This is the second time I have spent Thanksgiving in California.
The first time was in 2013*, when my sister first moved out there and my best friend from college was studying at
USC. Since I couldn't visit my sister over the Columbus Day holiday this year, I decided to spend Thanksgiving with her instead.
We packed a lot into four full days! Here's a run down of what
went down:
Thursday: Thanksgiving! We of course started the day with snacks and football, but since we were on the west coast, we were able to start watching at 9:30 in the morning! This was great because it meant we could get our day started, and that the games were over earlier, too.
But clearly the most important part of Thanksgiving (okay, other than the friends and family you're with...) is the food! My sister did a great job with everything. She made the cranberry sauce and two pies the day beforehand, which helped save us some time. We made brussel sprouts (I cut them up! That was about my contribution for the evening...),
butternut squash mac-n-cheese, and mashed sweet and regular potatoes; her friends helped, too, making two kinds of stuffing,
green bean casserole, rolls, and the turkey itself. We had so much food, but everyone got to take home leftovers. I certainly enjoyed eating all of it during the rest of my vacation!
 |
| My online Black Friday shopping included this green velvet bomber jacket from Macy's. HAD to have it! Image found here. |
Friday: Clearly we had to do a little shopping on Black Friday. I bought a few things from
Express, but we actually didn't end up leaving with much stuff. Part of that was due to the crowds; we didn't even bother waiting for the stores that had lines out the door, but if a check-out line was too long inside of a store, we asked ourselves, "Do we need this item
that badly?" We would answer "No," and leave. I ended up buying more online from
Macy's and
Neiman Marcus Last Call (This holiday season may be the one when I've spent the most money on myself...Oops!).
When we got home, we pulled ourselves together and went to a
UCLA football game. It was "senior night," since it was the last game of the season for the team. There was a big celebration with food trucks, bouncy castles, DJ's, etc. outside of the stadium, so we ate dinner there (I ordered chicken tenders and got SIX! Three is the average, so I couldn't even eat all of them. I ended up sneaking the others into the stadium wrapped in a napkin and disguised in my bra...I don't let food go to waste!). The game was in the
Rose Bowl Stadium, which was pretty cool. The UCLA Bruins were playing the
California Golden Bears. This was quite confusing because a. both schools' colors are blue-ish and gold-ish and b. the mascots were both bears! But we were rooting for UCLA (my grandfather went there for his degree), and we won!
 |
| I was very impressed with their marching band. |
 |
| The boy and girl bear mascots were so cute! |
 |
| Yay, winning! |
Saturday: My sister's boyfriend is a big
Ohio State fan (since that's where he went to school), so we started the day watching that game (football was obviously a big part of my trip). But again, it was over by lunch time, so I didn't mind spending the morning relaxing. But then I wanted to get moving: even though I was on vacation, I still needed to get some exercise! So I looked up local yoga studios, and there was a
Yoga Works location not far from us. (They had a "residents get one week free" promotion, so I figured my sister could do that, and I would just pay for myself.) The room was quite warm, but not like hot yoga (although the sweat dripping down my face was still distracting). And I was quite impressed by the yoga instructor, who was very pregnant but could still do a head stand! I'm not sure the class was worth $25, but I was glad to be active for a little bit.
When we got back, I took a shower and a much-needed nap (the time change was getting to me). Then I lounged around reading for a while; I forget how much I love reading until I'm on vacation when I have hours to enjoy a good book. Later in the day, just on a whim, her boyfriend looked up comedy shows, and saw a great one that was going to be that night at
The Comedy Store (a venue similar to the
DC Improv, with table seating and drink minimums). We decided to go, and had such a good time! It's great because a lot of comics live in L.A., so they can regularly perform out there. Here's who we saw and some of their main jokes:
Greg McConnell (I think that's his name. He was the opener/host, so no one really famous...): He looked like a surf bum/druggie, so he joked about that, along with working for
Trader Joe's and telling a story about his mom farting in her
Spanx (She had a "stinky back.").
Darrell Hammond: We all wanted to see one thing... And
his Clinton impression did not disappoint. That was probably my favorite part of the evening,
having seen him play the President on Saturday Night Live for so long. He also told several jokes about Jaegermeister (always a good story, right?), and talked about preparing to tell a Trump joke in Jacksonville, FL and having someone in the crowd yell, "Uh-uh!" before he could even tell the joke!
