DRAG QUEEN BINGO

Los Angeles, CA

(April 11-12, 2012)

We had one last full day in LA and decided to relax a bit. We had no real plans until that evening, other than brunch plans with our friend Kate, so we decided to make it an off-the-cuff kind of day.

Unexpected rain aided us in having a leisurely morning (I mean, who wants to rush anywhere when it’s a rainy day, right?) before we headed over to Sweet Butter for brunch in North Hollywood. Our friend Kate is another LA transplant from NYC. She made quite a name for herself in the cabaret/piano bar/musical theater scene (we met her years ago when she was host of a late-night, musical theater open-mic night at one of the West Village’s piano bars) and decided it was time to try her hand out in LA. 

Miriam and Kate outside of Sweet Butter

We had a great morning catching up and remarking how nice it was to see the rain (Kate said she misses the rain now that she rarely sees it out in desert country). After brunch, which was quite yummy, I might add, we made our way to Kate’s apartment, where Sal met up with us, and we hung out for a while in her fabulous apartment with her ultra-cute dog, Oscar. It was nice to take some time to just sit back and relax while on vacation. I rarely allow myself to do that—it’s always go-go-go with me so that I can see as much as possible.

After leaving Kate’s, we left our car parked by her apartment and let Sal chauffeur us around. Miriam mentioned she was interested in doing some shopping, specifically for some new shoes, since we had a ton of weddings to attend in the summer months, so Sal took us to Westfield Century City Mall. I remarked that they never had fun heels for feet as large as mine (think canoe paddles), which turned into a challenge for Sal and Miriam, who both started pulling huge, ridiculous, drag-queen-like shoes off the sales racks. I was refusing to try them on so Sal said I had to try them on if he did (turns out we wear the same size), and he proceeded to give us a fashion show in the heels, complete with rolled up pants—the better to see how fabulous his legs looked. A deal was a deal, so I did try them on, but Sal’s legs looked much better than mine…

After our unsuccessful—yet amusing—shopping excursion (we even saw Trouty Mouth, aka Chord Overstreet, from “Glee” doing a little shopping), Sal took us over to Silver Lake, a neighborhood with a hipster vibe that reminded us very much of NYC’s own Williamsburg. We stopped at a coffee shop for a little coffee and pastry and relaxed at one of their outdoor tables. We wandered around the neighborhood for a little bit, but the shops were a bit out of our price range so we hopped back in the car. We decided to stop at a really good hole-in-the-wall taco joint in North Hollywood called Henry’s Tacos for a quick bite. I was still kind of full from brunch and didn’t want to completely ruin my appetite for the dinner we were going to in a few hours, so I only had one little taco, but it was quite tasty. Sal had always wanted to try this place, and all three of us gave it two thumbs up.

Sal had to get ready for work, so we picked our car up at Kate’s and drove back to his apartment. After freshening up, we headed to Hamburger Mary’s in West Hollywood for their Wednesday night Drag Queen Bingo, the event I had been looking forward to for five days.

We got there early in order to get a seat, having not made a reservation ahead of time, and settled into a table in the back of the restaurant, waiting for our friend Marques to get there. That evening, bingo was a charity event for a local school, so the prizes were pretty tame, like gift certificates to restaurants and spas. Our friends have gone before and won lots of lewd and crude prizes (which are always humorous to win, even if they won’t be used). Miriam and I made our donation and got our bingo cards and bingo markers and waited for the show to begin. Marques showed up right as it was about to start, so we ordered our dinner and uncapped our markers.

I must say, there’s something about drag queens that livens up any event. They’re so full of spitfire and ready with snappy insults that it always makes for an amusing evening. And this evening proved to be no different. Our drag queen host had a male co-host, and they kept things quite entertaining with their witty banter. 

Along with our bingo cards we were given an information sheet of the various bingo games we could play, most with obscene names like Pole Dance (fill the “N” column) or Rim Job (fill in all the spaces around the free space), and all the “call-backs” we had to be ready to yell (i.e. “Not after but...” B4 or “Not malignant but...” B9. Clever).

