My first big fat celebrity event...

I've mentioned on the blog a few times that I volunteer with an organisation called Baby2Baby, and Saturday was the Huggies sponsored Garden Party, which was in celebration of the fact Huggies have donated one million diapers to families in need in Los Angeles.

This preparation for this thing was NUTS. I went in to Baby2Baby a few times through the week (on one of these days, in a completely unrelated event, I met Jessica Alba, who is lovely and was lugging boxes around like a total champ, despite the fact she is the tiniest person I have ever encountered.) We were busy sorting and moving boxes and writing labels and all sorts through the week. The tension was definitely building, and Wednesday was pretty stressful. Thankfully, by Thursday things were a whole lot calmer and our outfits had been compared and everyone was happy and excited.

I arrived at a beautiful house in 90210 (Beverly Hills is actually a 5 minute drive from my house. This is hilarious to me) and I was decidedly nervous about fitting in to a high-flying crowd. I'm a 'jeans and flip flops' kind of girl, rather than 'fancy Beverly Hills Garden Party' type. As it was, I needn't have worried. Everyone was friendly and the sun was shining and the gorgeous garden looked so magical.

I was on the craft table. This will come as no surprise to you if you know me well. I love a good craft activity. We were making clay hand prints and mini-terrariums as Mother's Day gifts*. It was such good fun, and the kids were all adorable in their fanciest finery (which I helped cover in paint.) Some naming highlights included a 'Sheriff', a 'Rome', 'Camp' and more than one 'Stryker'.

There were a whole lot of celebrities. Like, everywhere you looked. Sadly, I didn't really know who half of them were, cause I only watch New Girl, Criminal Minds, baseball and basketball, but the twitter feed was pretty helpful for sussing it out! Since I only talked to a few of them, and mostly just watched them, and everyone always wants to know what they were 'like', I decided to make some snap judgements.

Most Dedicated Mum

Ellen Pompeo with her ADORABLE little girl Stella. She spent an absolute age making crafts with her daughter, and had no interest in anything or anyone else. It was so sweet to watch.

Ellen Pompeo with her wee girl (source)

Most enormously pregnant on a hot day

Poor Busy Phillips. By lunchtime it was so freakin' hot we were all dying. None of us were 8 months pregnant. Her daughter was super cute and she spent a lot of the morning giving interviews about her work with Baby2Baby, which was very sweet of her because I'd have sat with my feet in the pool and demanded people bring my Ice-cream if I were her.

Busy Phillips and Sarah Chalke (source)

Most amazing laugh

Sarah Chalke, aka Elliot from Scrubs. She is super elegant and lady like (with much darker hair these days) but with this big honking laugh that made me snigger. She also played basketball with her son in 7 inch heels, like a proper trooper.

One I stared at not knowing who she was

I was really grateful that I could wear sunglasses since I had this habit of staring at people in a 'do I know you?' kind of way, to which the answer was invariably no, you're on TV. The one I properly had that feeling with was Sasha Alexander, who was Pacey's sister in Dawson's Creek, or if you've watched TV since 1999, is currently in Rizzoli and Isles, which, as I'm sure you've guessed, I don't watch.

I didn't take any pictures, since the camera on my phone is rotten and I didn't bring my camera.Instead, I'm using Paparazzi shots from the internet. I did take a picture with my Baby2Baby friends in front of the screen- once I get a copy I will post it for hilarity value. All in, I had a really lovely afternoon. The food was amazing, the crafts were fun and the whole event helped raise awareness of the awesome work Baby2Baby does, something I am really proud to be part of. Now we just need to start planning for the summer event...

*Mother's Day in the US is on the 12th of May. I feel very smug that my mum already has her card and I don't have to panic about it...

My favourite places...

I'm back! Having been so super unwell, the thought of blogging was just too much. But I am now back, madly topping up my tan in preparation for my trip back home, sleeping a lot and eating out in an attempt to put back some of the insane amount of weight I lost. 

I thought I'd update you on some of the new places we've discovered recently, all pretty famous in LA but new to us! 

Milo + Olive

I went to this bakery in Santa Monica for my friend Hillary's birthday breakfast, and it was delicious. I took husband this morning for some cake and coffee, and it did not disappoint. It's pretty pricey, but you can see into the open kitchen and see for yourself how much care and attention is put into the food. We were pretty amazed to watch one of the chef's hand cubing cheese to go on the pizza. Perfect.

