Santa Monica & Game Night

Yesterday was absolutely beautiful. Jaime and Brian (and Olive the dog) took me out to Santa Monica yesterday morning - I totally fell in love with that city and it made me want to move there... So, don't be surprised if I don't come back ;-) We walked around the promenade and looked at the shops, we stopped in an amazing architecture and art book shop Hennessy + Ingalls and we all found a little slice of heaven in there. Brian found a Frank Lloyd Wright book. Jaime found a blank journal that had little cartoon owls on the front. I found a book of Japanese Goldfish (I've decided I want that to be my next tattoo). Olive is a huge people magnet - she made dozens of new friends, Jaime said I could borrow her to meet girls and I told Jaime I'd fly Olive first class to Seattle.

After a perusing the promenade, we walked down to the beach front - Ocean Ave. The hotels and restaurants are staggeringly beautiful, a touch of art deco meets ultra sleek modern. We walked all the way down to the Santa Monica Pier. This place was such an eclectic mix of everything, awesome street performers, kitchy souvenir shops, artists (ones who sculpt your likeness into a piece of clay), Bubba Gump's Shrimp Restaurant and carnival rides. We took a few pictures along the pier and ate Dippin' Dots. Yum. We walked along the beach front, stopping by the original location of Muscle Beach - there were men showing off their skills on a huge jungle gym for grown ups. It reminded me of Larry the Lobster on Spongebob Square Pants. I turned to Brian and Jaime and said "I should just run up there and try to jump up on the jungle gym but just completely biff it, I think that'd be really hilarious." Jaime snickered "Yeah, but you'd have to take off your shirt first." I quickly replied "Yeah, um - no thanks." Hahaha.

We headed back up to the car and we swung by the book store so that Brian could pick up his book. Once in the car Jaime took the scenic route back home, Santa Monica Boulevard and Sunset Boulevard. What a cool city to live in!

On our way back to the apartment, Jaime suggested that we have a game night with Joel and Annika. I was game (haha, lame) so I picked up my phone to call Annika. I noticed I had a missed call from her. I called back.

"Hi Annika, did I miss your call?"
"Yeah, where are you guys?"
"Heading back from Santa Monica. Jaime thought that we should have a game night tonight."
"Haha, that's why I called you - Joel and I thought we should have a game night. At our place."
"Hahaha! Well boom. It was meant to be."
"Cool, how about 7pm ish?"
"Sounds great, should we bring anything? Costco Pizza!?!"
"Ooh, yeah. See ya soon!"

We got to the apartment and we were all pretty exhausted. Jaime, Olive and I took naps while Brian curled up with his new book. 6:45pm rolled around and we headed out to Costco to buy a pizza and then headed over to Joel and Annika's. We played Balderdash. Have you ever played that game? It's pretty freakin rad. I loved it - and I have to say, I think LA has brought out the little comedy writer in me. Here are some of my favorites:

In response to a peculiar person - Harry Williams
I wrote: "The forearms of comedian Robin Williams"

In response to the movie title - Below The Belt
I wrote: "The Ivana Trump Story"

In response to the movie title - Beginning of The End
I wrote: "A documentary following the life of Kurt Russell after 'Big Trouble In Little China' through 'Captain Ron.'

Today we're heading to Historic Filipino Town - then Joel and Annika are having us over again for dinner!