left coast

I left the east coast yesterday after several weeks of fabulous fun with my mom at the farm, cleaning and organizing the barn, getting caught up on reality tv, visiting friends, playing cards, going through old college papers and becoming a Godmother to my beautiful neice, Kaitlyn.

I had not seen Mark in nearly 6 weeks and was v. excited to reconnect with him while he was on business in LA. Being the fabulous 'surprise-r' that he is, he booked a great hotel in Santa Monica, right down the street from one of his best friends and kept it a secret from me. I arrived yesterday afternoon and was greeted at the airport by Rhonda, a limo driver who took me to the gorgeous Fairmont Miramar Hotel right on the beach.

She was the second interesting person who I had met within an hour of arriving in LA. The first was a guy named Erik I sat next to on the plane who was coming to town for a voice over convention. He gave me some great info and I'm looking forward to reconnecting with him when I get back to Zurich and start setting up my home studio.

Rhonda was on a chatty roll when I got into the car and continued the entire way to the hotel. She is an actor and sometimes limo driver because the insurance she gets through the limo company pays for 4 rounds of IFV (in vitro fertilization) and she and her husband have been trying to have a baby for a few years now. She had lots of advice for me on the subject and, urged that I freeze my eggs just in case - she wishes she had when she was younger...(she's now 45)

When she asked me where I was coming from and heard me say, NH, she said she had been to Nashua and Exeter. Then she added, "ooh - is the Flume in NH or Maine?" I told her NH, and she informed me that she tells everyone who she drives and that talks about New England to check out the Flume - she said it was one of the coolest things she had ever seen. (I'll have to let my friends at the state know the source of the likely increase in traffic at this tourist spot..)

Rhonda dropped me off and I checked in was shown to our v. own little bungalow. Really, really great. No sooner had I started unpacking and jumped in the shower than came a knock at the door. I ignored it, assuming it was room service. Then the phone rang. In the bathroom. I reached out of the shower to pick it up and it was Mark. He was outside the door, without a key and had to jump onto a conference call immediately. Bummer.

I let him in, gave him a quick kiss, returned to the shower and finished rinsing off, threw on a robe and sat on the bed reading the paper for the next almost hour trying not to distract him. Not easy!

We had a great dinner at a downtown sushi place - only $58 for 3 of us with lots of sushi, beer and green tea ice cream! What a bargain. We were almost an hour late, as we decided to follow the navigation system in the Prius that M. had rented instead of the directions Kyle had given us...Ooops. But it was a good people/architecture watching adventure.

Mark had to go to the office in Northridge today so I took a walk to explore the neighborhood. I wanted to hit a drug store so I asked a guy on the street, who (shockingly... ha) turned out to be an actor/writer. He steered me in the right direction and walked with me for about 5 blocks. He has written a play that is being produced right now at a little theatre called The Miles Memorial Playhouse. He asked if I was an actor. It was weird, especially as I had already told him I was only visiting LA from Switzerland. So I told him I was v. famous in NH and left it at that. Ha.

Now I'm back in the bungalow waiting for my handsome husband to get back so we can go down to the Pier and hit the beach.