She Left Fifteen and Came Home Sixteen

Well, I didn't post yesterday. So there goes my big prize money for NaBloPoMo. Oh well. I may be able to get an excused absence because it really wasn't my fault. Here's what happened:

After a morning at the Farmer's Market (I love this place, and could spend three days here just eating) we headed out to Beverly Hills. We drove through some of the residential neighborhoods looking for the Clampett's, then headed to Rodeo Drive where we tried to decide who were the tourists and who were the tourists trying NOT to look like tourists, and who were the real B.H. residents. We decided most of what we saw were the first two. Neither one of us was interested in getting out to shop, so we checked our map and found a museum a few streets over - Museum of Television and Radio. They have 144,000 television and radio shows archived in the upstairs library, so we headed up to find something interesting to watch. Now this sounds strange, but there were lots of people there searching for lost episodes of television shows, and watching shows that were groundbreaking. I however, decided that Erin needed to experience the era-driven, senseless, shameless humor of Laugh-In. So we accessed a 1968 episode and watched the whole thing. Erin thought it was sort of funny, but didn't get most of it. Funny thing is, neither did I. But here is what I realized: we talk a lot about how television has really become trashy, suggestive, all about sex and inappropriate for children. Well, it appears it was that way in 1968. How quickly we forget. After our "laugh-in", we ate dinner at an Indian restaurant and headed back toward Studio City. Unfortunately, we were blocked by the Hollywood parade, which runs the whole length of Hollywood Boulevard. So there was no getting home until the parade was over. We knocked around at Target for a while, then checked to see if the parade was over. It wasn't. Now it was getting late. So once again, I pulled out the map and told Erin that we would find a different route home. She groaned, sensing that this was going to be a very long evening so I launched into a little motivational speech. "When the way is blocked, and you can't seem to find a way through, you go a different direction and you don't look back." She groaned louder.

So that is what we did. We went a different direction (the freeway...ugh) and didn't look back. Mostly we didn't look back because we were driving through a very seedy part of town. Anyway, we made it back to the hotel, but it was too late to post. We were beat. I had been doing all of my posting from the lobby since it had free wi-fi, and the high speed internet in the room was 10 bucks a day. It just sounded like too much after our adventurous evening. I'm hoping this excuse works. It's all true.

By the way, Erin came home 16. I'm still amazed.