Mazel Tov

LA weekend extravaganza! Okay, here is the breakdown.

Thursday night, my flight was delayed an hour getting out of Austin. Also, when I checked in, the Southwest guy said "Oh, you know we're stopping in El Paso, right?" Ummm, no I didn't. But thanks for the update. After a long and annoying flight, I finally make it to LA, where I am picked up by Goat. Looking forward to The Office night, right? And then we realize... the Olympics are on. And Goat is still sick. So instead, we did some other crazy shit, and despite what Goat says, it's totally true. The thing about going to the west coast is the time change - so I was exhausted by midnight and awake by 7am. Crap-tastic.

Friday, Greg found his way over to the Sheldon Chateau and we went to the Warner Brothers studio lot to putz around and not look like tourists. You know how they do those tours in the golf carts? We waved at them like we were important people when they walked by. We had lunch at this restaurant on the lot, and Greg pointed out the women in nurses uniforms. So what, they're nurses! Oh wait, no they're not. They're extras on ER.

After that, we went to Disney Studios, where Greg had a meeting and it proceeded to rain. Thanks a lot, LA. I hate you. After that, we decided that since it was raining, we would drive around and see the LA sights. So we drove through Hollywood, Sunset Boulevard, Beverly Hills, and attempted to make it Santa Monica. At some point on the way to Santa Monica, we started getting stuck in traffic. And were in traffic for, oh, about TWO HOURS. God, I hate you, Los Angeles! So finally, we did make it to Santa Monica, and met up with Goat, Ben Merello, Booter, Matthias, and about 5 of Matthias' girl friends for dinner at a pretty good Mexican place. We ended up leaving there around 11, and instead of continuing the rocking, I proceeded to fall asleep after a couple of episodes of Entourage.

Saturday, Greg and I picked up Anglee at the airport and went to Manhattan Beach for lunch and finally getting in the Pacific Ocean. This part of LA, I don't mind so much. We then proceeded to Toys R Us to get Alison's wedding presents. That's right - we went off registery and got Alison and Dan a huge stack of board games. Because, we love board games! And let's face it, we're her wacky high school friends, so we couldn't get her traditional gifts - come on! We made it to our hotel after that, and went to dinner with Alison and her family at The Cheesecake Factory. How is that still in business? There's always, always a giant wait, so you're frustrated by the time you sit down, something always goes wrong with the service, and the food is never as great as you expect after all your trouble.

Sunday was wedding day! We heard a rumor from Alison's mom that the hotel was going to shut down all the power and water between 11pm and 5am. Ummm, what? How are you doing business? We called the front desk to see if it was true, and they said, "Oh, didn't you get the notice?" No, we didn't, you fuckers. Now, we're checking out because I don't want to spend my night worrying about if I have to use the bathroom, am I going to waste the one flush our room gets tonight? Or, you know, using the lamps past 11pm. "No, it's okay because it's after eleven." Not all of us go to bed at 5pm. Needless to say, we checked out and packed our stuff and got a hotel near LAX for Sunday night.

The wedding itself was fantastic - everyone looked great, and the rabbi seemed to know a lot about Ali and Dan, and interspersed some stories about them, and he smashed the glass on the first try. I'd never been to a Jewish wedding before, so it was interesting to see the differences between most weddings I've been to and this one. Also, the reception - so much fun. The circle dancing - I don't know what it's called, but it's awesome. Everyone from the 11-year-old-cousin who is too young to have fun but too old to run around and be crazy to the 90-something year old grandpas were in the circle, and I somehow made it into the family circle at one point. Ali and Dan sucessfully joined hands in the chair-lifting part of the dance, and Dan nearly fell out, which would have made for an awesome wipe-out. I know I'm Catholic, but can I have a Jewish reception? Please?Finally, one last pictures of the tower of gifts. Because we're proud of the construction and the presentation of it.

Sunday night was finding a hotel, and then driving around the LAX area for like AN HOUR trying to find a restaurant that didn't have a drive-through. Turns out, it doesn't exist! LA does not follow the rule of strip malls, that every time there is a Lowe's, Starbucks, Sprint, there needs to be a Chili's, Applebee's or Bennigan's. Goat, you need to move. Or talk to the Chili's people. Please.