The Omelette Parlour

Another Santa Monica staple, this looks a bit like a twee tea shop from the outside, and we had walked past it before. We were desperate for breakfast on Main Street one day and had the most amazing breakfast sitting out on the gorgeous patio. We were instantly sold. The portions are ENORMOUS and fed husband for about 3 days, and it was the price as a diner like Denny's. New favourite breakfast spot for sure.

The Apple Pan

I just happened to come across a show on the Food Network a few weeks ago about the best burgers in LA. The Apple Pan was the host's favourite, and it is really close to where we live, so we had to check it out. It is seriously old by LA standards, and they have been serving the same burger since 1927. It's cash only (unheard of in LA) and the staff have worked there forever (and average of 35 years...) The burger was delicious. It had a whole lot of really delicious sweet relish on it, which is normally not my thing at all, but I was totally sold.Husband had a Hickory burger (only been on the menu since 1947- amateur) and he was a BIG fan. Finished off with the biggest portion of apple pie ever, we were so excited to find such an awesome spot nearby.

It's hard when people are visiting to know where to take them- we want something uniquely LA and seem to forget all our awesome local spots in the planning. We will definitely be taking our friends to some of these places in the summer. Can't wait for guests!

M I A

Sorry it's been a while, I've been ill. Proper, gut-wrenching will-it-ever-stop vomity ill. I ended spending the whole of Saturday in the ER getting IV fluids and antibiotics and anti-sickness meds to get it under control. I'm definitely starting to feel better, but it's going to take a bit of time to recover. 

In the meantime, you should watch this, created by my brother's mate Jordan, who works in advertising. I woke up singing it this morning...

Cat Tales

It's 8.30 in the morning, and already this day has been nuts. I'll start with the lovely surprise of finding some of our wedding pics on East Side Bride this morning (I think my bestie Jen finally thinks I'm cool. She should stop reading now though because the rest of this post will change her mind back...) Kirsty has written the best guide to (getting married in) Edinburgh I've read in ages, and I have realised I've not eaten in a single one of the restaurants she's recommended so shall have to rectify that straight away. It made me super homesick- I love how quirky and interesting things in Edinburgh are. Even the Starbucks' are squished into the original architecture of the city. I am SO excited about my trip home in a mere 6 weeks!

Anyway, this post is about my morning, which has largely centred around Joan. We've had her now for 4 months, but it feels longer. She is really odd. Husband keeps reminding me that all cats are weird, but she seems particularly strange. Joan only answers to 'Cat'. Particularly 'Cat' said with an Aberdonian accent (I guess if you say 'coht' you're close...) This is, I'm aware, my own damn fault. But it certainly adds to her quirks. She's pretty violent. Her way of greeting is to bite you in the soft, tender bit of your wrist. She doesn't break the skin, but she does leave a good bruise. We are slightly concerned when we have kids she will treat them as a wriggly chew toy, but we'll cross that bridge when we come to it.

Joan's worst habit is her insistence in getting up (and therefore getting us up) at 6.30 every damn morning. We have been trying to figure out how to keep her from scratching the bedroom door to shreds, and have a pretty complicated system in place. It doesn't work. We have a plastic draft excluder that slides over the door. This was an attempt to stop her putting her paws under and scratching the carpet. It worked, until she figured out she could just pick at the excluder, which would make an unholy noise and eventually drive us out of bed to shut her up. So I used duct tape to stick the excluder to the door. This worked for a few nights, but then she figured out the duct tape was more fun to scratch at than her scratching post, so we were back to step one. Eventually, we discovered the SSSCAT motion detector spray. This is magic and whenever she came close to the door, the spray went off, and she ran.

Eventually, though, she figured out that she could bypass it running through her tunnel, then lying very flat against the door to scratch it. Seriously. We moved the spray around a bit to see if we could get it into a position she couldn't escape. This resulted in disasterous morning number one.

I had woken up early to pee, and went to open the door to let her in. The door wouldn't open. At all. I figured out that the night before, I had stuck the sprayer on to the door with duct tape, and during the night Joan had knocked it over, and it was jammed between the door and the cupboard next to it. Yup, the cat had locked us in our bedroom. Every time I stuck my hand in the gap in the door, Joan would pounce, thinking it was a game. I bashed away trying to move it for ages, and all I managed to do was remove the duct tape, but it didn't shift the sprayer. Eventually the grumpiest husband in the world came over and managed to flick the can away with one move. Disaster (mostly) averted.