Every winner had to go up to the front and show the hosts their winning cards. They then had to take a victory lap around the restaurant so that those of us who didn’t win could crumple up our losing cards and throw them at them. There were also plenty of people not paying attention to the game we were supposed to be playing and would think they had bingo, would run up to the front, and would then get made fun of by the hosts. It was entertaining. And, lesson learned: when the drag queen is talking, shut up and listen. The three of us got so close to winning on numerous occasions, but, alas, it was not meant to be. Regardless, we had an incredibly fun evening.

We decided to skip the later session of bingo, said goodbye to Marques, and made our way over to The Abbey, a famous gay bar in West Hollywood, that on Wednesday nights turns into Girl Bar. Earlier in the day, our friend Kate mentioned she would be there that evening and told us we should join her. Parking was proving to be difficult, but we hadn’t heard from Kate confirming that she was actually there, so we refused to pay for valet parking. We drove around for a little while and eventually found a parking spot around the corner and down the block from The Abbey-- a parking spot most LA residents would probably refuse because of the “long” walk, but we’re New Yorkers-- all we ever do is walk!

It was still relatively early in the evening-- a little after 9pm-- so getting in was easy, and the place was far from crowded. It looked really cool inside, with big, working fireplaces blazing and an outside garden area. The music was a little loud, especially since no one was on the dance floor, but we found a seat and waited to hear from Kate. Not long after we got a text saying she wasn’t going to make it. Although the place looked cool, it wasn’t really our cup of tea if we weren’t going to have company, so we decided to call it a night and head back to North Hollywood.

The next morning it was time to start packing up. Our flight was leaving in the early afternoon, but before we headed to the airport we wanted to spend a little more quality time with our host-with-the-most, Sal. Brunch was a definite theme this vacation, so we couldn’t pass up the opportunity to have one last brunch, this time at Bea Bea’s Cafe in Burbank. It was nothing to behold inside, but the food was delicious! Sal and I both got all things pumpkin-- pumpkin waffles and pumpkin pancakes with a pumpkin cream cheese marmalade. If something has pumpkin in it, I’m going to try it, so this was a lovely meal in my eyes.

After brunch we ran to a nearby grocery store so I could pick up a birthday card for my brother, and then we stopped by the post office so I could put my brother’s birthday gift (some fun finds from It’s a Wrap) in the mail. I can honestly say his was the only birthday present that arrived on time this year, all thanks to me being on vacation. Thanks, LA!

With nothing else to do and Sal having to go to work, we packed up the car, said goodbye to Sal, and made our way to LAX. We waved goodbye to our little rental car and checked in for our flight.

We were ready to eat by the time we got on our Virgin America flight, so we ordered food to eat almost right after take-off, using the handy-dandy order screen at our seats. And then we waited. And waited. And waited. After almost an hour we finally stopped a flight attendant and asked where our food was, and she explained it would be delivered after they served everyone beverages. I was already starting to gnaw on my knuckles from hunger... My question is, why offer something and say they’ll bring it right to you, if you then have to wait until they feel like bringing it? Ugh. Whatever. (Editor’s note: if you ever fly Virgin and want to order food or drink, do so after the beverage cart has gone by and it WILL come to you quickly. Miriam ordered a diet soda later in the flight and it was out in less than five minutes.) 

The flight itself was uneventful, thankfully. We landed at Newark really late and then waited forever for the shuttle bus to take us back to the city. Why not a cab? Because it would cost us a ton of money to go from New Jersey to Brooklyn-- about the cost of a one-way flight, actually. So we waited. Finally our bus appeared. We then grabbed our train home, walked into the apartment, gave the kitties a welcome home squeeze and collapsed into bed.

All in all, it was an incredibly fruitful trip. Many thanks to all the wonderful friends we were able to see: Sal, Lori, Autumn, Rightor, Isabella, Ryan, James, Kate, and Marques. Y’all made it an extra special trip.

‘Til we meet again, LA. ‘Til we meet again.

HIKING TO HOLLYWOOD

Los Angeles, CA

(April 10, 2012)

 Day four in LA and we woke up ready to conquer a mountain! Well, hike a hill, really.

Sal told us it was possible to hike up pretty close to the legendary Hollywood sign, so we did a little research and set off early in the morning in order to beat the heat and the crowds.

(If you are looking for directions to the Hollywood sign, scroll down to the bottom of this blog post.)