Dane Cook: He's kind of a hit-or-miss comedian for me (I usually like my humor cleaner than his), but I thought he was very funny at this show. He talked about hating the song, "
Christmas Time is Here" from the
Charlie Brown Christmas album, and sang his own version, replacing the lines with other words like, "I don't know anything/I want to kill myself" and so on. He also gave lessons on how to tell if you're in love or not: when your partner calls your name from another room, do you say "Coming, sweetheart" or scream "WHAT?!", or when you wake up next to someone, do you want him/her to wake up so you can spend more time together, or immediately want to spit on him/her? Later Cook asked an older couple several questions about their relationship (that's what happens when you sit in the front row...), and then requested that they have sex later that night for all of us to live vicariously through them, and to shout Cook's name at the climax. Scary image...but hilarious.
Brian Monarch: He was the least famous of the main acts performing, but I thought he was very funny (a lot of the jokes we heard are in the video on the homepage of his website). I wasn't a fan of his jokes regarding not using condoms (with strangers!), but his lip syncing to
Adele while his GPS interrupts his jam session was great.
David Spade: I was very excited to see him come on stage, since I love his movies like
Tommy Boy and
Grown Ups. I mainly remember him joking a lot about "porno" (He claims calling it "porno" as opposed to "porn" gives away his age) and all the different kinds of porn available online now.
Jay Mohr: When he came on stage, I immediately thought that he looks
just like a guy I dated last year, and wondered why I had never made that connection before. But I digress...
His Christopher Walken impression was very funny (granted, any joke about
Walken is good in my good book), and he told jokes about other famous people, like
Bruce Springsteen and
Sarah McLachlan. (She's never going to live down those
SPCA commercials.) He ended his set telling a story of how his son was having a sleepover and there seemed to be some homoerotic things going on ("My son woke me up and said that his friend was punching him in the dick too hard. Not that he was punching him in the dick PERIOD, but that he wasn't doing it right."). Classic.
The common threads between a lot of the comedians were the use of the "
Valley Girl voice" to imitate women, and saying embarrassing things to famous people (Hammond said, "Thank you for buying my house" to Clinton, and Mohr asked Walken "Would you rather fly or have a tail?"). SUCH a funny show! I was looking at the venue's upcoming line-up, and they always have great stars doing comedy! Now I have another reason to be jealous that my sister lives in L.A....
Sunday: Again, wanting to get some fitness in, my sister took me to the
Pure Barre studio where she does classes. I bought a
Groupon for her to go there, and she likes it a lot, so she wanted to take me to a class (and she had a free guest pass, so that worked out). It was really hard! I thought the class would be more similar to dance (like the barre in ballet), but it was more fast-paced and energetic. And I am STILL sore, especially in my calves and hamstrings. The class was only 45-minutes long, but it kicked my butt!
After heading home and having an early lunch, we headed over to the
Disney lot to see a free screening of the new movie
Coco. It was really neat being at the studio like that! Disney characters were everywhere, and recognition of some big names were, too:
 |
| The columns are the seven dwarfs! I don't know how they got the hat on Dopey... |
The movie was really cute! I'm not sure it has the "song power" of the 90's Disney films (i.e. I'm not sure I'll be singing any songs from
Coco for the next 20 years of my life), but I thought the story was engaging, and the film is so colorful and beautiful to watch! I also learned a few things about
Dia de los Muertos: I didn't know that the alter where families place photos of their families is called an
ofrenda (like an offering), that marigolds are an important part of the celebration, and that dogs, or spirit animals in the movie, help guide the spirits.** I know that Disney has been trying to add more cultural/racial diversity to its film repertoire, and I am glad this is a story they told!
And of course we ended my trip with some
more shopping. We stopped by
DSW (I
still cannot find the right pair of boots),
World Market (such cute gifts!), and
Marshall's (like I needed another blouse for work). After this outing we went home, had dinner, and watched
The Meyerowitz Stories (New and Selected), a film with a cast including
Ben Stiller,
Dustin Hoffman, and
Adam Sandler. I'm not a fan of movies about dysfunctional families (this is the epitome of such), but there were some funny bits to it. I'm not sure I could truly recommend it, but...it's not so bad.
I headed out super-early the next morning.
This was such a good trip! How was your holiday?
*I had forgotten how terribly adorable that past Cali Thanksgiving was. We are too cute! (If I do say so myself...)
**Here are some cool articles about Dia de los Muertos:
https://www.npr.org/sections/thesalt/2012/11/01/163549325/day-of-the-dead-decoded-a-joyful-celebration-of-life-and-food
https://www.nationalgeographic.com/travel/destinations/north-america/mexico/top-ten-day-of-dead-mexico/
http://insider.si.edu/2016/10/5-facts-dia-de-los-muertos-day-dead/
No comments:
Post a Comment