. The one on the left has a burned out car in the driveway. It must have been terrifying to live in this neighborhood at the time, and it seemed so random to me, which houses burned and which did not.

A few doors down is Dylan’s house (also from 90210), also unscathed (though I imagine every house in the area has a lot of smoke damage). Altadena is a beautiful area, with mountains abutting the neighborhood. It is really sad to see how many houses and businesses burned down.

Bonus randomness, I snapped a photo of Smokey Bear Road in the Grapevine on the way to LA. Longtime readers may remember that if my house were burning down and everyone alive were out, my Smokey would be the first thing I would grab. Should we move there? Probably not, pretty rural and probably a big fire risk.

Did I leave anything out? Any other minutia you’re curious about with our trip? Want to know how much we paid for gas? (Kidding, I don’t know, Ted paid for it.)