The Hollywood sign is located by Griffith Park and can be reached by taking Beachwood Drive to the Hollyridge Trail. Basically, find Beachwood Drive and keep driving all the way to the top. The beginning of the Hollyridge Trail is right by Sunset Ranch, so we parked right outside the entrance to the ranch.

We were warned there was limited parking, so we made sure to get there early in the morning. We had a prime parking spot right by the start of the trail. Woohoo!

The trouble with the trail being right by a ranch that offers tours by horseback is that we shared part of the trail with the horses. And that meant one thing: poop. We learned very quickly to avoid it...there was a little bit to avoid.

We walked for a little ways and then there was a drastic split in the road. A U-turn option, if you will. A road met up with ours, looking as though it headed back in the direction we had come but going up the hill instead of down. One would think we should just continue going straight, but one would be wrong. If we were to continue straight, we would be following the horse trail around the hill and not at all where we would want to end up. If we took the trail that headed up the hill going in the direction we had just come, we would get to the Hollywood sign. It had a big ole Labyrinth feel to it—“Which way do you want to go? Up or down?” Rule of thumb: If faced with taking a road covered in horse poop or a road devoid of horse poop, take the road devoid of horse poop.

So we took the sharp U-turn and headed up the hill. It was nice being able to look around without worrying about stepping in manure. The road continued for quite a while, following the natural curve of the hill and providing us with views of LA and glimpses of the Hollywood sign growing ever closer. We were tempted by an incredibly steep shortcut that traveled almost straight up the hill, but we weren’t sure exactly where it would lead us, and we were nervous about how steep it was. We decided to stick to the safe and easy path.

Admiring the plant life 

People carved their names into the cacti along the way

Eventually we came to another fork in the road. Here’s where we had options. Option 1: Go to the left and get up relatively close to the front of the Hollywood sign. You can’t get too close, since it’s private property and you can get arrested for trespassing, but you can get pretty darn close. Option 2: Go to the right and get right up behind the Hollywood sign. You can get a whole lot closer to it from this angle, but then you can’t get pictures in front of it.

We wanted our pictures to have the front view of the Hollywood sign, so we took Option 1 and followed the road to the left. The trail got a little steeper, but the views were pretty cool. We had been walking for a while when we came across another shortcut, this one not as steep. I looked up ahead and saw that our walk would take us to where the road curved and went uphill. The shortcut looked like it would cut out all that extra walking, so I chanced it and scurried up the hill. Once I got to the top, I saw that it landed us at our end destination: the Hollywood sign! Yay! So I gestured for Miriam to come on up.
There are big fences and a really steep hill that keep you from getting close to the Hollywood sign, so we stayed where we were and had fun taking lots of pictures.

Once finished with our goofy photo shoots, we headed back down the hill (the easy way, not the shortcut way) and came across a big, metal gate across the road with giant signs on it. We were coming at it from behind, but I had a feeling I knew what the signs said and started laughing.

Sure enough, the signs all said No Trespassing. Whoops. We took the shortcut and bypassed all this signage. We were trespassers. How were we to know?!

After having a good chuckle, we started heading back down the trail. Miriam had been on the lookout for snakes falling from trees ever since seeing the warning sign that snakes were in the area at the beginning of the trail, but I told her we would definitely know if snakes were around (how? I don’t know—I was trying to calm her down!). At one point I said that snakes won’t be falling out of trees on us…and then a snake fell out of a tree. Not on us, but right next to us. And Miriam bolted like a scared horse and almost jumped off the cliff. Not even kidding. I’ve never seen her move so fast!

From that point forward she refused to go by any trees and stuck to the edge of the hill, just in case something came slithering out of the holes in the rock we were walking next to. It was pretty funny stuff.

We were out hiking for about an hour and a half and were good a sweaty by the end, so we headed back to Sal’s to freshen up and then we were out the door again, this time in search of Little Tokyo.

Years ago, Miriam worked at Tokyo Disney Sea in Japan, and while there she fell in love with a cookie by the Bourbon company called Alfort. It’s a shortbread-type cookie with a layer of delicious milk chocolate on top. There are plenty of cookies like that out there in the world, but to Miriam, nothing compares to the Bourbon Alfort cookie. And wouldn’t you know, it’s impossible to find in the States. We have scoured the country, visiting all sorts of Japanese grocery stores and websites, and have come up with nothing. Well, not nothing—I did manage to find it through a website here in the States, but their shipping costs were three times the cost of the cookies—not gonna happen. So, we were determined to search through Little Tokyo in LA to see if we could possibly find these dang things. 

