Thursday Thirteen, Los Angeles version

(Photo courtesy of Wikipedia – there was a TINY bit of snow on the tip of the mountains, nothing like this. I don’t think I realized before that there are mountains RIGHT THERE, but I’ve not really paid much attention to LA in the past.)

My BFF Rosemary lives in Pennsylvania. She and I met in High School in 1982, and after HS she moved around a bit for a few years, ending up in PA a few months before we moved back to California. She has two boys in college, one is graduating from Clemson in May, the other is a Freshman at Lewis and Clark in Portland, OR. They are a sports family, they all love sports. The older son (K) plays basketball on the club team at Clemson, and the younger son (H) plays baseball.

Rosemary is missing her sons, and had some time, so when she found out his team was coming to sunny California to play, she booked a flight out to come see him, and also to get away from the PA winter blues. She asked me if I would like to join her, and the answer was, of course, YES. Having kids changes your relationships with your friends, you don’t have as much time or money, and it’s sometimes hard to get together and spend one on one time. Time with husbands/wives and kids around is so very different than time with just you and your friends. I so enjoyed seeing Rosemary when I was in DC in November, so thought this would be a great time, just the two of us. And it was.

So, in the spirit of blogging and memes, here is my Thursday 13, 13 things I loved about my trip to L.A.

1. Obviously, just spending time with her. Also, not having to do any of the daily chores like run errands, think of what to cook, cook meals, cleaning, and laundry. SO NICE.
2. The ocean. We live pretty close to the ocean, it’s about an hour, maybe a bit more, but the waves are big and dramatic, and traffic is a pain in the ass, and we don’t make it often. R and I flew in to LAX, which is pretty close to the ocean, so the first afternoon we were there, we drove to Santa Monica, walked around the beach and pier for awhile, then had dinner. Here’s our view from the restaurant, of sunset at the pier.  Our hotel was further East, close to where H was playing ball, about 2 hours (traffic!), so we didn’t get back to the beach during our stay.
   
3. Living the Dream. I don’t get down to L.A. often, and usually there are more plans. This time, it was just us, and just whatever things we wanted to do. Rather than finding the homes of famous people, I wanted to go find the Walsh house from Beverly Hills, 90210. Rosemary is a good sport, and though she never watched it herself, took me to see it. It’s perfect. Less than a block away is Dylan’s house (same show), so we went and looked at that too.
   
4. After gawking at normal people’s houses, that were used in TV shows, we went to look at the Getty museum, up in the hills above Los Angeles. Just amazing. This was one of the views. You can see the ocean off to the right. We should have taken more pictures.
   
5. Irises, by Van Gogh. I never knew he painted this at the asylum where he went to recover from mental illness, before comitting suicide in 1890. So talented, so tragic. The picture is at the Getty, and famously sold for almost $54,000,000. Crazy.
   
6. After the Getty, we went downtown for dinner at the Grand Central Market. Traffic was bad enough that we didn’t get there in time to dine at a stall called Eggslut, which Rosemary LOVES, but we did have a lovely seafood dinner at another stall.
7. We then went on to The Broad, a very cool Modern Art Museum. Modern art really isn’t my thing, but this was a great place, and I loved the exhibits we saw. This was a light installation, where you walked into a small room filled with mirrors and lights.
   
8. Friday we started out at the Huntington Library, Art Museum, and Botanical Gardens. We only had about 2.5 hours there, as we had to get to H’s baseball game, but we decided to splurge and have tea in one of their restaurants. Everything was really delicious, and so pretty. A really nice way to start the day.
   
9. This picture, at the Art Museum. The man, meh, who cares. Some british general or whatever. But that is one beautiful horse.
   
10. The books in the library, including the first collected edition of Shakespeare’s works, published in 1623; a beautifully illustrated manuscript of Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales; a Gutenberg Bible; a letter from Abraham Lincoln…we could have spent all day in the library, but sadly only had a few minutes there.
    
11. Going to the game, which was fun, though very frustrating because H, as a Freshman, didn’t get to play. But it was nice to hang out and talk to R, and meet some of the other parents. One of his teammates has famous parents, his mom was in 6 episodes of Beverly Hills 90210, so that was very cool. I played it cool and did not mention that I knew who she is. I figured she is not a huge star, but big enough that she knows many people know her, and would likely not want me to be fawning all over her. She was nominated for a Golden Globe Award for her supporting role work on Melrose Place. Her husband was also there, and was also on Melrose. They were both very attractive, and very friendly and down to earth.
12. The morning that I left, we went to a little diner for greasy breakfast food. I had a veggie omelette with a side of bacon, wished I had seen the specials board out front first, they had an omelette that looked amazing, with spinach and avocado…H brought me a sweatshirt from Lewis and Clark.
    
13. Staying up talking until 2am. This seems to happen every time it’s just the two of us, and I love it. I hope that H stays at L&C (He’s thinking of transferring) and that he stays in baseball, and maybe R and I could make this an annual thing…and while I enjoyed it all, I think I would like to spend at least one whole day at the Huntington. It was amazing, and we barely saw any of the gardens, and just touched on the art and library.