This morning, the usual scratching started at 6.30 (she is now just not scared of the sprayer, and ignores it.) At quarter to seven, the scratching went crazy, and I could hear her chewing on something. I opened the door, and she bounced into the room and onto the bed. Everything seemed fine. Until she came over and sat on me. She had managed to get the duct tape completely stuck to her front paw. And she was chewing at it to get it off. I don't know exactly how bad it is for your cat to eat duct tape, but I'm going to presume it's not good. I knew I had to pull the tape off, but equally knew it was going to be the hardest thing ever. I was right. It was wrapped completely around one of her claws. 5 minutes (felt longer) and MANY bites and scratches later, she was unstuck. She jumped around happily for a few minutes, then proceeded to chew at the other paw.

Both feet were duct taped. I laughed out loud. Mother effing cat. The second paw was a LOT harder. It was totally wrapped round, was stuck in the fur, generally just a big sticky nightmare. This one took longer, Joan was even more aggitated and I was grumpier. Thankfully she is free now, and dozing happily in her basket. I am tired and grumpy and ready for a cat-fur handbag. Pet ownership. Just magical.

Where the streets have no name...

I am writing this from the sofa in my PJs, utterly shattered with the smell of bonfire lingering in the living room. This must mean I have been camping. This was our first US camping trip, using the tent we brought over with our tiny amount of shipped furniture. We used to go camping fairly often at home, but honestly the weather prohibits it most of the time, but every so often we would manage a good day or two. 

In order to ensure we wouldn't wake up cold and a bit damp, we decided this time we would  camp in the desert. Quite a few of husband's colleagues are the outdoor types and had recommended Joshua Tree National Park, so I booked a campsite and on Saturday morning we got up early, packed up the car and went. 

Well travelled tent

It's only about 2 and a half hours from west LA to the park, and the sun was shining gloriously the whole time. It was such a strange feeling to put up the tent and unpack everything without panicking that the rain was about to hit or that we had to move fast. It turns out sand and rock are a lot harder to drive tent pegs into the sodden earth, but once we had the tent up it was fine.Keeping the inner door zipped shut to keep out lizards was different to the usual midges, but the lizards are less bitey, so I was a fan.

Once we were unpacked, we decided to check out the Hidden Valley. It was pretty incredible. The desert fascinates me, coming from a country famed for it's greenery. It's the complete opposite of home, and it's so interesting to me. The Joshua Trees (for which the park, and the U2 album are named) are some of the strangest things I've ever seen. It is no surprise that they feature in a Dr Seuss book (The Lorax.) 

The Hidden Valley. Husband cracked his head off this tree and now has a big scab. I hardly laughed at all.

We made it back to the campsite before the sun went down, since we knew it would be cold and very dark, so we wanted the fire going before the temperature dropped. some yummy burgers, badly burnt corn-on-the-cob and hundreds of cups of tea. I had downloaded the radio play of 'Neverwhere' by Neil Gaiman from the Radio 4 podcast, and we listened to it under the stars. This is the reason I love camping. It's not something I ever did growing up, but I love the feeling of being outside, having no where else to go and nothing to do.

After an awesome night's sleep (the fresh air agrees with me) and a delicious breakfast at Denny's in the local town, we headed out to Key's Point, another area of the park. We were able to drive up the mountain and look down over the Coachella Valley (as in the music festival, which is in a few weeks.) The view was incredible, but it was a bit hazy so the pictures on our pocket camera couldn't really give an idea of the scale, but there was just desert as far as we could see. Incredible.

The view from Key's Point, driving through the desert

I was pretty relieved to get home to my cat (she was alone for 24 hours- the longest I've ever left her. She had plenty to eat so didn't care) and a shower. We were both pretty dehydrated and in desperate need of moisturiser. It was so arid in the park that the moisture was just sucked out of your skin. My lips have never been so dry. It wasn't the most pleasant sensation, but honestly, it's still better than the rain!

All in, an amazing weekend, especially since it won't be camping weather at home for at least another 6 months. Shall try not to boast...

The Graffiti Run

Part of the fun in moving to Los Angeles, aside from ditching the rain and snow in favour of glorious sunshine, has been trying new things. Whether that be vegan food (and my first celebrity spot! Queen Latifah at the Urth Cafe in West Hollywood) or just, y'know, getting up quite early. In the spirit of this new sense of adventure, we signed up to do the Graffiti Run. This is basically a 5k where people through packets of coloured powder at you.

