Leavin LA

By the time my mom left, I had about a week and half left before take off.

As you can imagine, most of this time was spent running around doing errands and packing. Just figuring out how and what to pack for 4 months was a little daunting. There was also a lot of cleaning to be done as I wanted to leave the apartment in decent condition for Lil Miss Amy. It funny how I’m willing to have G and I live with a lot more dust and grime than I’m willing to impose on anyone else!

There was time for some fun stuff. I got in a few “last” drinks and dinners. Got drinks and delicious tapas at The Street with Gina. Had a nice dinner at our place with Sidd and Rashmi. There was a last round of Book Club and Todd and Katy were nice enough to hold a pizza and board game goodbye party for us with the rest of Supper Club.

There were lots of lunches too. Melissa, Amy, and I had a lovely time at Cafe Midi.

I managed to cross one more item off my Bucket List: Burgers and beers at Father’s Office. (Actually this one was on both mine and G’s lists.) FO has one of the best burgers in the city. They top their big juicy burgers with caramelized onion, bacon, and Gruyère. They are rather Nazi-ish about this burger — absolutely no substitutions and heaven help you if you ask for ketchup to go with your fries. Luckily, I love the burger just as it is and would not change a thing. They also have a fantastic beer selection. G and I once fell in love with a Belgian beer we tried in Toronto — Trappistes Rochefort. We were told it was a very small production and very hard to find elsewhere, so we thought it would a one time thing. Thus, we were extremely excited to find featured on the FO menu. Actually, they have a few from this Monastery/Brewery — I am partial to No.’s 8 and 10. They are pricey beers, but they are tasty.

Realizing fairly last moment that we had a Saturday free, we concocted our plan to go get our burgers. On a whim we thought to invite the SD/SC contingent. (A bunch of Greg’s friends from high school went to USC. When we moved here we got to be friends with their friends and roommates.) Now, this is a notoriously hard crew to schedule. Getting schedules to match with one or two of them is like trying to catch lightening, so we weren’t expecting much of a response when we sent out a last minute email the night before on a weekend. Somehow, a whole slew of them were able to make it out — we got Gino, Matt and CJ, Josh and Betsy, Andy Barre * and his date. My friend Dorothy and her husband Collin also came out. Dot was the ring leader in our theatre group in college. She directed all the show Carrie, Naomi, and I worked on all the time. She moved to LA just in time for me to leave, but I hopefully they’ll be lots of chances to hang out once I return. With so many people, it was a lively time, although wrangling enough seating for everyone. Ever daring, Josh and Betsy brought a large tupperware full of ketchup. I think they may have crossed the line a bit when they loudly proclaimed the ketchup’s presence offering to everyone in the general vicinity, seeing as how a waiter came over and quietly advised me to keep it under wraps. That said, while I’m usually quite partial to the aioli mayo they serve, contraband ketchup does seem to taste better than the regular variety. Matt and CJ continued the party with us for a while and helped us do away with a couple bottles of wine that needed drinking back at our apartment. (Sadly, no pics to share of the burgers or the friends this evening.)

Brady came to town, rounding out my parade of out of town visitors. He didn’t stay with me, but we did get to spend a fabulous day together before he headed to see Liza at the Hollywood Bowl. We grabbed brunch at the S & W Diner with G before heading off for a beach day. We loaded up the surf board and made our way to Venice Beach. For some reason, I chose not to use the board straps I had purchased, but instead we stuffed the boards in the car with us in the most uncomfortable way possible. Of course, by the time we got to beach it was way too late for surfing and the waves were crashing at 90 degree angles. It was clear to me that I wasn’t going to be catching anything that day. I thought I would at least try playing with the bodyboard near the shore, but the waves were crashing with such force that I got quite beating. I was dragged about the shore so much that I ended up with mounds of sand in places sand should never be. Ah well, it was lovely beach day all the same. We grabbed a couple of beers at one of the cafes and the boards did end up serving a purpose by giving something to lie on while we napped on the beach.

Somehow , I didn't take pics that day. Here is an old one of Brady and me.

The Tuesday before I left, Marc took me out to his Grandma’s place in Chino and we spent the morning learning to make Prok in Chiles Verde. Delicious! I don’t have any pics because Sra. Maria is a bit on the shy side, but I think I’ll try the recipe as soon as were back in LA and will put it up on Cooking Off Book.

Somehow, Marc was not sufficiently full after the chips with fresh salsa and the enchiladas his Grandma served us in addition to the Chiles Verde. He had ideas about stopping off for hot chocolate at a little shop he’d heard about in Eagle Rock. Of course, it was very difficult to convince me we needed to go, and somehow we found ourselves at CaCao Mexicatessen. Even with the heat outside, I GREATLY enjoyed my Mexican hot chocolate spiked with cinnamon and chili powder. MMMMM!

I finally got G to The Edison! After a summer long love affair with the place, I had to go one more time to bid the place adieu and I was really happy he finally got to see it. The CC’s obviously came too, for one last hurrah for the summer, and Ariana and Jen from my book club came too, so it was a nice size group. You’ve heard enough about this place by now, so just enjoy the pics.

After that Wednesday, G cut me off from planning any further outings. To be fair, I do have a tendency to overbook us and there was still a lot of packing to do. However, by Saturday night we were prepped enough that we could chill out a little. Marc and Kim came over and we ordered a pizza. I was very happy to get the time with Kim. She tends to have a lot of very real things in her life that keep her crazy busy. It’s all totally legit, but during these periods of crazy times I tend to feel like she’s one of my best friends in LA that I never see. The summer had been one of those periods, so I was very excited to be able to have some good hang out time with her on my last night in the city.

And then the day had arrived. Time to finish the cleaning and stuff the final bits into our suitcases. G’s parents came up from SD to take us to dinner — a delicious stop at Honey’s Kettle Fried Chicken — and then they drove us to the airport … in two cars … all of our luggage wouldn’t fit in just one.

But just like that we were off. The first part of the Nearly Endless Summer was over, and we were on our way to Sydney for part two.