Happy Halloweener!

It's only been a few days, so my brain has yet to process all of the awesomeness of Halloween.

We headed up early to Adam's house, before the streets were closed off for the Halloween Carnival (technically it is spelled carnaval, but that spelling makes spell check angry, so I'm changing it. Sorry, WeHo.) which is a gigantic shindig in West Hollywood, where they were expecting something like 250,000 people. GOOD TIMES. They close down a gigantic section of Santa Monica Blvd. (which is the end part of route 66) and there are just PEOPLE EVERYWHERE.

So. We got to Adam's house, starved as usual, and we walked over to Hamburger Mary's for the BEST fried macaroni-n-cheese I've ever tasted. Ever. I am drooling just thinking about it. Since we had the fried MnC for appetizers, I didn't order the mac-n-cheese BURGER although I definitely am next time. Our waiter was dressed as Hamburger Mary, but it was awkward because in West Hollywood, you can't assume that a man in a dress is in costume. Although, in fairness, he was not trying to disguise his voice so I think it was a costume.

After pigging out, we stopped by a thrift store that is also on Santa Monica to pick up accessories for Adam's costume. Since he's in the process of moving, most of his worldly possessions are in boxes and thus he did not have even a plain white t-shirt to use for costuming. Lady Luck (and Scooby too!) smiled upon us and we found the PERFECT shirting combination and the clerk at the shop even found a red scarf for us. Kismet. While Adam was waiting to pay for his costume ($6 total!) another Fred ran into the shop, spying Kate already dressed as Daphne and asked to take a picture with her. Of course she did, and I love how Adam is just barely in frame and making a face at this "other Fred" in this picture. HA!



So now we all had costumes and full bellies, so we went back to ol' Ten Eleven (Adam's house) to watch some Halloween movies. Kate brought Mad Monster Party which is an old claymation movie that was pretty funny, but she warned us that it only is funny up to a point and then you just want to smash all the little clay Boris Karloffs. So we shut it off and instead watched Little Shop of Horrors which I hadn't seen in forever. I love that movie, and I forgot how much I really loved it. And, it is double awesome that this is the movie/play that gave the composers enough cache to go on and make THE LITTLE MERMAID and ALADDIN. Ha ha! And it also has Ellen Greene who you are probably adoring on Pushing Daisies. And Steve Martin as the crazy dentist (hilarious song!)! LOVE LOVE LOVE.

After the movie, we all costumed up and hit The Boulevard to take it all in. It was amazing. And, of course, my new camera's battery died part way through the evening so I only took about 50 pictures. Which is a decent amount for anyone else, but I missed getting pictures of SO MANY good costumes!






I think we did pretty well with our Scooby Crew costumes. They were inexpensive. They were comfortable. They were fun. We had people yelling out of car windows and stopping us on the street for pictures. We got cat called and hollered and hooted at. Mostly people saying "LOOK! It's Scooby Doo!" Only a few people inquired about the whereabouts of our dog, Scooby (official story: he's missing, which allowed us to yell "Scooby Dooby Doo - where are you?!")

After about an hour of people watching, we had to head back for the final installment of Kate's weekly improv soap opera, Scandal! We were all quietly hoping that nobody showed up so that they would have to cancel the show and we could get back to Halloweener faster. Instead, it was a packed house. Kate, as always, was brilliant. Her character, Tiffany Spacey, had a crazy twist ending that refused to end. So fun!

Before the show, Ryan, Adam, and I ran over to the Grove to pick up a gift certificate and encountered another Velma! I didn't get a picture of her (dead batteries) which I should have. DANG! She saw us and started yelling "Jinkies! Jinkies!" and we stopped and chatted for a minute. Apparently, she was flying solo without a Scooby Crew. Since Velma was already spoken for (ahem), we had to leave her where we found her. Ah, well.

So then AFTER Kate's show, we headed back to The Boulevard, only to find that Jake's friend had locked her keys in her car with the engine running. And instead of calling AAA, the boys were taking turns playing McGyver and trying to open the door handle using a coat hanger. Crazily enough, it worked! It took them about an hour and a half to do it, but they did! And Jake was too young to even get all the McGyver references. YOUTHS! So Rachel got off safely and we decided to get some grub instead of battling the onslaught of insane drunkenness that was coming back down the Blvd. We decided to hit the French Market for some middle-of-the-night dinner and on our way we saw 3 fights. The first was some guy who had just LOST his mind and was ranting and raving about how he pays with Republican dollars and was standing 3 inches from our faces while waving around dollar bills. His girlfriend finally pulled him along and he started taking swings before stumbling down the wrong street and she chased after him. After crossing the intersection, we saw a woman who was beating the tar out of the man who was driving (in a Corvette) and when he put his hands up to block her, she yanked the keys from the ignition. He finally found the keys (while she is slapping and pulling on his hair) and was able to drive off. FUN! And then we hear a bit of a scuffle starting to happen, so Kate and I duck into the restaurant to avoid it and then the boys don't come. After a few minutes, they show up, because they heard something. It was a woman screaming "Help me! Help me!" and they dashed into a darkened alley, only to see this woman who was obviously homeless smashing some guy's head into the bricks. They all kind of stalled right there and someone yelled "the cops are here!" so they let the boys in blue handle it.

