Sunday Extravaganza

After a week in snowy Ohio of cosiness and lots of sleep and celebration, I was ready for some outdoor activity and yesterday, fit the bill fo sho.

The day started out with a trail walk at 7:30am with Kels and then I headed out to LA to pick up Paige-poo for brunch at the Omelette Parlor. Paige got the waffles (which were so incredibly good) and sides, and I had the California Benedict with pesto, avocado, and hollandaise - yum! Also the service was great and it is such a great spot for a Sunday brunch on the patio.

After that, we picked up an iced americano at Groundworks. Groundworks is a sweet, small space with organic coffee and beans and a wide variety of teas. I need to go back to do some more taste-tasting. The iced Americano was extremely smooth and perfectly made; I'll have to take Rob there when he comes down again. We then perused the farmer's market, where we saw some goats, newborn twins, and lots of doggies.

At 12:30, we met up with G at YogaPoser at Fred Segal. G and I got a legit GroupOn for this new little studio - 20 classes for $20. AMAZING. It was a foundations course and it was good to be reminded of my alignment and position to make sure I make the most out of my yoga practice. It was much more upper body strength orientated with downward dogs and chaturangas, the latter having always been my weakness. Since I've been doing mostly Bikram which has less inverted poses and also warms up your body for you, it was refreshing to go back a yoga I haven't done in a while. Certainly excited to go back.

After yoga, G, Paige, and I picked up our fourth musketeer, Steph at her apt, and we hightailed it over to Mandeville Canyon, which was a hike recommended by my former boss/bffl/hiking extraordinaire Rox. It is a four mile hike with an elevation of 1000 ft and it has the MOST GORGEOUS views of LA. Plus, it was a relatively clear day, so it was even more breath-taking. Def doing it again and maybe taking the pups :-)

Shit Girls Do: take yoga posing photos on hilltops.





After dropping off the amigitas, Paige and I realized we were starving and hit up Hikari Sushi in Santa Monica for some rolls, including the crunchy philly roll, the hot night roll, the spider roll and one more that i can't remember that we inhaled because we were ravenous. Literally, we polished off that meal in about 6 minutes.

We wandered around for a bit at the must-sees, i.e. VS for their semi-annual sale and then Anthro of course. And were about to head home when wer saw that that LAEMMELE, the indie movie theater on Second Street, was showing the new Michael Fassbender/Carey Mulligan movie about sex addiction, AND it was student night. Obviously we had to take advantage so we bought tickets. Since we had an hour to kill, we went to the Ye Old King's Head, where we indulged in the Santa Monica Pale Ale, extremely refreshing, and a Nicaraguan tourist regaled us with stories of why boys are stupid.

And our night was really just beginning. After finishing our beers, we watched the highly intense, extremely well-acted, and beautifully shot "Shame." I def wasn't prepared for the seriousness of the film, but it is def a movie to see. Then Paige and I went to the bathroom, where we (no big deal), ran into Freida Pinto from Slumdog Millionaire and then outside, met Dev Patel, also from the movie and Freida's real-life bf. Notes on this: Dev Patel is adorable and way taller than I expected. Freida has the most amazing skin and is also the tiniest person I've ever seen. I almost died/brown pride/holy shit.

Then I drove Paige home and collapsed into bed and woke up this morning feeling sore and happy. A good day, my friends, a very good day.