I asked my handy little Siri where we could find Japanese grocery stores, and she was able to pull up a few options, so off we went. Our first stop was the Marukai Super Market. The place was huge compared to other Japanese grocery stores we’d been in, so we had our fingers crossed. We looked everywhere. We checked every aisle and spent extra time down the cookie aisle in the hopes of finding what we were looking for. Alas, we could not find them, so Miriam approached an employee and pulled up a picture of the cookie on her phone. The employee brought her over to the cookie aisle and said they didn’t have the exact cookie she was looking for, but they had something close—Bourbon Alfort chocolate cookies with white chocolate, as well as Alfort chocolate cookies with dark chocolate. Close enough! We bought one container of each just so we could try them, left the store, opened them up on the street to try them, and promptly went back in to buy every package they had. So good!

Little Tokyo

We then wandered around Little Tokyo some more, venturing into other stores along the way in the hopes of finding the exact cookies we were seeking, but we struck out. At least we had the chocolate cookies, though! Miriam was very excited.

Then we were off to Santa Monica. We couldn’t travel all the way to the Pacific Coast and not put our toes in the ocean! We parked near the 3^rd Street Promenade shopping area and sauntered through the open-air plaza for a while before making our way to the beach.

Miriam next to her favorite flower, Birds of Paradise, by the 3rd Street Promenade

A fun dinosaur fountain on the promenade

Let me tell you, the beginning of the beach to the actual water is a bazillion miles away. It was crazy! I can only imagine how much those beaches fill up in the summer. Nevertheless, we kicked off our shoes and trudged through the sand down to the water, taking a lot of fun photos along the way. Once at the water we started walking towards the Santa Monica pier, which was way off in the distance. We had no intention of visiting the pier and its amusement park, since we’ve seen it before, but we did want pictures of it in the distance.

See? A bazillion miles away!

We made it fairly close before we decided it was time to head back. We had to beat the rush hour traffic since we had a show to go to later that night. So we left the beach and hiked back to the 3^rd Street Promenade, stopping for an ice-cold coffee drink, then jumped in the car and made it back to Sal’s.

We managed to get back to his place really quickly, so we took our time getting gussied up for our show, and then we were out the door and headed back to Hollywood. We went to pick up our friend James at his office—it’s where all the magic happens and Jerseylicious is turned into an actual show. We got to hang around in the lobby for a little bit while he finished up work, and he was surprised we didn’t see any celebrities hanging around while we were out there. Apparently, they hang around all the time. Oh well!

This sums up our dinner with James

Miriam and I had tickets to see Cirque du Soleil’s show, Iris, at the Kodak Theater on Hollywood Boulevard, so we wanted to grab dinner relatively close to the theater. We settled on Mel’s Drive-In, a 1950’s themed diner, which was conveniently right around the corner from the Kodak Theater. All three of us ordered burgers sans the bun—we were in LA, after all (gotta watch our figures)— and had a lot of laughs over dinner. There are always a lot of laughs when James is involved. But soon enough it was time to say goodbye. James started his walk home (he lived nearby) and we made our way to the Kodak. 

I’m a huge fan of Cirque duSoleil and try to see every show that comes to NYC. A part of Iris was featured at the 2012 Oscars, also located at the Kodak Theater, and the moment I saw it I knew I had to go to the show. Miriam, on the other hand, isn’t crazy about Cirque. Many say that once you’ve seen one Cirque show, you’ve seen them all, which is partly true. A lot of them have the same sorts of acts—it is a circus of incredible feats, after all—so there are bound to be clowns, contortionists, some high-flying aerial tricks, a balancing act, and trampolines of some sort. The difference is the story they tell with the costumes, the music, and the way the acts all come together. My love for Cirque blossomed at my very first Cirque show, Varekai. I spent the whole evening in awe of the beauty and had to scrape my jaw off the floor at the end of the night. But, I digress…

When I go to a Cirque show, I usually pay to sit as close as possible, since it gets me fully immersed in the show (it’s one of the few treats I allow myself), but knowing Miriam wouldn’t want to pay that kind of ticket price, I settled for the next section back in the orchestra. And I had a coupon. Awesome.