It was now 4am and the party was still in full swing, although the party goers should have stopped hours ago and the whole vibe just wasn't fun anymore, so we turned toward home. We changed into comfy pajamas and started chit chatting (a large air mattress in the middle of a living room makes for a great slumber party, BTW) and poor Adam was so tired (only having slept about 3 hours the night before) that he was fading fast and the rest of us were still chipper, so we decided to drive home. I was awake enough for it and it was better to let everyone sleep in and not worry about stepping over guests.

We got home pretty quick and were glad/surprised that Ruckus didn't seem to have missed us at all. We'd felt guilty leaving him, thinking we'd be gone overnight, but he didn't care much. C'est la vie.

<--- rewind <---- rewind

Since this Friday will be chock full of toilet scrubbing and general house prep for Shaina's graduation party, I will have no good stories to post. So instead, we rewind to last Friday...

My work computer is having some hiccups and so I called desk-side support and the closest available tech group is in Glendale, which is like 75 miles away from here, north of LA. So I took the afternoon to drive up there (2.5 hours, thank you very much) and even though the guy was unhelpful to a startling degree, I was able to swing back through LA to spend the night with my peoples.

Driving through LA is awesome. Yeah, it's trafficky and overwhelming, but you can see the most fantastic stuff on the streets.




I met up with Adam at his house and was able to get the #1 Grade A Primo parking space and then he and I set off in search of sheet music for his sister's wedding. I was frankly surprised that there was such a thing as a sheet music store but lo and behold, there it was. And it was practically empty. But don't despair, they had the Doogie Howser MD theme song music (whew).



The store owner was NO help (a theme!) and was incredibly bitter about "this is the way the world is now! You pay me and I'll download the sheet music for you." Sorry flagging sheet music business, but no thanks. We didn't find anything useful, so we left and Adam pointed at the radio and proclaimed it His Day in Music. Indie 103.1 can be VERY hit or miss (it's "indie" because the staff can play whatever they want, which can be a tribal song or a polka classic) but Friday was Adam's Day and they played favorite after favorite. As we got in the car they played [I swear] 3 good tunes in a row. That's when we knew that Adam was channeling The Secret and so we had to press forward. He asked if I'd be up for sneaking a pre-dinner cupcake (pshaw!) and we agreed that Sprinkles is the biggest rip-off perpetrated on bakery fans since... I dunno? Foccaccia? Don't buy the hype! They're NOT THAT GOOD! So we went to a tried and true cupcake spot - Joan's on Third.

We were meeting Ryan and Kate at a restaurant for dinner, but we still had about 20 minutes so we decided to go for the gluttony and sneak in a cupcake with the full knowledge that we would be caught. We had a brief moment of guilt and so Adam decided that we'd drive by and if there was a parking spot directly in front of Joan's then we would go in. We pulled up and got THE BEST spot, right in front of the door and it had money on the meter! A sign!

The selection at Joan's is to die for. I chose a chocolate cupcake with maple frosting -- and not JUST maple, but maple marshmallow. Adam went more conservative and chose a vanilla cupcake with raspberry filling topped with raspberry chocolate curls on top.




We were giddy about the whole thing and decided that the crumbs would fall where they may and we'd leave them. In our hair, on our clothes, in the car - who cares? I guess it was the thrill of being caught. ha ha! Only Ryan called while I was ordering my cupcake and he had missed his bus and then "wait - did you just say chocolate maple? What are you doing?" Whoops! So we jumped in the car and started greedily shoveling cake into our faces and Kate sent a text saying she was at the restaurant. Whoops! Adam dropped me off at my car, so I could go meet Kate and he jetted down the street to pick up Ryan. As I was getting in my car, the whole lid of my cupcake fell off into the street. I actually yelled (!) my disappointment. All that glorious marshmallow gone to waste! And through some miracle of geometric physics and spatial equations it flew out of the car and not a drop landed on the interior. I shoved the whole cupcake stump into my mouth and ate like a banshee. It was awesome.

I headed over to Lala's to meet Kate and we noticed that next door to the restaurant was the fanciest bong store in the world. We had to stop and peek in the windows because it was like an arthouse. Glass floating shelves, tasteful spot lighting. It was like a modern art piece reflecting society's posh treatment of drug abuse. Or something. In any case, it was funny. Then the boys came wandering over fresh from their awesome parking spot (see? The Secret works!) and we headed inside to gorge ourselves on Provaleta, which is melted provolone cheese in a hot hot skillet. See how the underside gets all cooked and brown? And the top part is stringy melty goodness? Heaven in a cast iron.




After overfilling ourselves with fresh bread and chimmichurri, we headed over to the Upright Citizens Brigade Theatre to see Freak Dance: The Forbidden Dirty Boogaloo which is a comedy musical that takes you down to the streets, where dancing is what dancing is all about! It was FANTASTIC. Even though Matt Besser didn't perform, we all laughed until we nearly barfed. Seriously, really, very very good. Check out a video of the dance-off on YouTube. After a brief intermission, we headed back inside for the Match Game Live! featuring several of my favorite current comedians (Paul F. Tompkins, I love you! Paul Scheer don't run away from me!) AND a bonus: Matt Walsh and his moustache! The comedians were awesome, even though the contestants were duds. We laughed so much. Paul F. Tompkins! I love you!

After the show, we were hanging outside chatting (surprise!) and being spied on by the Briantologists and secretly spying on Matt Walsh standing behind us. When he turned to say hello, I bum rushed him with the camera. I neglected the flash, so here's our blurry little souvenier (hi moustache!) from the night.