leslie braves the bowels of hollywood

Feeling particularly hermit-y today, but I had put off going out because there is no food in the house (of the cat or human variety) I usually foist this task on James, but since he’s working this weekend, I donned my sunday best and ventured to Trader Joe’s and PetCo on LaBrea&3rd.

I hate going to the grocery store. Perhaps because it is always crowded, or there’s never any parking, or because the people who shop there epitomize Los Angeles (skinny people dressed in their yoga clothes or their vintage clothes that cost hundreds of dollars). Suddenly, whatever I am wearing is wrong. My clothes feel frumpy, my hair is not cute, my favorite, very cool Diesels are no longer very cool.

I get to Trader Joe’s and there is no parking. I squeeze into a spot after waiting for someone to pack up her car and go. I walk inside only to find the doorway jam packed with people standing in the check out line. There are no baskets (I refuse to use a cart because they are impossible to manuever in this small store. Luckily I brought my canvas grocery bag andI start stuffing everything in it. But now, I am only limited to buying the things I can carry in this bag. I am wandering around this store, lost among the crowds, trying to find the damn water and the organic tomatoes! Standing in line, I get a tickle in my throat that causes me to have a coughing fit. When I am alone in a store, I become conscious of what I am looking at. There is nothing for me to do, no one to talk to, so I stare at people, and they catch me, so I stare at the floor. As I am getting to my car, I take out my keys and something falls out of my bag. “Forget it!” I say to myself. I look back to see my lipgloss on the ground, calling my name. But I cannot double back to pick something off the ground. Not when there are 50 cars in line, staring at me, waiting for me to get out.

I finally get the hell out of there and make it across the street to PetCo, where pets go. And this is even worse. I am standing in line holding a 17lb bag of cat litter in one hand and a 5lb bag of cat food in the other, when the handle breaks on the litter and falls to the floor. I now have to stand in line and balance these bags on my hip or on the floor, which makes me half to bend over. The coupon for $2 off I have painstakingly saved is nowhere to be found in my bag. I try to (gracefully) leave the store, back out my car and head for the shelter of my home.

I literally felt like I was running away when I was driving back the tree lined streets up to Beverly. I wanted to take a picture but I neither had my phone or my camera. So there you have it. I know it doesn’t sound all that bad. But I assure you it was. But it had to be done. I love eating too much to wait until midnight when James comes back to eat. And I couldn’t let my babies starve. Ugh, I hate going to the store. Maybe once James reads this he won’t make me go back to that hell hole.

*sigh* My dad’s out of the country so there will be no one to nag me about watching the oscars tonight. No, if you’ll excuse me, I am going to do some chores before crashing into a catatonic state on my couch, with Mr Harry Potter.

musicians are sexy!

and I can say that because I’m married to one.

James and I went to the Wiltern on Wednesday night to see Gomez. I had no idea that Ben Kweller was going to open for them, so it was a nice suprise. I’ve never followed BK, don’t own any of his music or anything, but he was very good. His drummer had more stage presence than he did though.

He had all the right things going for him. I don’t know his name, but he was so cute! He had a great smile (he was constantly laughing it up with Ben and the bassist), he had fabulous style (very 70’s but he owned it) and good energy. There were times you could tell he was a little bored with the drum beats, he was literally doing it with his eyes closed, but he was more interesting to watch than BK (who by the way was wearing a captains hat, covering his eyes, over very very shaggy hair)

cute drummer, bad picture

and ben in the moonlight. What did I tell you about the horrible hat?

We met this woman next to us who was adamant that Ben was from Australia. I thought that was pretty strange, considering during the concert he mentioned that he was born in San Francisco and raised in Texas. So when she made a bet with me *for ice cream* I didn’t hesitate. I won of course; she was thinking of Ben Lee. So, what flavor do I want?

Onto Gomez which was so awesome! To say that I am a huge Gomez fan would be a disservice to all the actual Gomez fans, who came wearing Gomez t-shirts and recited all the lyrics to every single song. I felt so strange. I have never gone to a concert where I’ve only known 2 songs. It felt like there was an inside joke between Gomez and the rest of the audience; everyone’s laughing and I’m just smiling, pretending I know what’s going on. It didn’t help that we were on the floor, 2 inches away from them. So when they looked down, everyone is mouthing the words except me, and James. Note to self, buy more Gomez cd’s. And also read up about them (I had no idea they were from England. From the name of their band and the sound of their voices, I would never have guessed that)

These guys are excellent musicians. For those of you who don’t know them, (myself included) Gomez is a british band of 6 members (3 guitars, 1 bass, 1 percussion and 1 drummer). But they all switch! So, one guy started off playing acoustic guitar, then moved to keyboards, then moved to bass. One guitarist moved to percussion and the percussion guy moved to keyboards. It was so awesome. Each one of them is so different from the other it’s a wonder how they all came together.

There’s this older guy playing guitar (as you can see I don’t even know their names, how lame)

the other guitarist has the young, sexy rockstar look to him, and the other guy below

They were amazing. I was totally blown away. I heard they are going to be at Coachella (along with The Frames and Jose Gonzalez). I wonder if James could score us some tickets???