Sunny Times in January

Well, it was another normal week at work. I'm starting to get into a routine of things - get through the work week like normal....come Thursday, game on. Moving here has given me almost a rewind at life. It's like I just graduated college and am 23 all over again. And it's pretty great. (We'll see how long this old maid can hang, though :)

So, another Thursday rolls around and some of the guys at work are going out. Of course, I obliged. We headed to the Edison. Another one of their favorite spots that I had not been to, yet. The entrance is hidden in an alley and it's a speakeasy style bar. Not in that you need a secret password to enter and they have house-made moonshine like others I've been to, but this one was still very great. 

The building is an old factory of some sort. They kept the interior true to its original purpose and just spruced it up a bit. There is also a stage with flappers, performers singing to a live band and everyone is dressed to the era...even some of the patrons. 

We didn't dress up but kept to the dress code. I grabbed a dirty martini as the guys showed me around the joint. There were different rooms and areas all around. It is a pretty fantastic place. We finally settled at a small table in the back to get some drinks in. 

Just as we were finishing our first round, an absinthe fairy came to our table. A girl dressed as a fairy was pushing around a cart with a treasure chest full of different sized bottles of absinthe for sale. Something I wasn't totally expecting, but then, I've learned to try not to expect anything in LA. 

The guys were all for it - I was unsure, but down. We bought a bottle and passed it around. I only took one small drink so the others could have their fair share. Not too bad, but I don't think I really had the full experience. 

I'm lucky they agreed on a small bottle. 

It ended up being a pretty great night. For some reason, there were many groups of ladies in threes. I was with three guys, so I was odd man out for many of the convos, but I just did what I do best: find some rando to talk to and see if I can get a drink out of it. I had several long conversations with guys...one was some kind of photographer, one was in town for a construction convention (they have those?)....I'm proud to say I got two drinks out of all of my efforts. A win. 

The guys were deep in a conversation with some semi-attractive ladies when closing time came around. I didn't want to be a wet blanket, so I sat politely nearby checking shit on my phone until one of them was ready to walk me home. I wasn't really in the mood to be seventh wheel at La Cita for the rest of the evening. I happily snuggled with my pooch before work the next day.

Friday rolled around, and I was a bit hungover. BUT how could anyone be feeling bad when it was 80 degrees in January? Now I was really getting a feel for why people want to live here.

Not only was it a gorgeous day, but we had a fantastic day planned at work that day. We were having our first ever all staff meeting including our sales reps and etc all around the country and over seas. Pretty great but a little stressful. So, what better way to celebrate that than a BBQ at the pool in the afternoon? I don't think anything beats that. 

Right when I got to work in the morning, it was time to head to Ralph's to get all the BBQ necessities. We loaded up and headed to the Watermarke to store everything in the patio fridge so it would be waiting for us at 3:00pm. The all staff meeting went swimmingly. After it ended, our day was pretty much over. No work was going to get done with the thoughts of beers and burgers on our minds. 

My boss has a pretty sweet apartment in the building next to ours, but the best park is the patio on the seventh floor with a great view, bbqs, cabanas, a hot tub and pool. This was where we worked from prior to our office now, and although I was only working there for a week before the big move, I'm definitely missing it. Luckily, we still get to take advantage of the amenities from time to time. 

We headed over and got to grilling right away as we cracked open some beers and changed into our swimsuits. Definitely the most perfect way to end a week. 

After the pool party, I had a chill night with some of the girls. We took our dogs to one of the bars on my block to sit outside and enjoy a drink. Then, we got mexican from the best place downtown (well, in my opinion. may also be biased because it's a block from my door...) and went to one of their apartments to play some board games and chill. So relaxing. 

I woke up early the next day and was ready to hike. It's become routine for John and me to wake up early on Saturdays (hungover or not) and get to Runyon before it's too busy. It's my favorite form of exercise and it really kicks my ass and John gets to be in actual nature and sniff other dogs. 

This morning was especially beautiful. I even let John pick which way he wanted to go and ended up finding a really pretty spot. 

After the hike, I went home to clean the apartment....my Saturdays have really become routine! Today was another gorgeous day, and I was having friends over to my pool. I started drinking beers while I got ready and then had a couple while we enjoyed the sunshine from my rooftop.

