The company makes the most of our long stay here in Thousand Oaks. We are so close to everything. The hotel is surrounded by restaurants, shopping malls, movie theatres and a fantastic Whole Foods grocery.
A car rental can get you to pretty much any part of L.A. that you want in under an hour. The girls are driving downtown to take yoga and dance classes almost every day.
Michael and I spend a day driving down the Pacific Coast Highway. We have the most expensive breakfast in history at a chi-chi place in Malibu, but everything is organic this and farm-fresh that. We walk the beach at Point Dume and watch a sea lion surf the waves. We walk the Santa Monica pier and surrounding shopping area. While Michael is off taking a picture of something, I have the quintessential L.A. moment. I am standing in Palisades Park, people watching. Out of the glare of the sunshine, an angelic figure floats toward me. I can make out a beautiful young man (16-20...it's so hard for me to tell anymore). His skin is flawless, his teeth are perfect, his tight, white t-shirt reveals his model-perfect torso. He truly is gliding toward me because he is on a skate board, his long, golden-blond hair trailing in the breeze behind him. He is an Abercrombie & Fitch cover come to life. I am, of course, staring. As he passes me, he glances over the top of his Ray Bans and in the briefest milli-second, in a single flicker of a perfect blue eye, I am scanned, judged, packaged and dispensed with as he glides off through the crowd. Beautiful and cold. So L.A. We drive home through the mountains on a wind-y little road that takes us from the Pacific Coast Highway through the canyons to Thousand Oaks with breath-taking views of mountain mansions and farms all the way.
The next day, we have the second oh-so-Los Angeles experience....and earthquake. Just a tiny one, by L.A. standards. A mere 4.4. I was sitting in the hotel room and actually thought that the noise was being made by the noisy person above me. I was almost ready to pound on the ceiling when I realized what it was. Because I was on the ground floor, it was all a little less dramatic than for those on floors 3 and 4 where drawers slid open and pictures went askew.
We all enjoy the theatre in Thousand Oaks, but the audiences are consistently quiet and withdrawn. They don't like sex jokes and are completely uninterested in toilet humour which, unfortunately, is a large part of the show. Several of the cast's L.A. friends reassure us that this is a typical response for Thousand Oaks which tends to be an older, reserved, monied crowd. We are are pleased to hear that we have not suddenly lost our ability to entertain, but are disappointed that we don't get much in the way of feedback from the crowds. Our weekend wind-up in Thousand Oaks is one of those marathon 5-shows-in-48-hours nightmares, and comes at the end of 14 straight days without a day off. A little unbridled enthusiasm would be most welcome. Alas, it does not materialise and we do our best to crawl, valiantly, to the finish line.
Everyone is looking forward to a day off. I plan to spend the day in West Hollywood with Duff. Michael, sadly, has to leave for Phoenix with the crew so can't come out to play with us. I reserve a convertible but when I arrive at Enterprise, they are sorry to tell me that they can't fulfill my reservation. I make them give me a fully loaded, brand new BMW for the same price. Duff almost squeals when I pick him up on Santa Monica Blvd. We shop Melrose, we drive through Beverly Hills and all over WeHo, we eat, we drink and we shop some more. The sun shines. Life is good.
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