The Blathering, Part 1 (Los Angeles)

When I heard about the Blathering get together I knew I wanted to go and I thought it would be a great way to take a mini vacation for the weekend. Jennie asked if I'd like to take a longer vacation and explore California and I just couldn't say no to that. I would have been crazy to pass it up and I'm so glad I didn't.

We left my house at 5 AM after I'd had no sleep that night and drove the three hour drive to Austin where we flew from to get to LA. (It was cheaper to fly from Austin.) We must have driven for two hours before the sun even came up and I was uncustomarily chipper and excited despite the lack of sleep. Our adventure was just beginning and I was giddy at the prospect of the fun to be had. Our flight was actually not until 7 PM but we were hopeful that we'd make it on to the earlier 11 AM flight which, thankfully, we were able to do.

We arrived at LA and got a hot car that fit right into the LA scene. A Ford Focus. We were the envy of all those people. You could tell that the BMW owner's were all Whoa, those ladies are ON FIRE with their hotness and we were all Uh huh, you know we are.

Jennie picked a lovely hotel one block from Rodeo Drive called The Crescent Hotel. It was gorgeous and perfect for our short, less than 24 hour stay. We chucked our baggage into the room and headed out to explore this land of large boobs and excessive amounts of shops. We stopped for lunch at a place called The Farm and started our trip the way all trips should start. With Champagne. (This was a recurring trend on this vacation and I was all to happy to partake.)

After lunch the only logical place to stop next was Crumbs Bake Shop where we ordered two of the most beautiful cupcakes known to man. Unfortunately the peanut butter cup cupcake on the left was thrown in trash in favor of keeping our waistlines in check after we toted it around for days. I mourned it's passing for an appropriate amount of time.

Jennie and I walked around Rodeo Drive and I admired the pretty store fronts and I mentally shopped in all the expensive jewelry stores. Rodeo Drive was fancy, don't get me wrong, but I was surprised it wasn't more fancy. I suppose all the fancy camera work that I've seen over the years on TV had skewed my view a bit. It was a lovely place to be and I really enjoyed the architecture and how it varied from building to building, unlike most of Texas. I saw buildings that looked like they stepped right out of old world Switzerland that neighbored buildings that were ultra modern and stark white. I loved it.

We attempted to make our way via taxi to the Hollywood Walk of Fame but our cab driver failed to tell us it was a billion minutes away in the traffic so we hopped out mid way before we were forced to give him our worldly belongings to cover the fare. We stopped for drinks on our way back and then I forced Jennie to walk in Beverly Hills in the dark on a bike path that neighbored the main drag. I think she hated me for it because she thought we were going to get mugged and stolen but I had my karate chop arms at the ready. Obviously we made it just fine. But we were so exhausted from the getting up early and traveling that we totally took naps before dinner. How lame! We were in LA, napping! But it was so lovely, I would do it over again.


Back story...Jennie is in publishing and one of the authors she knows lives in LA and he graciously agreed to hang out with us and grab some dinner. His name is Keith Stern and he wrote a book titled "Queers in History" which is a totally fascinating encyclopedia of people who are gay, lesbian or bisexual. I read the book on the plane ride and I was so interested in this book. I was a total goof and asked him to sign my copy.


Keith drove us around pointing out people's homes and telling us interesting stories. We saw the home Michael Jackson died in and people, I was surprised to see that there was some sort of party going on. We also saw Tom Cruise's house and they must have had 15 garbage bins outside. He took us to dinner at a place called Ketchup where the whole place was lit in red lights and I got the largest portion of hummus I've ever seen in my life. It could have fed 6 people and then some. It was a lovely night filled with conversation, sight seeing and good food. Except this food. This was quite possibly the largest hamburger I've ever seen in the history of hamburgers. Also, see the red light the entire place was bathed in? It was disconcerting at first.

After dinner everyone obliged my desire to take in a trip to Millions of Milkshakes which I can now honestly say was a total tourist thing that I fell for and the milkshakes were excessively sweet and not worth the almost $5 I paid for mine. Live and learn!

Jennie got blisters on her feet and my feet were filthy and we went back to hotel exhausted and we both crashed within minutes. Our first day on vacation was a total hit. We had the LA experience in a small dose and it was the perfect amount of time. Little did I know that the best was yet to come...