a birthday!

one of my bestest friends is celebrating her birthday this week! i knew i wanted to do something really fun for her, so i quickly set aside the saturday before her birthday so that she and i could go somewhere and just do what we wanted for a day. so glad it worked out! i knew i wanted to take her to los angeles to do some things so i made out a list of things that i thought she might like to do, most of which i wanted to make sure she hadn't done before. the second of these activities? the fabric district!!!! still jumping for joy that we went. next time though...it might be prudent to look at the calendar and make sure it's not yom kippur. because of this jewish spiritual day, about 80% of the fabric shops were not even open. at first i was confused, thinking, "i know this is where they are", which then made me think i was lost and in the wrong area. nope. i was in the right area (i'd been there before!), they were all closed. luckily micheal levine was open! hallelujah! as was his lovely upholstery shop. can you guess which fabric print above i couldn't live without? (wink)

so other than the fabric district we ate breakfast at the waffle, visited the site of crumbs, without much luck...thank you yom kippur. next time i will eat one (or many) of those cupcakes!

next was santa monica! nina had never been to the pier, so we had to do that. it's always such an experience. i can't help but channel jim morrison when i'm there. after reading the doors story as a teen, i had a slight obsession with jim and the band. venice beach and santa monica hold particular regard for me because of them.

there are all kinds of street performers, some pretty good, some embarrassing, and others impressive. this reggae-inspired buddy got some pretty fanciful bass tunes stuck in our heads. not sure that i understood anything he sang, but i liked it!

the pier

i know i'm a little strange. this picture may be proof.

i love taking pictures of random people. call it....photojournalism. yeah.

i think it's just their stance and the way they're looking at each other that i couldn't resist.

(and no, there's no baby between them that they're keeping warm. i thought there was at first, but nina showed me the light)

then there was the circus act set-up, although nothing exciting really occurred while we were there. they just teased us by standing up there looking like they were going to.