Chelsea Handler was supposed to be signing books at a bookstore in La Jolla at 3pm and I was pretty excited to go meet her and tell her that we were soul mates. When I looked online to get directions they had switched the time to 5pm and I couldn’t go because I had dinner plans at 5:30 pm with some friends who were going to her show downtown at the Civic Theater. I was debating about going to the theater around the time the show would end to be first in line but figured I would bring the book out with me and make a game time decision.
Dinner was at Oceanaire with Chris, Rich, Dusty, Michelle, Sully and Erin. The main reason I was going was to order the caviar and they were out of it tonight. Apparently a huge party ordered all of it last night. I was pretty annoyed. I settled on the crab cake appetizer which is one of their signature dishes and totally amazing with huge chunks of crabmeat…It’s served with an aoili sauce which was pretty bland, but the crab cakes were great on their own.
I opted for the prix fixe menu for $29 bucks (Laura on a budget changes from day to day, food item to food item!) New England clam chowder with tons of bacon in it: (here I have been trying to avoid bacon after my brother’s heart attack and they put in there without me even knowing!)
The others had ordered a bunch of oysters and the one I ate was utterly disgusting. It was way too fishy and left the worst after taste in my mouth. I don’t know what it was called, it was small and nasty.
I had the arctic char (I don’t even want to admit this but I had a brain fart and thought I was ordering a white fish and was shocked when salmon showed up. What an idiot!) Their fries need some truffle oil in my opinion. But then again I think everything needs truffle oil.
For dessert I had the blueberry cheesecake. Nothing special.
After dinner they all had to race off to the show and I met a very drunk and belligerent Mike from Tivoli at Red Pearl Kitchen with none other than the mom of Chloe the French Bulldog! No pics, they were a hot mess after an all day pubcrawl. I walked over to Quality Social to meet up with Danielle who was supposed to be working tonight. To my surprise she was sitting on the other side of the bar and had the night off! (Yes we had “pickle backs” and they were delicious) Danielle used to work at Naughty America but quit a few years back and we had drifted apart. It’s good to have her back in my life. As I get older and now that I have some free time I feel the need to connect with certain people. I was so busy for so long that I lost touch with a lot of special people in my life. I don’t want to get into the personal details of her life, I will just say that she had an experience about a year ago that made her reconnect with her Mom and it really made me happy to hear about it on the eve of Mother’s Day. Life is too short. If you don’t have a relationship with your parents, look inside of yourself and figure out why. See if you can’t be the bigger person and change that because they won’t always be around. Don’t put yourself in that position of regret and guilt.
We walked over to the Local to meet up with the crew after Chelsea Handler’s show. It was more important for me to hang out with Danielle then to stand in line to meet Chelsea and I don’t regret it at all. All of my friends in the other circle call her Goldie Hawn
Chris and Dusty looking silly.
Danielle and I walked to La Puerta for one quick drink because she was supposed to meet up with some cute boy but since he wasn’t there we took off. I was asleep on the couch by 11:40 in the first segment of Betty White on Saturday Night Live. oops
I heard this song on the radio the other day and I love it! Bonus that they are Australian! Sweet Disposition by The Temper Trap.
I really don’t know how it took me this long to appreciate Chelsea Handler’s humor. I swear to God, I feel like I have been missing out for so long. I discovered her because I realized there was a book titled “Are You There Vodka, It’s Me Chelsea?” and I thought wow, that could and should be titled with my name instead of hers. I mean how awesome is it that she is sponsored by Belvedere!? She has just started her new tour of Chelsea Chelsea Bang Bang and I got tickets last minute to see her. Justin Martindale was supposed to go but got called into work at The Comedy Store last minute so I ended up going with 818, Nikki Benz and Keiran Lee. (Puma Swede was in school til late so I guess Nikki is allowed to borrow her BF if she ever needs a date.)