First of all, it was amazing just to be in the Kodak Theater. My thoughts: I see this theater on TV every awards season, and now I’m sitting in one of the seats. It was pretty exciting. 

Iris is all about the history of cinema, as seen through the eyes of two people: a young man in search of love and a young woman with dreams of being a star. The young man falls for the woman and follows her through the ages of cinema. I LOVED it. I’ve seen around 10 Cirque shows, and this ranks up there as one of my favorites—second only to Varekai. The music was amazing (composed by famous film composer, Danny Elfman), the set was stunning, and the talent was out of this world.

A practically empty Mann's Chinese Theater courtyard.

After the show, we wandered around a nearly deserted Hollywood Boulevard, watched as a crew started blockading the boulevard and setting up for the red carpet movie premiere of The Avengers happening the following day, and then took our tuckered-out butts back to North Hollywood. It had been a fun and crazy day, and we were exhausted! 

An almost empty Walk of Fame, with the barricades for
The Avengers stacked in a truck on the street.

Directions to the Hollywood sign:

Miriam is taking the U-turn up the hill.
Down below was where we just came from.

• Get on N Beachwood Drive and take it all the way to the top of the hill. If you are coming from the Hollywood/Santa Monica area, it may be easiest to get on N Beachwood from Franklin Street—Beachwood is not a straight-through street until after Franklin.
• There will be plenty of signs saying that you can’t get to the Hollywood sign and Beachwood gets all curvy and makes you think you aren’t heading in the right direction, but trust me, stay on Beachwood and take it all the way to Sunset Ranch and the start of Hollyridge Trail.
• There’s limited parking, so I suggest going in the morning. I’ve found that a lot of tourists go about their days leisurely and so the trails and the parking weren’t crowded in the morning. I’m all about getting up and out early so I can miss the crowds. And going in the morning means you’ll beat the heat, as well. Nothing wrong with that!
• Watch for the U-turn split in the road not too far into your hike. Make sure to take the road that goes to the left, up the hill. The path that continues straight on ahead is what the horses take on their tour—it doesn’t lead to the sign. Remember my rule of thumb from earlier: If faced with taking a road covered in horse poop or a road devoid of horse poop, take the road devoid of horse poop. 
• After a while you will come to a split in the road. Here’s where you decide what you want to see of the Hollywood sign: the front or the back.
• To the Left: The trail will lead you to the front of the Hollywood sign. You can’t get too close, but you can get some really fun pictures.
• To the Right: The trail will lead you to the back of the Hollywood sign. You can get a lot closer and get cool views of LA, but you won’t get the front of the sign in your pictures.

The left leads to the front of the sign, the right to the back of the sign.

• If you take the trail to the left as we did, you will follow the road for a while and then come upon a little shortcut up a small, yet slightly steep hill. If you’re brave, give it a try. We did. Otherwise, follow the road around the curve where the gate will block the way with its No Trespassing signs. I like to believe the gate and signs were meant for cars only and that hikers could go up beyond the sign. There was plenty of evidence around that told us we were not the only ones who had visited that spot!

Shortcut!

• I believe it took us about 30-45 minutes to hike up to the sign, so give yourself at least an hour to an hour and a half to go roundtrip.

Have fun taking your pictures with the iconic sign!

EXTRA! EXTRA! TOURISTS TRAPPED IN ABANDONED ZOO!

Los Angeles, CA

(April 9, 2012)

Wait a second! Wait a second! I think I'm getting a little ahead of myself with that title. Let's back up and start at the beginning, shall we?

We didn’t have a lot planned for our third day in LA, but we had a long wish list, so we thought we’d start tackling it, and it turned into a crazy, fun-filled day, starting with trying to get day-of tickets to the Ellen DeGeneres Show.

Ellen films her talk show weekday afternoons, and by the time we figured out when we were traveling to LA, the ability to request tickets for our week of travel was already gone, so we crossed our fingers we could get the standby tickets. Our goal was to try every weekday we were available, with the hopes of scoring a pair of tickets. We had to call a specific phone number starting at 9:00 a.m., leaving our names, phone numbers, and how many tickets we needed for that day. If we were lucky enough to get tickets, we would be contacted later that day. We made sure to call right away, since we weren’t sure if it was based on a first called, first served basis or if it was done through a lottery system—we didn’t want to take any chances. Good thing we did, too, because although it says on the website that they take calls until noon, the voice mail fills up by around 10:00 a.m. 

Let me lay it out for you right now: we did NOT get tickets to Ellen. Sadness. We tried. Every day. And at one point Miriam got a call from a strange number, so she answered it and the woman said, “This is Ellen [wait for it] from Dr. Birnbaum’s office.” Doh!

Anyways, we were in LA, and when you’re in LA you should try to see a television show being filmed-- and if you’re lucky you could actually get ON TV. I mean, why not? They make it so easy! Tons of shows are filmed there, and tickets are free—if they’re even needed at all. Over the weekend I remembered about Extra, the entertainment news show that often films in the Grove, a shopping center, and I recalled that, when I’ve watched the program, there were always regular people standing right behind the hosts of the show. So I looked up exactly where and when they filmed at the Grove, and we headed over after we made our obligatory Ellen stand-by tickets phone call.

Yep. That's the real deal, folks.

Mario Lopez

The day was gorgeous, but hot, which worked to our advantage because not a lot of people were by the Extra set. We sidled right up near the front and caught a couple segments of the program with hosts Mario Lopez and Maria Menounos. They then took a break to go film in other indoor locations, but before doing so Maria posed for pictures with us and I was even allowed to hold the actual Extra microphone. Awesome. In the interim, they allowed us to move up onto the stage where Mario and Maria stand so that we could be in the shade and they handed out free bottles of water and little red tickets that we could turn in at the end of the shoot for the Extra Friends giveaway-- they always feature a product of some sort on the show that they give away to lucky viewers through a contest on the website, but if you’re at the shoot early enough to snag a ticket and stay around until the end, you can get it for free just for being there! Sweet. Miriam got a ticket, but when they found out we lived together, they wouldn’t give me a ticket. Boo. Whatever. We wouldn’t have needed two anyways.

Hanging with Maria Menounos

Maria getting a touch up on her makeup before rolling.

We waited long enough for the shooting to resume that a number of people left and we had primo spots near the front. We were going to be filming the opening of the program and the end of the program, plus a number of promo spots for different cities all around the country. It was fun playing with Mario as he came through the crowd for the opening sequence.

Then it was time for the end of the program and the Extra Friends giveaway. They were giving away the Oscar 2012 Limited Edition Sonic Spatula by TEI Spa, which has a $350 value. And for a girl with lots of skin issues, I was pretty excited about scoring this!

The episode aired later that day, so we made sure to let all our family and friends know to watch for us. We totally made it on TV, me more than Miriam because she was standing directly behind Mario for most of the shoot, but she got in a pretty funny reaction at the end as they were handing out the TEI Spa Sonic Spatulas. Always hamming it up for the cameras!

The Grove

After we finished with Extra we walked around the Grove, taking pictures by the water fountain and stopping in some of the shops to browse. We then walked over to the Farmer’s Market, which is hooked to the end of the Grove shopping area, in the hopes of finding something for lunch. We ended up not finding lunch but we did find this fabulous pasta stall with amazing pastas available to buy called Pappardelle’s Pasta. We were just browsing with no intention on buying when Miriam mentioned she was on Weight Watchers and wondered how many points some of the pasta might be. The guy working the stall overheard her and said he was on Weight Watchers, too, and they struck up a conversation about their personal weight losses and compared belt notches. It was pretty funny. He then recommended a pasta that only has 1 WW Point Plus per serving. Miriam was intrigued, so we grabbed a bag. What really drew us to the stall in the first place was the chocolate pasta. He let us sample a dried version of it and said it’s great with vanilla ice cream or caramel sauce. Um, yes, please. We couldn’t stop there, either! The guy was so much fun and the flavors all looked so amazing that we ended up getting four bags of pasta, including a pasta blend and a spicy Thai linguine along with the dark chocolate linguine and the WW pasta. So good!

In front of the synchronized fountain at the Grove

The trolley between the Grove and the Farmer's Market.

We continued to wander in search of lunch when I came upon a stall selling candied apples. One in particular caught my eye, and I couldn’t say no: the cheesecake caramel apple. And I’m drooling just thinking about it. So we snacked on that and decided we would hit up a famous hot dog place for lunch instead of trying to find something at the Farmer’s Market.

The Magic Nut & Candy Company. Yummy.

We hopped on the trolley that travels through the Grove and the Farmer’s Market to save us from having to walk all the way back to the parking garage, and then we were on our way to Pink’s.

On Saturday, we passed by Pink’s hot dog stand and saw a HUGE line outside of it. We were curious what the big deal was. Then, whilst on our TMZ tour on Sunday, our tour guide pointed it out as we drove by, saying it was a must for anyone visiting LA. They, apparently, have amazing hot dogs and always have a long line. Well, we were sold. We had to try Pink’s. So we headed on over to Pink’s after our failed attempt at finding lunch at the Farmer’s Market and joined the long line. The line was reminiscent of our time in the security line at JFK airport... interminable. After 45 minutes we finally got up to place our order. Their menu consists of hot dogs of various sizes smothered in a variety of crazy things, from your typical ketchup, mustard, or chili to guacamole, coleslaw, or even bacon, and all with funky names like the Three Dog Night (three hot dogs wrapped in a giant tortilla with three slices of cheese, three slices of bacon, chili and onions-- also known in my world as a heart attack waiting to happen...). Don’t like hot dogs? Don’t worry. They sell burgers and grilled chicken, too, as well as fries, onion rings, and nachos. 

Both Miriam and I got a chili cheese dog. We found a cozy table inside and sat down to try what we had waited almost an hour to try...only to be disappointed. I hate to say it, but neither of us cared for our Pink’s hot dogs. The casing was really thick and hard to bite through, and the hot dogs don’t hold a candle to New York’s own Nathan’s Hot Dogs. We both ended up discarding our hot dogs and eating the chili and cheese. Oh, well. At least we gave it a try.

Then we were off to Griffith Park to see Griffith Observatory and to go in search of the abandoned zoo. We had been warned that Griffith Observatory was closed on Mondays, but the grounds were still open, so we could at least walk around and take in the views of the city. 

Griffith Observatory

Miriam taking in the view

Griffith Observatory is a monument to astronomy, on a hilltop surrounded by the beautiful expanse of Griffith Park. When open, it offers a planetarium, a theater, and free use of telescopes. The building itself was awesome to behold, as were the views of Los Angeles and the Hollywood sign. We had a lot of fun roaming the grounds and taking pictures.

Then we went in search of the famous Old Zoo, also known as the Abandoned Zoo, in a different area of Griffith Park. Our friend Lori turned us on to this adventure—this was the original Griffith Park zoo from the early 1900s, but as the zoo expanded and the laws for animal rights changed, the zoo was abandoned for a new and improved zoo elsewhere in the park. What’s really cool is that a number of the animal cages and compounds still exist for people like myself to go explore. Nothing like letting two nuts run free in a zoo! We had a ton of fun pretending to be wild animals held captive in the cages. 

After we had exhausted ourselves at the Old Zoo, we headed back to Sal’s place to freshen up and grab a bite to eat. Sal brought us to a restaurant called Take a Bao (pronounce bow), which is a modern take on Asian cuisine (bao is a part of dim sum). The food was delicious! They claim to use only fresh, quality ingredients, local produce, and all natural meat. Everything we had was incredibly tasty, and the décor in the restaurant was super chic and added to the lovely ambiance. 

After dinner, Sal headed home and we made our way to the West Hollywood area to Eleven Nightclub, where Miriam’s friend Ryan LaConnor hosts Musical Mondays – Los Angeles every Monday at 10pm. Sing-a-long videos start earlier in the evening, but Ryan brings special guests to come in and perform live at 10pm.

Ryan and Miriam

I finally got to meet the infamous Ryan whom Miriam had been telling me about for quite some time, and I was instantly enamored. He gave us a few free drink tickets and we settled in to watch the show. At the same time, our friend James, who is currently bicoastal as he works on the “Jerseylicious” and current spin-off “Chicagolicious” reality shows, came out to meet us. We were finally able to grab a table near the end of the show, at which point Ryan came and joined us, and we all gabbed for a long time.

Even though Miriam and I were prepared to make it a late night, we were all old farts and ready to head home relatively early, so we said goodbye to the boys and headed back to North Hollywood.

We needed our beauty rest, after all, because we planned on hiking to the Hollywood sign in the morning!

Lock the door and throw away the key!