While the sun was beaming on us and we were starting to sweat, we were temped to jump in the water. However, unlike the fancy shmancy Watermarke apartments, my pool was not heated. One toe in and you were pretty frozen for a bit. We still had a good time and even hopped in the hot tub as the sun went down. Plans were made for that evening as we all headed to our apartments to get ready.

I had a few hours to kill, so I was going to chill with John and watch some old episodes of Entourage. Bad idea. Somewhere in there, I fell asleep. I awoke a few hours later to texts upon texts and my phone ringing. One of the guys calling "Are you ready? We're outside your apartment."

Groggily, I came to, "Wait. What? You're outside? I'm sleeping....what?"

"Well get up and come downstairs! We're ready to head to dinner!"

"You don't get it. I definitely need to shower. I still have pool hair from yesterday happening."

So, needless to say, I was not feeling 100%. Every 28 year old part of me was screaming "What are you doing? Go back to bed you old lady! You can't do this kind of shit anymore!"

I should have listened, but much to John's disappointment, I got up and powered through. My roommate was joining us, so we both got ready pretty quickly, picked up some sugar free red bulls and were on our way. 

We walked to Wurstküche, a German food and bar place that people loved and that I still am unsure of the pronunciation. We got there after dinner, but luckily, they saved us some fries. It was packed in the dark, German-style dining hall. All of the picnic tables were filled and people were standing. Definitely a hipster-loving joint, but also definitely a good time. 

We finished our round and headed nearby to Villain's Tavern. This bar was pretty small, and also very packed. I'm not really sure how to describe it, but it was also definitely a good time. There was a live band playing not-so-awesome selections, but at that point, we didn't care. I was feeling my whiskey waters, and I'm pretty sure my friends were, too. 

We had a great time singing along, dancing in our seats and just being ridiculous. However, we were getting antsy and the lines at the bar were just a little too long. Onto our next location. 

The Redwood is closer to my part of downtown and also happens to be a pirate bar. If someone ever asks you "You want to go to this place? It's a pirate bar." You automatically have to say yes. Why would you ever say no?

It was pretty great. More my style in the world of dive bars. Especially because they sold domestic beers. Domestic beers in cans. Domestic beers in tall boy cans. Oh lordy, I was in heaven. 

There was some kind of cover band blasting as my roommate, my friend and I plowed through the bar to the bathrooms. Of course, even in a dirty, hole-in-the-wall place, the ladies room still had a three person line. That wasn't going to work. So, the ladies that we are, we took over the disgusting men's room and went for it. 

After that, we were down to party. i got myself a PBR tall boy and we ended the night playing drinking games and dancing and laughing. 

I was verrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrry hungover that Sunday. Three days in a row of drinking. I don't know if my body is meant for that anymore. But eh - my roommate, John and I headed up to Big Wangs to get some greasy food to cure me. Some kind of football game was on, so it was pretty packed. We found some nice gentlemen who let us post up at their table. They soon realized what kind of situation I was in and were quick to rub it in. Everyone else had the next day off for MLK day. I was not as fortunate. 

After I scarfed down my meal, we strolled home. Out of nowhere, I got a little piece of home right in the middle of DTLA.  :)

Now I Can Die Happy

This weekend was supposed to be a chill, clean the house, workout/hike, relaxing one. It was sort of that and sort of not. But it all ended up being fantastic.

Thursday was the Artwalk downtown - every second Thursday, the galleries stay open until 10 and people roam around checking out the art, etc. First, we all met up at a coworkers place just around the block from mine to pregame. We ended up staying at her house a little too long and missed the actual Artwalk, but we were ok with that.

Around 10:15 or so, we were ready to walk around. We headed to a bar called Seven Grand…on 7^th and Grand. On the way, we caught the tail end of a gallery showing and decided to pop in. The art was overpriced and something that I could have done on accident, but at least we can say we went to Artwalk.

Seven Grand was a good time. It’s a whiskey bar with pool tables, so right up my alley. We had a couple drinks there, couldn’t get a pool table for the life of us, so we decided to move on.

In my effort to become more familiar and versed in the downtown night scene, I wanted to try another new place. The first suggestion was La Cita. I didn’t know what is was, but I was down.

It was a about a 15 min trek and it’s chilly out here in Southern California when the sun goes down, so I was beginning to regret not bringing at least one coat back with me from home. As soon as we stepped into the bar, things got warmer.