We went to dinner first at a hole in the wall sushi bar called Chiba. A few people had been talking about how awesome it was so we decided to try it out. A very unassuming little place in North Hollywood, a place you would drive by and never go in because of the appearance and the neighborhood. Well, you know what they say about not judging a book by it’s cover. The rolls were small (but it’s better that way because you don’t look like an asshole trying to shove a huge piece of sushi in your mouth and having it fall all over the place) and the nigiri was excellent. They had toro which is always a good sign, and it was delicious and melted in your mouth like it is supposed to. Nikki had never had it before, and you know I always love introducing people to new yummy things. We had some sake and beers and enjoyed some good laughs. I wasn’t going to post this picture, but hey if you can’t make fun of yourself, then what fun is life? Keiran has an application for his iPhone where it turns you into an old person. He tweeted it to a couple thousand followers and was trying desperately to get Nikki to retweet it to her 31,000 followers! Whatever, here it is. What. The. Fuck. That is so frightening.
After dinner we went over to the show at the Gibson Ampitheater in Universal Citywalk. They have a one drink per person rule…but then offer a BOTTLE of wine. Well duh. Like I would order a small plastic airplane size cup of wine when I have the option to order the entire bottle. They dump the wine out into a pilsner glass. This is awesome!
Hey guys, when you try to deep throat a hot churro, it hurts. Just letting you know that.
The show was amazing… I was crying laughing, almost peed myself and my face hurt from smiling so big. I won’t ruin it for you in case you have the chance to see her. She is really really fucking funny. A woman in her mid 30s who drinks like a fish, has a potty mouth, loves to talk about ridiculous things, adores midgets and hates kids. We are pretty much the same person except I don’t have a show on E.
Nikki and Keiran went home and 818 and I decided to head over to Howl At the Moon, a dueling piano bar inside of Citywalk. It was packed with annoying people so we left after a little bit. Look at their dress code:
I have never in my life seen #5 on a dress code list. What if I had murdered someone and am now out of jail and I have the little tear drop thing under my eye? Rude.
This morning I headed to the Del Mar Fairgrounds for a small Travel Expo. I had looked at the exhibitor list and it wasn’t that impressive but after a coin toss I decided to drive the 30 minutes and check it out. It was free after all and I wanted to sign up for all of the potential free trips they were giving away. Yes, I realize that they are just going to mail me crap and email me things but if I get a free trip for 2 to Croatia I would be pretty excited! The first place I got suckered into was a Hilton Grand Vacation Club booth promising a trip for 2 to Catalina Island (a place I have never been to despite living in SoCal for the last 18 years!). All I have to do is take a 90 minute tour of their new resort in Carlsbad and I get 2 nights for free in Catalina with the boat ride there and a glass bottom ride once I get there. Sounds easy enough ESPECIALLY since I was very clear that I ALREADY have a time share with Hilton Grand Vacation Clubs! I was totally honest with the guy and told him I had no intention of buying a damn thing and was only doing this for the free shit. I already have 15,000 points stacked up to use (3 years/weeks worth that I kept postponing because I didn’t have the time to use them…but hey, I got nothing but time now!) He also asked if I made more than $75,000 per year. Well no not exactly because I don’t make any money at all right now. In fact, I make $00000 dollars per year at this very moment. But I smiled and said yes. I made my appointment for 9 am on Tuesday. I am heading to LA anyways, so I can just stop off and waste their 90 minutes, get my $20 deposit back and go on my merry way with the Catalina package. This is the new Laura… gettin’ shit for free!
I went back to the house and read Chelsea Chelsea Bang Bang by Chelsea Handler (my new idol) while working on my tan and then later attempted to take photos of Lola.
I was able to sneak one with the fish eye lens before this started:
Then it just turned into a game of chase with the soccer ball.
And then it was just “Freak Out and Run”
Casey on the other hand, doesn’t care about the lens or the camera. Prolly because she is too old to move and can’t run away.
My sister Cathy had left me a note with instructions on when to feed them, what kind of meds they get, etc… The last of the instructions went like this: “Casey likes to bring in the mail so she’ll walk out with you and wait for you to give her a piece to carry in. Give her a cookie for that. Lola will do nothing and yet still expects and gets a cookie.”
I spent the rest of the evening doing the first edit of the pics from Australia and New Zealand. I am seeing a bunch of people this week who want the “slide show” but I don’t want to bore them with all 3600 pictures. I would like to narrow it down to about 500. It goes pretty quick, I swear. Add some fine Australian wine and we will be having a blast! It was a painstaking process and it will need to be done at least 2 more times tomorrow. UGH. After I was thoroughly going insane I decided to put Zach and Miri back on. Now that was a waste of time. What a dumb movie.
