07 Jul Cali Blog #5: Tea Time and Self-Indulgence

You know the day is going to be awesome when a wet tongue wakes you up in the morning (a doggy tongue, you pervs)! I woke up to Atty, Eric’s beagle mix licking my face, quickly followed by his brother, Leo. Despite my best intention to ignore them, wet noses kept nudging at my hands, begging me to pet them. In fact, when I tried to half-ass pet them, in other words, just put my hand on them without any petting motions, Atty would patiently nudge my hand and lick my face until I paid attention. Finally, after ten minutes, I gave up and rolled out of bed.

The morning started off with a great meeting with my fellow friend and talented artist, David J. Anderson. We first knew each other due to our shared Rice University bond (Go Owls!). Naturally, we shared the same friends and somehow David’s work for dakayakid.com popped up on my Facebook news feed. When I saw it, I was blown away and I knew that I had to work with him. David designed my current animated logo and is also working with me on Moth to Flame’s first animated music video for the Austin band, Drastik.

After the meeting ended around 11:00 AM, Vivi and I set off to an epic day of girly fun. The first item on the agenda was afternoon tea. Afternoon tea took place at the Tea Room in crazy Hollywood — where the streets are lined with fake Marilyn Monroe’s, Transformers, and Charlie Chapmans. As we wandered around looking for this Tea Room, I snapped photos of a little boy who put on a dance show amongst the fountains. What a stud!

We enjoyed some sandwiches, scones, and chocolate cake with our green and black tea, while I snapped photos.

One of the themes to my photos was finding design patterns in normal objects.

During this moment, Vivi and I discussed the upside down work life balance aspect that many Americans have. We are one of the few cultures that work ourselves to death to make money. Then we spend money to save our health that we could have taken cared of if we had developed a proper work life balance.

Sitting there just simply sipping tea and enjoying our food made me realize how important it is to take time and just sit and enjoy – something I’m trying my best to do a better job doing.

After tea, Vivi and I went to get $15 haircuts at the Aveda Institute. Unfortunately, when you are in LA and coming anywhere from Hollywood, even if it is only 3 miles away, be prepared to spend at least 1 hour getting to your destination. Such is LA traffic, something I do not miss at all.

In addition, though you get a fantastic haircut for cheap, you must also be prepared to allot at least 2 hours for your haircut because all the attendees are students. The last time Vivi and I went, she got the beginner who cut each strand of hair individually. This time, I got the dud. I almost nodded off a few times while the student very slowly cut my hair. It was fine for the most part because I was prepared for the wait and knew he was learning, but it definitely reminded me of the first time I learned how to edit. I remember spending 2 hours editing a 1-minute segment because my partner and I were still trying to learn where all the buttons were and what they meant. The poor student was so slow that eventually the instructor had to finish the haircut and I had both the instructor and the student blow drying my hair at the same time.

Fabulous haircuts later, Vivi and I wandered the streets of Melrose. Ladies, this is not recommended if you do not want to come out broke. Stay away! Save your wallet! I am already broke, but I came out even more broke with a few bags of unique jewelry, dresses, and hats. On the plus side, we are going to look that much more beautiful. Ha! Vivi and I both found our white dresses for the graffiti photo shoot we will do in the next few days. Stay tuned for those pictures.

To complete the wonderful day, we had pizza at the Tomato Pie pizza joint and watched the sunset. What a lovely, relaxing day. Tomorrow we will visit my friend Michelle at the LA Convention center and then Nic promised us some Beverly Hills style fun at night. We’ll see what that entails.

See more photos here: