Los Angeles. Day 4. Meet Me at the London.
“You can meet me at the London (London)
If you find time, we can run one (run one)
Talk about some things, we can undo (undo)
You just send the pin, I can find you (you)”
Well, Tuesday night was a nightmare.
I don’t even remember. I know I didn’t sleep, but I don’t know what happened. I think Madeleine got up, Hallie got up. I don’t know when people were coughing. I was exhausted, it was just bad. And Tzvi slept through all of it.
Anyway, we got up and dressed and went down for breakfast. The hotel has a free, pretty comprehensive, continental breakfast – bagels, toast, lox, pastries and fruit. They also have Tzvi’s favorite jam from France. Because I don’t eat cheese I feel like I’m pretty limited so I just basically had croissants and jam, though like I said – good jam.
After breakfast we packed up and headed out to pick up Sherry. For this portion of the trip we rented a car from an app called Turo, which is basically like an Airbnb for cars. Jay Todtman told us about it so thanks Jay, it was so great. I’ll let Tzvi explain.
[Tzvi: I always hate renting cars with traditional car rental companies. First, you always choose a car “category,” but you never know what you’re going to get, and then they never end up having your category. Also, you need to schlep to the rental place and the whole process takes an hour where you wait around and fill out more paperwork than a mortgage. I hate it. This was so easy – I did everything through this app, I picked the exact specific car I wanted – a gray Tesla Model Y – I filled out a few simple things before our trip, and at 9am on Wednesday morning they dropped the car off with the valet. Nothing for me to do but call down and ask for my car to be brought around. I think it was a little bit more expensive than a traditional rental, but for the convenience and the kind of car we got, I’d say it was worth it.]
It only took Tzvi a few minutes of driving to get used to the Tesla – the braking is a little different, but it’s easy enough. The car is amazing – there’s just one huge tablet in the middle that controls everything from navigation, to audio, to air condition (and it even lets you control which way the air is blowing). It’s also just a great ride and Tzvi had a lot of fun driving it.
We picked up Sherry and then drove over to the Tar Pits. Basically, there’s a huge area of LA that was developed over natural tar pits. The tar has seeped up through the ground for tens of thousands of years and preserved the bones of trapped animals, including wooly mammoths and other extinct animals. When Tzvi was a little kid his mother used to take him to the tar pits once a week, instead of sending him to nursery, because, well, you know. Anyway, Tzvi has always loved elephants. Sherry claims that when he was two-years-old he told her, “before I was a boy, I was an elephant.” Pretty progressive for 1989. As we were walking around, Tzvi had a revelation that the reason he loves elephants so much is probably because the entire museum is filled with wooly mammoths/elephants, and probably not because he was an elephant in a past life.
We went through the museum. Tzvi started by asking Hallie to take a photo with him in front of a woolly mammoth. Hallie excitedly ran over and smacked Tzvi in the crotch, we think accidentally. Off to a good start.
Madeleine was whining but had a good time. Hallie wanted to be in the stroller, but Madeleine didn’t want Hallie in the stroller, but Madeleine also didn’t want to be in it herself, she just didn’t want Hallie in it. So that was fun. Then we went to the gift shop and both girls got stuffed animals, which I think were some kind of extinct fox, but what Madeleine really wanted were rocks. That’s right. There was a giant table of shiny rocks and you could buy a bag and pick out your rocks and she didn’t stop playing with them for 20 minutes and she wanted them so badly, but there was just no way I was buying a 2-year-old a bag of rocks.
We walked a little outside and saw more tar pits, but Madeleine was trantuming because I wouldn’t pick her up, but I couldn’t physically do it because i’d been holding her for three days straight already.
After the Tar Pits we went to meet Mark at Toast, our favorite restaurant in LA. Right as we walked in we saw Mark Feuerstein sitting and having lunch. Actually, it looked like he was ‘taking a meeting,’ which is what people in LA do instead of working. Anyway, Mark Feuerstein has been in a lot of tv shows; he’s probably best known for the show Royal Pains, which was on USA for 8 seasons, but he was also on a bunch of episodes of the West Wing, and played Mel Gibson’s friend/colleague in What Women Want.
For lunch I had my normal eggs that I usually get and they were delicious. Obviously we also got the coffee cake crusted French toast, because that’s the best French toast in the world. Tzvi had his usual egg burrito. Hallie watched tablet most of the lunch, and after a sidewalk diaper change I put Madeleine in the stroller and walked her for five minutes until she fell right asleep because she was exhausted.
After lunch, Sherry and Mark went home and Tzvi and Hallie drove over to the Grove, while I walked sleeping Madeleine there in the stroller. Sherry was very concerned that I was going to get attacked on the way, but all was well. Somehow, I still beat Tzvi there.
We started by walking around the Farmers Market. We saw they were setting up to film something so I asked a man what it was. He said they were filming a segment for Jimmy Kimmel Live, with guest host Nikki Glazer, and that they were interviewing children about romance and dating. He said Hallie was super cute and would be great for it, but she said she was too shy and didn’t want to do it. So much for her big break.
While walking around Tzvi saw an older man with gray hair and a gray beard, who he thought was Mark Hammill. It’s also possible he was just an old guy with a beard, but this is LA, so it’s 50/50 it was Luke Skywalker.
We did some shopping. Hallie walked into the Charlotte Tilbury makeup store and wanted to try on the lipsticks. We also bought candy at Dylan’s candy bar, stickers at the little sticker store, and shoes at Nordstrom.
We finished up at the Grove and headed back to the hotel and spent some time at the pool. Both kids were whining so much. I was exhausted.
This is what exhaustion looks like:
Also, this:
(this is the hallway)
Then we went back to the room and changed for dinner.
Dinner was at an Italian restaurant across from Sherry and Mark’s apartment called Della Terra. They had been talking about it for a while and really wanted to take us there. It was very good; good pizza, homemade pasta, really delicious and very accommodating. For weeks Sherry had been telling Tzvi how good the branzino was there, I think because they went out to eat one time and Tzvi ordered branzino, and now Sherry doesn’t stop talking about branzino. Anyway, they sat down and once again Sherry brought up the branzino, but Tzvi was so nauseous he didn’t want the branzino. I think she was very disappointed. Also the restaurant had like an inside room, and then a room that was outside of the main dining room but also still indoors; in the outer room there was a big table of older people and a table with a family with kids. One of the older people came in to complain to the owner about the kids, and the owner was just like, I cant tell kids to be quiet. They were coming at 615 on a weekday, what did they expect? Our kids were pretty good though. Anyway, we were both just so tired and nauseous by the end of the meal.
We went back to the hotel and put the kids to bed. As we pulled up there were a lot of big black SUVs. We saw a guy get out of one and Robyn started freaking out saying it was Lil’ Baby, which apparently is a famous rapper. Apparently the London is a hangout for rappers. There’s even a song written about it called The London.
We were both so exhausted and would’ve loved nothing more than to just collapse into bed and finally get some sleep.
But nope. Time to go out again!
Before we left, Hallie had a total meltdown and was crying about us leaving. As we left we saw Hallie cuddling and crying in the bed with Robyn and Madeleine. Later Robyn texted me saying that Madeleine was comforting Hallie and telling her ‘don’t worry, mommy will come back soon.’
Anyway, we took an uber to Harriet’s Rooftop, the bar at the 1 Hotel on Sunset, pretty close to our hotel. When we got there we walked through what looked like the main entrance, but it was just an empty room with a staircase leading down. We asked someone how to get to the rooftop and they told us we needed to go down two flights of stairs, which seemed kind of counterintuitive. Well, we went downstairs and then checked in and were sent to an elevator that took us to the roof. It was actually a very nice space – kind of clubby – with a great view. We met Benjy Bain and his wife Chen. Benjy and Tzvi were best friends throughout elementary school and high school. It was great catching up with them.
Also, Benjy managed to dig out these great photos of high school Tzvi.
[Tzvi: I was cool in high school.]
Unfortunately, we were just so nauseous the whole time and Tzvi’s asthma was acting up. I think we’re so overtired that our bodies are just failing. We came back to the hotel and got right into bed. Then madeleine started coughing, maybe at 430 am. Maybe it was 5. Who knows. Eventually I brought her into our bed and shell fell asleep. I guess this is really for the next day, but are there even days at this point? It’s all just blending together.
I hope I survive the rest of this trip.
I’m so tired.