RBK -- A Tonic for the Soul

So, thanks for all your commentary on my Paddle to the Sea post. Thankfully, Paddle is still around at my folks' place, and will be making his way out here. Maybe I should make a smaller one and send it to New Jersey, New York, Maine, Florida, England, Nigeria...

So here's why I haven't been posting: My Robyn was here!

Robyn is one of our favorite human beings in the world. Imagine if your best girl friend marries your other best girl friend and they end up having three kids whom your children adore? And they have an amazing extended family that welcome you to Seders and birthdays and just everyday weekday dinners when you are just about to explode from parenting? And then, when you move across the country, calls you all the time, sends letters and artwork from the kids, overnights bagels for a party, and is the first non-grandparent to visit us?

That's my Robyn. She is one of my dearest friends,  and she and her wife Sarah are The Goose's godmothers. (I'll write a post about how much I love Sarah someday.)

Robyn got off the plane, took Lucy out for a bike ride, and then voluntarily sat down with Oscar and cajoled him into finishing his homework. She has three of her own children that she needs to force into homework every day, and one of the first things she does is charm Oscar into finishing his. The woman is a saint.

On Friday, we puttered. Dropped Lucy off at her school, which totally charmed Robyn. Have I mentioned how awesome our preschool is? Evan took Robyn on a tour of the DC Entertainment offices (which I am unable to depict on my blog, but believe you me, is a awesome and fantastically designed office that contains pinball machines, superhero costumes containing the sweat from famous folks, and groupings of chairs that individually cost more than both of our cars put together). They went over to the WB Lot and he took her for the family-and-friends behind-the-scenes tour and they had lunch at the commissary. She was enchanted.

On Saturday, we went to the farmer's market. Her other California friends had insisted that she visit one, and Oscar and I were happy to oblige. (We made her stand on the egg line.)

There's a new guy at the farmer's market: LA Funghi.  He fed us lots of samples of weird and wonderful mushrooms and we bought these glorious 'shrooms:

We had lunch at Bob's Big Boy, of course.

Home for a nap, and then The Goose, Robyn and I took off downtown. We went to the Fashion Institute of Design and Merchandising Museum to see the Oscar nominated costumes. It was a great show and it was free!

This was the only picture I took of the costumes before I was told that I couldn't take pictures. That glorious orange dress? That's what Peppy was wearing when she was introduced in The Artist. The costumes from The Immortals, WE, and Real Steel (really!) were just awe-inspiring. 

The FIDM is a beautiful campus surrounded by a park and beautiful buildings.

 The park had a bunch of adult exercise machines which Robyn assured me is par for the course in Chinese parks. They were pretty cool.

 Los Angeles has awesome playgrounds.

And awesome buildings.

 And awesome interactive fountains. Seriously, this kind of architecture is par for the course out here. My eyes ache for traditional, 200-year-old colonial houses, but I love all the modern architecture out here.

And a random bronze snake sculpture.

We hit some traffic on the way home so we decided to detour through Hollywood.

If you peer into the background, you'll see the Hollywood sign back there. Robyn got genuinely teared up when she saw it. I remember that I did the same my first time. It's such a cultural touchstone that you don't really believe exists until you see it for the first time.  

 Here's Robyn at the top of the stairs at the Kodak theater. Below her is the red carpet (covered by plastic) that the stars would walk in less than 24 hours.

 

 Seeing the Kodak Theater any day is exciting. Seeing it the day before the Oscars? Thrilling.

Saturday night, we engaged a babysitter and met Robyn's friend John in Little Ethiopia. Boy, do we miss Ethiopian food. We had an amazing feast and Robyn crashed with John for the evening.




Next morning: the beach!

The beach was the only request that Robyn made for her visit. She is such a New Jersey beach girl, and she had never dipped her toes in the Pacific. So we went to the Santa Monica Pier. 

 You don't think I'd go to the beach and not take cute pictures of the kids, right?

 This is what Evan does on the beach trips. He's not a swimmer. He supervises at the camp.

 Thank goodness for big brothers.

Freckles. Red hair. Blue eyes. Is it any wonder that my Post Postpartum Depression convinced me that they handed me the wrong baby? Luckily (depending on how you look at it) the Goose has grown into her face. Which is my face. Poor Goose.

 Oscar reads, Robyn reminds everyone in snowy, cold New Jersey that she is on the beach in sunny California, and the Santa Monica Pier is in the background.

What does a New Jersey girl do on the pier?

 Skeeball.

Robyn and our kids. They couldn't love her more.

A rare picture of your humble narrator. Notice how I artfully cropped my gigantic butt out of this photo? FOURS AND A HALF YEARS OF ART SCHOOL, PEOPLE! Money well spent, Mom and Dad.

We made our way home and watched the Oscars. Robyn has spent nearly every awards show over at our house for years, and it was a lucky coincidence that she'd booked her visit during the Oscars.  Evan and I have a family tradition of eating too much rich food and drinking too much champagne while watching award shows, and Robyn fits into that tradition perfectly.

Here's the funny thing about the Oscars: they start at 3:30 here. The actual show starts at 5:30. Evan suggested that we watch the red carpet coverage after the award to stay closer to real-time, and we both looked at him as if he was insane.

Here's Robyn trying to get the boys to bed.

She was unsuccessful. The kids watched the Smurfs in our bedroom for the first hour or so, and then the boys joined us for the bulk of the show.

Oscar Feast. Very Mediterranean, since Robyn and I were swayed by the stoner boys selling pitas and hummus at the farmer's market.

Best dressed: Octavia Spencer. Best styled: Viola Davis with her natural hair, which let those gorgeous eyes shine out. Worst hairpiece: Rooney Mara. Best on the Red Carpet: Tina Fey.

Worst plastic surgery: everybody. Sheesh. Seriously, what's up with that duck lip everyone had? and I'm not the first person to say this, but ladies? EAT. A. SANDWICH.

Monday morning, we dropped off the boys at school and puttered around Magnolia Park. We stopped in Rocket Fizz, the coolest candy store I'm thrilled that my boys don't know exist.  We went across the street to It's A Wrap, a secondhand store that specializes in clothes from the studios. Lucy found some shoes that she liked.

She walked better than both Robyn and I in them. We stocked up on pastries and sandwiches for Robyn's plane ride at Portos.

And then, as quickly as she came, our Robyn was off, back to New Jersey. We all were invigorated by her visit. Shouldn't you book your trip here today?