Husband read about it in the LA Times, which ran an article saying, basically, 'The LA marathon is on Sunday. This is on Saturday and is was less stressful and way more fun.' We found a half price deal for it on Living Social and that was that. Except the last time I did any kind of distance running was, quite seriously, during Field in 1999. (As a side note, did other schools call 'outdoor' PE 'Field' and only call it PE when it was indoors? Or is this another one of those odd 1950s throw-backs on Paisley Grammar School used, like how we had a Rector instead of a Headmaster?) 

Yup, it has indeed been 14 years since I ran more than a mile at a time. Frightening. With that in mind, we decided to do a bit of training in the week we had between signing up and the race. Essentially, this involved going for a run along the beach in the sunshine a couple of times. As training goes, it's a pretty pleasant way to do it. Beats those poor sods you see with rain dripping off their noses and purple legs running in a florescent waterproof on the Meadows in Edinburgh. Unfortunately this only proved that I get a stitch after about 1.5k and then have to slow down to a fast walk and gasp a bit. It wasn't a very good omen.

Our only pre-dust picture, sunny and clean!

Next thing we knew, it was 6am on Saturday and we had to get up and drive to Pomona, a city about an hour away from where we are in the West of LA. Husband was miserable and grumpy, I was excitable and almost certainly quite irritating. I took a mug of tea with me in the car which gave me just enough caffeine to survive (note to self- must buy travel mug...) whereas husband had refused one, and insisted on listening to NPR discussing the right-wing Republican conference the whole way. It was grey and cloudy and pretty cold. We were ready to kill each other as we sat in the thirty minutes of traffic leading into the car park. When we got out the car, we realised we were amongst the first few thousand people there. We got a sweet parking spot near the action and the sun was starting to shine brightly on a glorious day. Husband went off to find coffee whilst I joined the registration queue. After that, we were both decidedly chipper. Everyone was in a great mood, the atmosphere was awesome and the St. Patrick's day theme made it all the more festive. 

The fact you could buy green beer at the starting line at 8.30am- and believe me people were- made my own lack of athletic ability seem rather less of a problem. There were so many families, babies in prams, kids on scooters (I wish I'd known that was an option...) and young people in wheel chairs being pushed by relatives and friends. People had started throwing powder already. We were in the fourth group to start, so people were already finished. I am seriously proud to announce that I actually ran 3/4 of the 5k, only walking a few times to drink a bottle of water or 3 (WHO are these people who can drink and run?! My chin was the only clean bit of my as I dribbled all over myself.) At the 1k marker, they hit us with red powder. I was COVERED. I've no idea how, but husband was way cleaner than me. As we hit the next markers, I kept building up more and more dust, as he stayed relatively clean, until at the 4k mark a volunteer noticed and just sprayed it directly in his hair. We hit the 5k in a flurry of orange dust. It was really good fun. Despite realising that the family with the 8 year old and baby in a pram that we had started with had beaten us to the finish. 

Same view, different colour

The party atmosphere was brilliant. I slugged some more water as we danced and collected some packets of powder of our own to throw at one another. The amount of green (husband's signature colour) I am covered in shows you that he was better at getting the packet open than I was... When we were done with the party atmosphere/not inclined to get drunk at 10am since we're no longer students, we brushed off the worst of the colour and headed for a McDonalds. Heavenly.

Anyone know how to get dust off a camera lense?!

Husband now thinks we should do some more running. He's talking half marathon. I'm not convinced. I did really enjoy it, but I suspect that was the atmosphere (and the fact it was decidedly non-competitive.) We'll see, shall keep going with the beach runs in the evening since I really am quite lazy and it's nice to watch the sunset and listen to the crashing waves. But running and being timed? I'll have to stop the stitches first. 

International Women's Day

I could write a big, long, ranty post about so many important issues affecting women today.

Instead, I will be spending the whole day covered in dust and grime, sorting out baby equipment and helping social workers find what they need in order to support the poorest women in Los Angeles.

The poor in America are staggeringly poor (if you are in the UK, this is amazing and heartbreaking and awful. You should watch it with a LARGE glass of wine.) In it's essence, Baby 2 Baby is the living embodiment of International Women's Day. It's women, helping other women. Men are welcomed and encouraged but generally our donors, volunteers, social workers and clients are all women. 

Happy International Women's Day. Let's celebrate being kick-ass lady types.