It's soooo cooold in LA at the moment. And today, it rained! I packed entirely inappropriately for such a climate and am wearing the warmest outfit I have, which is unfortunately shorts and a t-shirt. Brrrr. Unfortunate for me, because I'm not warm, unfortunate for those around me because I've been wearing the same thing for days.
It's awesome, hanging out with Tom and Bambi - they're both excellent company and it's a real treat for me to hang with them and Maxy all together.
Tom had to work yesterday, at the frame-making workshop, so Bam kindly drove Max and I around the area. Again, we did lots that I did when I was here in the summer, but I didn't mind at all, because I really like LA now and it was nice to show familiar things to Max. So we hit Venice pier and Abbott Kinney, the cool street of shops that's like a fancy Chiswick High Street.
We swung by Tom's workshop to see where he worked and meet his crazy colleague who's covered in tattoos of monkeys. I made the mistake of making a 'get the monkey off your back' joke, only to have him say that he did that few years ago, when he got clean from heroin. Whoops.
We whisked Tom off for lunch at a nearby Chinese, before dropping him back at work and heading to the lovely Landmark cinema (with ushers! and sofas!) to see 'Slumdog Millionaire', to escape the pouring rain.
I really loved the movie. It was a great story and the child actors were adorable. And I thought 
Danny Boyle did a great job, making Mumbai larger-than-life, such that I could almost feel the heat and smell the smells of the streets and slums the camera was dashing through. The soundtrack was awesome, too.
Max and I were a bit on edge throughout, because the actor playing the lead - Dev Patel - is easily the worst and most wooden thing in 'Skins' - a Channel 4 series - and we weren't looking forward to watching him carry a film. But fortunately he didn't have much to do, so didn't spoil it for us. The guy playing the host of 'Who Wants To Be A Millionaire' was hilarious - who wants to be... a millinaaaire?!
Last night, Tom and Bam treated us to Mexican at El Cholo - a restaurant they took me to in the summer and whose prawn fajitas I'd been dreaming about ever since. Mmmmm, SO good!
Over dinner, Tom and Bam compiled a list for us of cool old movies featuring women with moxie, that they think we'd enjoy. It was really fun, hearing all the crazy plots and watching them debate which films were worth putting on the list and I can't wait to start ordering them from NetFlix.
The whole conversation got me to thinking - the gift of knowledge really shouldn't be underestimated - that list that Tom and Bam have given us is going to last much longer than any Christmas present they could give us. I wonder if I could persuade my family that we should just give each other the gift of knowledge this year...!
Tom took today off work and the four of us spent this morning on a hazardous adventure, into the Projects of Watts, to see the Watts Towers. Bambi was not on board with this whole endeavour from the outset: she's lived here her whole life and there's a reason that she's never been to that part of town.
Tom resisted the temptation to put the roof of his car down and blast out gangsta rap, but we were very excited to see real life crack whores and 'street hoppers' on the corner of one street, just like in 'The Wire'! We also saw a huge funeral parade crawling down the other side of the road, and a man zooming along the street in a wheelchair, which Bam said was most probably because he'd been shot.
I thought the Watts Towers were going to be gigantic, and perhaps two big tower blocks in the middle of an estate that were now considered cool, like the Trellick Tower in London. But they're kind of small (and once was in scaffolding). They were built over 33 years by a crazy guy, who decorated them with 'found objects' like bits of bottles and plates. There are all sorts of sad stories surrouding them, like neighbours vandalising them, the local authorities trying to tear them down and someone pay $3 or something for them. But now they're officially a National Historical Landmark.
As such, if Watts is really that bad, the bad people are really missing a trick by not hanging out nearby to steal nice cameras from tourists! Perhaps they're out when the weather's nicer, because it was really bleak and wet this morning.
Bam was very happy when we finally beat a hasty retreat out of the 'hood and the four of us went our separate ways this afternoon: Bambi and I sat in static traffic to get to the Valley to go for lunch with Bam's best friend Julia and her little girl Zola, while Tom and Maxy went record shopping at Amoeba.
On our way back to the flat, Bambi needed to pick up a pie for Thanksgiving tomorrow, so swung by the bakery she'd put an order in with, only to find a huge queue stretching all the way around the block! So we sped off and got an apple pie from the supermarket instead!
For supper, we met another friend of Bambi's - Patty - for deliiiicious Korean barbecue. Mmm, it was a feast of meat! Patty is Korean, so ordered us all the best stuff and I was stuffed by the time we left. I hope I have room for some yams and turkey tomorrow!
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