The things Diana and I had to hit after I picked her up on Thursday nite was
Thursday:
* sushi at Ch0mp on our way back to my house
Friday:
* old-style pancake breakfast
* lunch at Market City Caffe in Brea
* spa appointments in afternoon in Brea
* UCLA for NCAA Final Four gear in the evening
* Monterey Park for late-night Chinese food run on the way back from UCLA
Saturday:
* book my birthday flight up to San Jose online
* take her to the aiport in the late morning
Here’s how it actually went. I picked her up Thursday nite, traffic was hellish and there were always idiots in front of me. But whatever, that’s a commonplace occurrence, altho it was bad enough that Diana noted how I’m always behind the morons no matter what lane I change to. Getting to Chomp, we got a prime parking spot in a very overcrowded parking lot, and then we got out and saw a roped-off line in front of the restaurant by a bouncer. The bouncer told us that Thursday was their all-you-can-eat sushi nite and that’s what the line’s for. WHAT?! The ONE DAY we were there! The wait for the restaurant was hours-long, and we asked the bouncer how long the sushi bar wait was. He nodded at the line and said, “These people have been standing here for…oh…about 45 minutes already.” Jeebus! (I’ve never typed that before.) We were starving, so we got in my car, regretfully vacated our prime spot, and left. Diana then suggested Market City Caffe, which is one of her favorite Italian restaurants near me. We drove there, parked, walked over…it was closed already! It wasn’t that late! We then walked by another restaurant across the street that she was interested in trying, and it was closed, too. We’re 0 for 3. We finally walked to the nearby Taps Brewery and had a great dinner there. I had Chilean Sea Bass. Yum. So now it was totally late on Friday and we came back to my house, full, tried to stay up and watch TV and chat like the good ol’ days, but we must’ve both aged since college cuz we were asleep on the couch within the first 15 minutes of watching my Bewitched DVD.
On Friday morning, which is a holiday for me because it was Caesar Chavez’s birthday, Diana tried to do some work on her laptop but couldn’t because my internet router is secured. I put in what I thought was the password key to allow her access, but it was wrong. (She’d done most of her research the nite before on my laptop.) So I frantically IMed Mr. W, who was at work, and asked him if he recalled the correct password key which he set up when he set up my router. He did not, but suggested I simply push the tiny concealed “reset” button on the back of the router with a paperclip, and then re-set-up the router and make up my own password, allowing Diana access that way. Diana meanwhile was shaking her head, telling us it’s okay, don’t bother, that’s too much trouble. Well…always listen to an engineer who graduated magna cum laude from UCLA, because she was RIGHT. My router crashed. My modem crashed. I could not access the internet thru my laptop, desktop, or by unplugging my router and plugging my modem directly back into the desktop or the laptop. An hour or two of troubleshooting later, we gave up and drove to Knott’s Berry Farm for the big breakfast.
Knott’s was having some “special event” according to the signs, and a sign blocked off the regular entrance into the parking lot for the Knott’s Marketplace, so I unknowingly drove past it. There was nowhere to turn around once I passed that point, so I had to leave Knott’s and go around the block. I somehow did not go around the block as I thought and ended up lost. I hate driving around in circles and/or backtracking, but Diana’s calm nonchalance about the fact that I was now STARVING again while looking for a restaurant did chill me out. We eventually found our way back and I parked, and we walked to Mrs. Knott’s Chicken Dinner Restaurant. I walked in and noted how it looked totally different. She asked if the lobby was not how I remembered it. I said maybe I came in a different entrance before. We circled out and looked around. No, that’s the only entrance. This was weird. And then suddenly, I let out a gasp. This was NOT the restaurant I was thinking about! This was one I’d wanted to try, but never did. I was thinking about Po’Folks about 3 blocks away! Crap. We thought we’d try the restaurant anyway, but because of the late morning time that it now was, they had stopped serving breakfast. So we got back in the car, drove to Po’Folks while I cussed about how we’re perpetually hunting down restaurants fruitlessly, and did end up having a great lunch (it was WAY past breakfast time by now) there. I have no idea how I made that mistake — confused a restaurant I’d never been to with a restaurant I’d been to twice, and as recently as in the last month or so.
So now we were plenty full, not the state you want to be in when going to get massages. But we got to Glen Ivy Day Spa without further incident beyond idiotic drivers blocking me on the road. We did have a great massage, hung out in the jacuzzi and steam room, and then it was off to UCLA.
