Show me the Oscar

Disclaimer: I said my next post would be my road rules. I'll get to that, but not yet.

I have spent my entire life up until very recently ignoring southern California. Ask me to find the capital of Norway and 3 ways to get there from Bergen, I'm your girl. Yet I only found out today where Hollywood is. (If the wonderful lady who gave me the tour my first week out here stumbles across this, I was so turned around that day, I couldn't find any of that stuff again but the IKEA.) I don't really pay attention to the academy awards unless I have a friend who wants company for the viewing. It turns out my "twin" is a big movie buff. So we went on Pilgrimage to the Kodak Theater at Hollywood and Highland and got our pictures taken holding an Oscar (8.5 pounds if you're curious).

It was a nice vacation day. On my vaca days I like to have 1 primary goal, and then not worry about the rest; it usually falls in place as I undertake the journey. We got up late, took leisurely showers and headed down the coast. Today, having someone along, I felt comfortable stopping for dinner somewhere with a view in Malibu. Far from getting brunch, we ate dinner at M.oonsha.dows. It turned out that 3:30 was a great time to go - you get your pick of tables and order off the lunch menu. They had creative, tasty food in reasonable portions that wasn't much more expensive than the Ch.eesecake Fact.ory and the waiter was cute. And the ocean today was busy enough to be interesting but not rough enough to be scary or annoying.

It was good that we stopped for refreshment when we did as we spent the following 2 hours in rush hour traffic, but as it was all traversing Sunset Boulevard (with a brief Rodeo drive detour), I've no complaints. We finally decided to pay for parking and got on with it. We got to walk on the plastic protected red carpet, go up the stairs, get pictures, etc... We saw the "Meet the Oscars" exhibit and played with the trivia quiz. The twin talked to everyone about everything. We sat in a nice hotel lobby and ate our takeout while watching people. (If you're a guy, the uniform this year is white shirt, black suit jacket, then jeans and shoes of any sort.) About the time I started turning into a pumpkin, scads of people in skimpy club wear started streaming as we were strolling out. I wondered if a switch got flipped, or a chute was opened that they all showed up at once. I realized that the reason I don't usually go clubbing is that I don't have a posse to hang with. I think if I had friends who enjoyed that sort of thing, I'd go. Especially since I'd have a chance to dress up more often.