La Cita is a dark, Mexican dive bar with a great patio and decently priced drinks. When we first walked in, things were pretty slow. No one was outside because of the weather, so we stuck to the inside bar and started ordering drinks.

After a few cold Budweisers, the dance floor started to fill up. I was certainly in the minority there (I’m pretty sure I was the only blonde in the joint), and I wasn’t about to make a fool of myself out there – Read: I hadn’t had enough to drink to bust a move. We watched for a while, talked and relaxed until it was time to crawl into bed.

Friday was an extremely chill day at work. My boss was out of town, and when that happens, I generally have a lot less to do, so I caught up on random projects that were on the back burner. I left work pretty early to go home and hang with the dogman.

It was too cold to take him to the dog park. It was too cold to leave the house, in my opinion. I was still recovering a bit from the night before, so I was all for staying in. My roommate left for Joshua Tree that morning, and would be gone for the whole weekend. I took advantage of that and deep cleaned the apartment. Quite the productive little Friday night.

Saturday, I woke up early and was ready to take on the day. My dog, however, was not. I swear I have the laziest animal. He’s 2 ½ years old, so you’d think he’d be ready to play all day. Most days, I’m grateful that the big guy wants to snooze, but I was ready to get up and go! Finally, around 10, he rolled out of bed like a teenager and mosied over to the couch to let me know he was ready.

I had already decided this was going to be a productive weekend, so hike time it was! (Did I just turn into Yoda?) The sun was out and it was in the upper 50s by 10:30am – perfect weather for hiking. I loaded up on dog treats and poop bags and headed to Runyon.

It started out as a normal hike. John was doing pretty good on leash, and I was getting confident, so I let him wander around off leash. Bad idea. Apparently, whenever there is another dog around and they are both without leashes, he thinks it’s the dog park. He ran around like a moron riling up the other dogs and trying to get them to chase him. Fucking embarrassing. I finally got him back on leash – probably the last time that will ever happen until I take him to some doggie training classes.

We finally got to the top where there is a dog watering hole. I was leading John over to one of the bowls to make him take a drink when I was cut off by a man with a large camera with a two-foot lens trying to get a shot of two little blonde boys with their Pomeranian.

All I could think was “Who the fuck is so obnoxious and full of themselves that they need to bring a giant camera to take pictures of their family while they are hiking at Runyon? This is a place to exercise, not for photo shoots.”

Then, I saw another guy with a big camera…and another….and another, and it all started making sense. Paparazzi, duh Jessie! So, I looked back at the boys, and they were with a blonde with an English accent, but I didn’t recognize her at all.

Then, I noticed she was talking to someone behind me. I turned around (in my mind, this is all happening in slow motion), and there she was. Gwen Stefani and Gavin Rossdale were right behind me looking awesome and perfect and wonderful and….my dog was sniffing their dog’s butt. Oh. Great.

[Celebrity Sighting #s 4-7]

I pulled John away and stepped over to the parking lot just a few feet away to gather myself. My all-time favorite artist, idol, person, being in the world was within feet!! Wtf was happening. I was freaking out just a little bit.

I took a deep breath and headed back to let John get a drink. I have never been so happy to have a dog (ok that’s a lie. I love my dog and am happy to have him every day). I couldn’t help that he needed to get a drink right by where the boys and their nanny were! I couldn’t help that he wanted to sniff around where they were no matter how hard I “tried” to get him to jog back down the path with me. Little Zuma even talked to John and gave him a pat on the head. I was ready to die.

I didn’t take any pictures because I didn’t want to be that person. We finally started to make our way back down. Gwen et al had a large entourage with them, so they were moving significantly slower. I didn’t want to bother them, and eventually, John and I were quite a ways ahead of them.

This will probably go down as one of my most favorite moments. I still can’t believe it!

Here are pics of them the day that I saw them – None of me or John, but I promise, it happened:

http://gossipcenter.com/gwen-stefani/gwen-stefani-and-family-head-runyon-canyon-790135

After we finished our hike, I was still in productive weekend mode. When I got home, I tackled the bathroom, which is always a feat in itself. I’m kind of crazy when it comes to cleaning, but it just makes me feel so good when it’s finished. Like completeness.

I showered and then took John for a walk before his dinner. On our way, I stopped at the market just around the block and picked up a bottle of wine. It was just that kind of night for me. I was ready to decompress and chill.

I turned on Netflix to rewatch the Hills for the zillionth time. Now that I live here, I like to pick out places that I’ve been on the show and see if I can figure out where the other places are. I am not embarrassed to say that I was having a great time at home watching the Hills, drinking wine and doing crunches.

Then, around 8:00pm, I get that text from someone “What are you doing? Come meet up with us!” This night, there was a group at Big Wangs watching football all day. I was easily persuaded. I jumped in the shower, got ready in a flash and walked John once more before headed up there.

As we moved from Big Wangs to our next destination, our group kept growing. A new friend of mine is from the area and knows too many people, probably. She just kept finding friends along the way and invited them along.

We headed to her place so she could let her dog out before heading to La Cita. Yes, it was going to be my second time there in a week, but she had a friend who was DJing and he could get us in – and get the minors we had with us in, as well. (I know, minors. Such a throwback.)

The bar at La Cita.

It was another great time at La Cita. The only difference this time is that I did dance. We all did. Sometimes, it’s just good to get out there and not give two shits about what anyone thinks. J

Sunday, I had plans to hike at a new spot with some girls from work and our dogs. I was not feeling awesome, but I wanted to go. I peeled myself out of bed and got ready. John, on the other hand, was super pumped and ready to go. Of course, dog. Ugh.

We were headed to Eaton Canyon in Pasadena – about a 30 min drive. Runyon is crowded sometimes, but it’s just so close and convenient. This one was not. However, it was definitely worth it.

This hike started out as a normal dirt path but then lead up to a creek that we had to cross back and forth a few times. Now, the other dogs we were with gently jumped from rock to rock with ease. My dog, being the lover of life that he is, just romped through the water like a big dummy and nearly pulled me in with him each time.

Trying to avoid death by dog pulling into jagged rocks. 

The hike ends at a really beautiful waterfall. We sat there for a bit to let our dogs roam while we rested and took some pics. It was a really fun, great lady time.

I went home to actually rest, but then remembered a friend from home was coming in town for work. We had planned on getting dinner. I gave John a bath, showered myself and tried to rest for a bit before dinner. We had sushi and reminisced and caught up with each other. A great end to my weekend!

Revamped

Again, it's been a while. eh. 

Many things have changed in 2 months-ish. At first, I thought it wasn't good, but being forced into this position has actually been just what I needed. In a really good way.

Right before Christmas, I moved into a loft in downtown LA. As they say, now I live, work and play, dtla (maybe I'm the only one that says that...idk). And it's pretty fantastic. I'm happy to have a place to call my own and discover and live and learn and enjoy...all within walking distance to work and home. 

At first, it was scary. Duh. But I'm 28 and an intelligent person. I can figure this out, right?

Well, I did....am. 

One thing that has been my saving grace is my work. I can't express how lucky I am to work in such a great social environment that easily lends itself to friendships. We may all be from different generations, but we all have the same mindset: fun.

My first solo success was hosting a party for NYE at my loft. My roommate mentioned before I left for the holiday that she planned on having people over, like 10 friends or so. Not too many. 

At this point, I should pause and give a shout out to my main dog, my dog, John. After Christmas, I once again made the fateful two-day road trip from Belleville to LA to bring him out with me. And we made it! Yay!

Back to NYE - I knew that I was going to need to stay in with my roommate and her friends because my dog was going to be in a new environment, and that with the added surplus of people meant I would need to be there for moral support. 

I texted a few coworkers with an open invite to celebrate at my place. I didn't expect any of them to come; I assumed they all had other plans for the night. 

Much to my surprise, a whole group of them ended up coming over. They had pregamed and gone out to dinner....I had gotten the invite, but I'm perpetually slow at getting ready.....and they were here to party. Just what I needed to ring in the new year. 

Me and some of my work boyzzz.

They all brought dates and/or friends with, so it was a good group. We got flip cup and drunk jenga going....rang in the new year popping bottles and confetti....a good time was had by all, including my dogman.

The roommate and I awoke the next day to a floor covered in sticky spots from champagne sprays and flip cup faults. Confetti and streamers were everywhere, including a guilty trail leading directly from a clump outside our door all the way to the elevator. 

Two weeks later, I am still finding streamers hiding in places. But I smile every time I clean them up, because it was the perfect way to ring in the new year in a new place and my new-ish city with a new outlook on life. :)