The drive there was great once we passed some initial clogs on the freeways, and it only took us an hour or so. We parked in Westwood with fairly little difficulty, grabbed some cookie ice cream sandwiches and walked to campus munching, and so far, so good. When we got on campus, happily high on sugar and reminscing, we were stopped dead in our tracks when we saw that an older lady trying to open the door to the Student Store apparently couldn’t. The door was locked! We peeped in. The store’s closed! We looked at the posted hours. It was an HOUR before the posted closing time for the day, and they were freakishly closed! Diana said it must be because it’s Spring Break. WTF! But who would close the store right before the weekend of the Final 4 game?! Do they not want to make money?! Diana suggested we just wander around Westwood to buy UCLA stuff at the smaller retail stores. How could all the stores be closed for Spring Break, right? We roamed Westwood and the few stores that sold UCLA anything either had virtually no selection, or were closed earlier than posted hours. Seriously, WHAT THE HECK?! Diana then remembered that there’s a UCLA Store in Santa Monica on 3rd Street Promenade which, she reasoned, couldn’t possibly be closed because 3rd Street is always bustling with people and activity. I was bummed about our luck, so she looked up the store on Google via her Internet-accessible Blackberry, read the phone number for the Santa Monica location aloud, and I dialed it on my cell phone. We were on a busy street in Westwood, so there were buses passing by, which kept me from hearing what the girl who answered said. It was just a “Blah-blah-blah! How can I help you?”
Me: Hi, I’m wondering what your hours are tonight.
Her: We’re open until 6.
Me: (looking at watch) It’s 6 right now.
Her: Oh! Well, we’ll be here ’till 7.
Me: Okay. I’m just wondering because we’re at UCLA right now trying to buy UCLA merchandise, and the Student Store’s closed, and I wanted to make sure you’d still be open before we drove all the way out to Santa Monica.
Her: Uh, I think you have the wrong number.
Me: What store did I call again?
Her: This isn’t a store. It’s a sex house.
Me: (pause) Oh, I definitely have the wrong number, then. Thank you!
Her: You’re welcome, have a great day.
Me: (to Diana, after hanging up) IT’S NOT A STORE, IT’S A SEX HOUSE! NOT EVEN A SEX STORE, BUT A SEX HOUSE! Isn’t that illegal?!
Diana: (checking her Blackberry for the Google listing again) What number did I give you?
Me: I have a SEX HOUSE on my phone record! This does NOT look good! If Mr. W ever checked my cell phone or phone bill, he’d think I was totally lying about us hanging out all day to do our own thing!
Diana: What number did you call?
Me: (reading number out of my “dialed” list)
Diana: That’s what it says! I DIDN’T read you the wrong number. But see, the address is totally correct. We should just go there, I’m sure they’re gonna be open late.
On the way to Santa Monica, we stopped by a great little Italian restaurant first where we had a delicious dinner, and it was pouring rain while we were inside eating, so we remarked on our great luck that at least we weren’t out walking on 3rd Street Promenade while it was raining that hard.
And then we hit 3rd Street in dry weather. It was POURING the second we stepped out of the parking structure, however. We walked up and down 3rd street, looking for the address, and we stopped and looked into the windows of…a whole different store. The UCLA Store that used to be here doesn’t exist anymore! We checked the posted store directory in case it moved. Nope. Diana re-checked the directory and read all the listings. We walked thru the area anyway in case some other store had UCLA merchandise. No luck whatsoever. “I don’t understand how we could’ve tried SO HARD to buy UCLA stuff and have not been able to. This makes NO SENSE. It’s not like a weekend or a holiday! Places either are freakishly closed early, or they no longer exist, or they’ve been turned into a sex house! What the heck! I mean, what’s the purpose of this in the universe?” Diana said, “Maybe we weren’t meant to buy Final Four stuff because UCLA is going to win tomorrow against LSU and enter the finals. But maybe that’s just wishful thinking.” “I hope you’re right,” I grumbled, “Cuz this would make NO sense otherwise.”
Amazingly, she was right. But we wouldn’t find out for another day.
So we left Santa Monica and drove thru massive rain and decided to nix Monterey Park for some Chinese cafes closer to home, so that we wouldn’t get lost in the rain and possibly get stuck in rain traffic. We ended up at a Thai restaurant in Rowland Heights called The Boat and had great food. That was about 11pm, and we didn’t finish eating until midnight.
I wanted to stay up another 3 hours to digest my food, but we again crashed in front of my TV. She wanted to watch The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air, but only remembers that it came on and the next thing she knew, she woke up and it was The Cosby Show.
On Saturday, I did get her to the airport in Santa Ana without much ado, and I didn’t get lost going from there to Mr. W’s, and he and I had a great time at Cirque to Soleil watching Quidam. I also go to eat at Chomp’s with him last nite. So I guess all’s well that ends well.
And no, I’m not gonna post the phone number of the sex house on my blog for you pervies.