A Ticket to Paradise

Thursday, 8/22, post terrible mood. If you skipped the last post, I basically had a terrible day and God erased it with some humor.  So today I was determined to have a great day.  I mentioned that I tried to remedy my mood by baking a batch of gooey cookies yesterday. It did not work so I knew I had to pull out the Big Guns for today. What will make this girl happy when a batch of cookies will not??? If you guessed a beach trip, you guessed right.  I packed up George's sand toys, slapped a bathing suit on as fast as you can say "Google maps-get me to Manhattan Beach", called my friend (I still just have one) and put that little chicken nugget in the car seat.  Here we go, our first trip across the big city, just me and George.  We were both excited but when we came to a complete stop about three minutes after our entrance onto the freeway George sweetly suggested that I "find the fast road, mommy". Honey, there is no fast road. Get used to it.  So we sat and crawled for what seemed like forever.  It is so odd to follow signs to the beach that say WEST.  I really have to think when I drive here because everything is backwards.  We made it in about an hour and 15 minutes. Not too bad, now where to park?  Of course there's an event this weekend so a lot of the public parking is not available. I found one spot that was metered but had a limit of two hours. Since that was the first I had seen, I took it.  Got to the beach and it was worth it. So far, Manhattan Beach reminds me most of beaches back home.  This is more like a beach town instead of a beach city.
Finally after she had done all the things a mother of a ten month old has to do at 10 am, Lauren arrived.  She parked her stroller (an orange Bob, the same as mine) and we dove right into good conversation and laughter.  I would say the beach brightened my mood today, but I do not think it would have been nearly as much fun without her there.  We switched our cars to different spots for the second two hours because the spots we both found had limits of two hours. You have to physically vacate the spot and find another, there's no "feeding the meter".  George stayed with her while I moved mine and vice versa.  Its good to have a friend, I tell you what....
So I moved my car to a spot that was no different than the last one except it had "merchant" on the curb in front.  I had a sneaking suspicion-that I promptly ignored- maybe it was not a good idea but Lauren's was to expire soon too and I had to get back to the beach so she could find another spot.  After two more hours of fun in the sun and lots of snacks devoured we decided it was time to head home. I picked up two "Paradise Bowls" and one Pitaya bowl for the three of us while baby Tac was changed and made comfy for the ride home.  Oh, what is a Paradise Bowl? Oh. my. word. So good.  Think smoothie in a bowl, frozen dessert but healthy. Blended together is a mix of acai berries, strawberries, blueberries, banana, and chocolate coconut milk. On top are the same berries and nana's but fresh.  Add granola, goji berries and honey to taste and you have, my friend .... found paradise. There's one of theses places at Wrightsville Beach in NC and no offense to MB but I liked the options better at WB, go NC!! I felt so ....anti-oxidated? So I was in healthy-cool-snack-for-the-road heaven when we walked up to my car.  I am glad it was still there but as it turns out, I am not, in fact, a merchant.  First parking ticket. Mark it down.  I'm sure there will be more.  Dang! Oh well, it did not ruin my day.  Or maybe there's some drug in that Paradise Bowl that makes you not care.  So we got back in the car and headed East. When we pulled up to our street I felt so accomplished. I mean, if you can navigate on your phone through LA traffic for the first time, with a sandy bottom and flip flops, music blaring (because this is how I concentrate) and a three year old who sings a different song than is on the radio and keeps an accurate count of over passes (tunnels) the whole way home -there are 33 if you are curious- you can do pretty much anything. That's what I tell myself anyway.  What a great trip. It was way past nap time when we arrived home so I just filled up his little pool on the patio and stuck him in there to wash off all the sand, sunscreen and hot pink pitaya bowl that he had devoured in the car.  We did not make it to the farmers market today but that's OK because I already spent my market money on a parking ticket at the beach. Oh well, we will go next week.  We had leftovers for dinner and got the little monkey down.  Then Big George came home and told me about his day.  After he was all done I told him casually what we had done. The look on his face! So funny. Today was so much better than yesterday! I guess even on a year long vacation to California there will be bad days, and good days to follow them.