The Mike and I got on the road around 1 pm. We stopped in Terra Bella at Garden Harvest Farms so I could pick up some locally made stuff to give to Crazy Aunt Purl for her upcoming travels.
Once back on the road, we saw alot of this:
and this:
The Central Valley is not known for pretty scenery.
In fact, there are some downright Butt-Ass ugly spots too:
Eventually, we made it through Bakersfield:
and finally hit the grapevine:
It was between those last two pictures that I learned of The Mike's complete and unadulterated love of The Gap Band. Who knew??
Once up and over the grapevine, we finally saw the only pretty scenery to be had on the entire trip - Pyramid Lake:
Well, personally, *I* had pretty scenery the entire trip, but that's just my opinion!:
Eventually, we made it through Valencia, Newhall, Saugus, San Fernando, Chatsworth, North Hollywood, Burbank, Studio City and finally into Hollywood:
While we were still on the 5, we came to an overpass, and it got me thinking about earthquakes. I haven't lived in L.A. for a long time, and it was an earthquake (along with the Rodney King riots) that got me the hell outta there. I remember seeing pictures of the aftermath of the Northridge quake years later, and the collapsed/broken overpasses always gave me the biggest heebee-jeebees. You're just tool'n down the road, getting to or from something, and WHAM! There's no road in front of you, or behind you, or a car up ahead just falls off the earth. Fucking A scary. All those memories and fears came back when I saw this:
The Mike has never lived in a city bigger than San Luis Obispo, and he's had zippy experience with earthquakes, so I made sure to share my fear by reminding him we were now entering earthquake country. He didn't seem to care though, so that didn't help!
Anywho - we made it into the craziest of crazy towns, Hollywood, and traversed the roads to finally get to The Grove. Now, I didn't know where Barnes & Noble was in relation to The Grove and Farmer's Market, so we parked on the fifth floor of the parking structure and tried to get our bearings:
Now if anyone from L.A. is reading this, the next part is probably going to cause you to shake your head and laugh at us 'tourists'. Remember though, I actually used to live in the San Fernando Valley, work at 1800 N. Highland and I've even been to Farmer's Market way back in the day!!! So - we get out of the parking structure by taking the Northwest corner stairs and we head East once we get ground level. Alls I knew was I was 'close' to the venue. We walked back up to Beverly and turned left. I was getting the feeling that we should have walked the other direction (away from Beverly) but I kept on trudging. We walked ALL THE FUCKING WAY AROUND the CBS studio lot. All the way down Fairfax. Eventually we noticed some kind of outdoor mall-sy thing, but didn't spy any Barnes & Noble. I did see a tower with "Farmer's Market" written on it at this point. Whatever that thing was though? It brought no memory of the Farmer's Market I'd visited in the past. Man that place sure has changed! We knew we were at "The Grove" but still were kinda lost, so I asked at some tour bus kiosk where the Barnes & Noble was. The guy didn't know at first, but eventually we figured out that we were REALLY close. It was just down the street, around a corner and a few stores down. Found it. YAY!!!!
Now we had to figure out where the car was in relation to where we were, but first we had to get some damn linner. I hadn't eaten all day and The Mike eats every two hours (he does, no lie!). I wanted sushi from a vendor in Farmer's Market, but The Mike was turning into The Ass and started getting snippy and annoying. Partly he needed food, and partly he just hates 'the unknown' and gets really difficult to deal with. I, being the sweet and understanding Wife Of The Year, got exasperated and said "Fine. Let's eat where YOU want to eat because this is, after all, ALL ABOUT YOU and not *my day* in any way, it being the day before my birthday and the only thing I really really really wanted as a present! Yes. Let's go do what YOU want to do RIGHT NOW!".
So we did. We had linner at an Italian restaurant on the outskirts:
The Mike convincing me that he's happy eating here:
One of the upsides of linner is the availability of seating. There wasn't another soul desiring italian food at The Grove at roughly 4:45 on a Thursday. Nice! And they validated. Double nice! (Does the phrase 'do you validate' ever get said outside of L.A.? That's the only place I've ever uttered those words.)
After the meal, we got back (the easy way!) to the parking lot and our car so I could grab my knitting, Crazy Aunt Purl's book and her gift. I didn't know if there was going to be a gaggle of West Hollywood Stitch 'n Bitchers meeting beforehand above Farmer's Market, so I went back through there one more time. Nope. Not one knitting folk up on the second level, so it was back to Barnes & Noble to get settled.
Originally, when I found it around 4:30pm, there was noone seated. Why would there be? Itwas still 3 hours until the event! When I got back there around 6pm a few people (maybe 6 or so?) were sitting & knitting. I laid claim to a seat while The Mike went looking for Bass fishing stuff to read and kill time with. People started arriving in fits & spurts, and it was apparant that most everybody knew most everybody, 'scept for this lone gal. I overheard the WeHo's talking about their game plan of taking up seats by putting stuff on them, thus insuring 'their' spots.
Now, I don't know a one of these people. Crazy Aunt Purl writes about how nice and inviting they all are. It was sweet to see SO many people there for Laurie - to show support and solidarity on her very first book event. I eventually saw her close friend Faith (who Laurie wrote and told me to talk to in case I was ass-out of a seat). Alot of people kept asking Faith if Laurie was 'doing okay'. Faith assured all the support team members she doing surprisingly well. It kinda (okay, alot) felt like a small wedding where the Maid of Honor pops out before the bride appears, and everyone's asking how 'the bride' is doing. Sweet like that.
There was so much talky-talky of all things knitterly buzzing about the room while we waited. A lady sat next to me and I started watching what she was knitting. Now remember, I don't have anything even slightly resembling an SnB or even a real LYS in my hometown. I've travelled to the Fresno knitting group (Sheeper Than Therapy) a few times, but it's two non-knitting hours round trip. I've made a knitting friend from Visalia recently (hi Jollyewe!) but we haven't even knitted together yet! Being in a group of knitters is very much a novel concept for me. The gal that sat next to me was using a SUPER long circular and knitting a sock. I asked her about what she was doing (and I have a hard time talking to strangers, so that goes to show how interested I was!) and I think the method she was using was 'Magic Loop'. I'd just never seen it in action! The way I'd always read about it, it seemed difficult, but watching this chick? I could do that! I'm gonna try that next time I have empty needles, fer sher.
All of a sudden, there was clapping! Laurie Perry made her way down the aisle (like a bride, lol) and took to the podium. As part of her introduction, we were all asked to NOT take pictures until her reading was done. I switched to video at that point, and it wasn't until the drive home that I realized I NEVER GOT ONE STILL PICTURE OF HER! Fuckity fuck fuck FUCK. I'll learn though - this was the first ever 'thang' I've attended of this nature. Sorry.
Laurie was Hi-damn-larious! Her Texas twang was thick most of the time, but every so often it'd get faint and hardly noticeable. She read the first chapter of her book and then had a Q&A session. She'd prefaced that part by saying she'd try it out on this first signing, and depending on how it went she may (or may not) continue the practice.
There were questions like:
"Does your job know you've written a book/have a blog" to which she said emphatically that "NO" her job doesn't know about the book! To paraphrase, she said "it has the word DRUNK in it! I have a different demeanor at my work." She was surprised that no knitting coworkers had run across her blog and her gameplan for that possibility would be to 'deny deny deny' being Crazy Aunt Purl.
She was just so open and honest down-to-earth during the Q&A portion. She didn't seem to want to be considered an 'advice giver' per se and said the reason she wrote the book was (again with the paraphrasing) in her self-help-aisle search for how to deal with divorce, there was nothing really describing how SHE was feeling. Feeling like wanting to stab people with forks, basically.
One thing she said, which really matched how I view life, was when asked if she had any advice for someone in their 30's without 'a man' and without 'a baby' to feel okay with their status she explained, that for her, she had to realize that happiness wasn't 'those things' but something you strive to feel every day regardless of those things. For every person lamenting the lack of a husband or kid is the mother/wife lamenting the responsibilities of marriage and motherhood and not having time for their own needs. EXACTLY!
One of the questions posed to her was if she really understood/knew now, with the popularity of the book and the blog, that she IS worthy of happiness and good things. She said she did know that now, and then asked if there was an "April" here somewhere. That'd be me. GAH! I was so embarrassed. She told the crowd that I travelled three hours to come to the event. Minutes before that though, a lady from NEW DAMN JERSEY posed a question about where to go for drinks in the area - the room laughed loudly at that one, and Laurie directed the response to be given by an apparent 'known to drink knitter' from her SnB group instead.
There was a TON of laughing and a good time was definately had by all.
When the talking portion was over, the book signing part started. I almost didn't get in line, but I decided it would be goddamn dumb to go all this way and succumb to my shyness by not meeting her face-to-face. Upon my turn, she gave me a hug and asked me if the trip was worth it. Oh hell yeah it was! She signed my book, took my little gift bag, (and here walks up The Mike in the middle and I'm thinking GET OUT OF HERE!) and she said hello to him. She even asked Faith to take our picture together and said she'd blog it. That's the only picture I'll have of proof, if I ever get to see it. I'll have the memory though. She said she flying out at midnight that night to get to her next stop on the tour.
I'm sure Drew
(The Crochet Dude) took good care of her on that leg of the journey.
Unfortunately, the fun was over for me as I had to get my ass on the road and home! We got back to the car and I donned my 'travelling' shoes for the long ride home:
Here's a not so great picture showing a really great thing: Laurie's friend Faith, watching over the book signing from the sidelines. She had the biggest grin on her face the entire event! She was obviously proud of her friend.
It wouldn't be an L.A. trip without some traffic. Although the drive down was pretty clear, we hit a snarl about 9:30 that night, just before Valencia. Bumper-to-fucking-bumper. A perfect reminder of why I'm so glad I don't live there anymore.
And finally - almost home:
If I figure out how to post video - that'll be next. Laurie's reading and The Mike's singing.
Link to the entire flickr album set
No comments:
Post a Comment