I dropped my dad off at the airport this morning after a most successful long weekend with him. My mom told me to show him a good time so he’d want to get a job near LA and move the rest of the family here from NH. I think I did an okay job because he seemed pretty impressed that there were so many places to get bottomless mimosas and nobody seems to care if you walk your dog through Nordstrom. Things you just don’t see in New Hampshire.
Some fun activities I had planned included going to Ikea on a Saturday afternoon and then bringing him to my improv 101 show.
Just kidding, that was just a description of two separate layers of Hell. However, I am not kidding that that is actually how we spent his California vacation. But wait! We also spent some time putting together the Ikea furniture and then he took me grocery shopping! Soooooo, if you’re thinking about visiting LA and need a tour guide, I’m definitely a great candidate as long as you’re cool with spending $200 on me at Trader Joe’s and then just hanging a couple pictures, and if you have time, can you help me install some curtain rods in my room?
On Monday, I took my Dad to The Grove. We went to Planet Dailies and got a bunch of appetizers because he knows that my favorite kind of meal is comprised only of hors d’oeuvres (and I believe it is customary to do only what you want when hosting a guest in your home). Over sliders and lettuce wraps, he imparted this bit of fatherly wisdom: Bombay Sapphire Gin is smoooooooth.
After, we took a look around Dylan’s Candy Bar where I relived a recurring childhood disappointment of mine. All I ever wanted as a kid was something, anything, with my name on it, but there was always a “Dana,” never a “Dara.” I would have even settled for a keychain or mint tin that said “Jake’s Sister” since I was probably called that more than my actual name.
Anyway, the show Extra is filmed at The Grove, and we saw Maria Menounos, Mario Lopez, Eric McCormick from Will and Grace, and most exciting, the woman playing Anna Nicole Smith in the Lifetime biopic. They filmed a bunch of stuff in different outfits, so I’m pretty sure you can watch my dad on Extra through the rest of the week because he was a natural at finding the camera.
Oh, I almost forgot, Mario Lopez has no ass at all. There’s just literally nothing there but a surplus of denim fabric.
With that, Mario’s butt brought our weekend to a close. Pops and I had a great time since we get along so well and because our requisite for a fun vacation is only that we get to eat and drink purely for sport, and that’s mostly what we did. I haven’t eaten bite for bite with a 6’1″ man since I moved away, and it was a great change of pace from my usual diet of brown rice cakes and red wine.
