This Blessed Plot, This Earth, This Realm: Adventures in LaLa Land

Saturday and Monday were spent partially in LA and adventures certainly ensued in a big way.

Shiri and I spent Saturday afternoon up in the City of Angels. The day began with a trip to Griffith Park and the Hollywood sign.

We learned a lot in the observatory, saw some incredible exhibits, relaxing with Mr. Albert Einstein for a bit, watched a giant pendulum and saw how much we would weigh on certain planets. We also made our own earthquakes by jumping next to the seismograph.

Then we headed down to Hollywood Blvd. We parked on Hollywood and Vine and with the stars at our feet, literally, we walked up and down the Blvd. We saw the classic, like the El Cap, the Pantageus and Graumann's Chinese, as well as the Kodak, all the weird little shops, the Hare Krishnas dancing and lots and lots of people. We also ate frozen yogurt, went shopping at Fresh and Easy (apparently under the ownership of Tescos.... score!), people-watched, and kept our eyes peeled for famous folk.

We saw hand and foot prints of all sorts of stars- old school cats like Julie Andrews and Danny Kaye to newbies like the Harry Potter trio.

Then we ran into a little bit of trouble, once again proving that Shiri and I should never hang out together. We arrived back at our car to find it being hooked up to a tow truck. After a lot of miscommunication, arguments and clarifications, the car was returned to us. However, we were now $225 poorer and extremely frazzled. On the bright side, at least we arrived before the car was completely towed, like some poor couple who came up to talk to the policeman. We headed over to the Hollywood Forever Cemetery and I made Shiri walk two blocks to save us a grass area because we WERE NOT MOVING. Most frustrating 20 minutes ever. But alls well that ends well and I parked and wandered through the most elaborate cemetery I had ever seen. It was borderline creepy.

We ate our much-needed dinner of strawberries, pita and hummus, tomatoes and carrots. And the wine was the most much-needed.

We sat and chatted and enjoyed the music/posters on the screen (some of the posters were, albeit, quite bizarre) before Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid started.

I have never seen this movie and I can describe it in one word: Hysterical. Oh my goodness, I had no idea this movie was so funny! Robert Redford and Paul Newman were just like an old married couple. There were incredible one liners ("I'm not crazy, I'm colorful! Ten years living in Bolivia makes you colorful!"). The scenery was gorgeous. Katherine Ross's character was deemed completely unnecessary. Overall it was fabulous and I"m ashamed it took me this long to see it.

Monday was the Fourth of July (Happy Birthday America!) and we spent the morning in Irvine. We ran the 5k race (I finished in 35:30!), we watched the parade, we played Scene-It and Trivial Pursuit and relaxed before spending the night in Los Angeles. This time our destination was Carson and after a lovely dinner at 5 Guys (we had run that morning- we deserved it!), we headed over to the Home Depot Center.

And yes, we were those people who threw streamers. We saw Drew Carey (he is skiiiiiny these days!), learned some chants from the Angel City Brigade, got a free t-shirt, listened to the "banter" between Sounders and Galaxy fans and settled down to watch the MOST.FRUSTRATING.MATCH.EVER! Some highlights included a saved PK for Perk, the backup backup keeper for the Galaxy, DelaGarza going off with a possible concussions, GOLDEN BALLS coming on during the second half (apparently with a partially fractured spine?), Gonzalez also going off, Kasey Keller almost doing cartwheels, and lots of missed goals.