Best Start to My Grandma Vacation

Well, I happened to find myself around a fast and friendly computer here in California so here's the first of what will probably be several slightly unexpected reports on my spring break Grandma-visiting adventure. So, yeah, Wednesday night after classes I hopped on a JetBlue and flew out to Long Beach. Good Ol' Broek picked me up at the airport--she had invites to this big Hollywood party with DJ Z-Trip hosted by Carmen Electra at the Avalon, but it was already at capacity by the time we rolled up, so we went and met up with some of Broek's jet-setting magazine friends at the Beauty Bar. The Beauty Bar is a Beauty-Shop themed, um, bar/club where they play cool music for cool kids (The Smiths, New Order, Joy Division, the Clash, etc. etc., you know, what the kids be dancin' to these days). As my internal clock was set to three hours later than everyone else, I started zoning out around one and had to call it a night. But not before getting a little (and by "a little" I mean "so much") Del Taco.

Broek shows how it is done at the Beauty Bar (note the hair-dryer seating). Here's something I learned: at bars, you can ask for a water, and they'll just give it to you like it's no big deal. I'll probably go to a lot more bars now that I know that.



Here's some more of the Beauty-Shop theme-action from the Beauty Bar.



And yes, I realize there's a Beauty Bar back home on 14th street. So that's kind of neat.



The front. Of the Beauty Bar.



I used to think DelTaco just paled in comparison to Taco Bell, but I've come to realize that in the realm of cheap, quick, slightly gross Mexican, there is none other. Three crunchy beef tacos combined with two chicken soft tacos from DelTaco have never failed to leave me satisfied beyond measure. (I'm sure glad I've discovered tacos, as I previously thought they were just something you wore.)



Thursday morning Grandma and Cousin Katharine (also in town on break) and I had lunch at Houston's, because Thursday is Tortilla Soup (not pictured) day.



A variety of things were different about the Pasadena Houston's. One: There was art on the walls. Two: There were cacti inside. Three: Sushi is now on the menu. Four: The bread was served warm and with olives. Five: They have these napkins with button holes on them, good thing I was wearing a fancy shirt to try it out.



Back in the 80's, Uncle Frank posed for a painting that was to be used at the Beverly Hills Ralph Lauren store. For a long time, Grandma had a sketch from Frank's sitting (but he was standing) in the den. While we all knew that it was true that Frank had posed for this painting, no one had ever seen it, so it sort of turned from a truth to a family urban legend. I finally went and saw the painting a year ago, and today I took Grandma and Katharine to go see this 20+ year old work of art. The big surprise is that the painting is HUGE (I'm guessing 8' by 10') and the centerpiece of the store's grand staircase. To their credit, the sales staff was very patient with our totally uncool gawking and photographing of the painting.





Out on Rodeo Drive I saw this beautiful Aston Martin Virage (in the late-80's/early-90's version of slightly-ugly beauty) old Aston Martin.



Perhaps you have been to the Prada "epicenter" store in SoHo, which is amazing. Well, Beverly Hills just got an epicenter store, too. And guess what? It makes the SoHo one look like a toolshed.



I'm not even going to go into too many details . . .



So as to not hurt New York's pride.



But at this point, we haven't even entered the store yet, and there's already subterranean mannequins going on.



After all this, we sat in traffic forever.

And yeah, I caught the Revenge of the Sith trailer tonight. I could write a post about that called "Best Best of the Best."