congrats julie & dave
it was 4:25pm on a beautiful sunny socal saturday and i was driving furiously up the pch with a majestic view of the pacific ocean. simultaneously (i know i should have been concentrating on driving) i was texting jakies and magic dan with the words “uuggghhhhh! won’t be there in time for the wedding! traffic on the freeway is horendous.” somehow, by the grace of god, i made it to temescal canyon only five minutes late and the wedding (as most weddings) thankfully did not begin on time.
julie and dave exchanged vows under a beautiful chuppa in their quaker slash jewish ceremony under the glorious afternoon sun streaming through the trees. afterwards, we headed off to michael’s on 3rd in santa monica. i figured i’d stop at the beach to take a few photos on my way and pulled into the last public parking lot before the california incline. with my bum foot i couldn’t really walk out into the sand, besides, i didn’t want to get all dirty before the reception. therefore, my photos were less than fabulous.
so i got back into my car and tried to pull back out onto the pch - not an easy task. after 5 minutes of waiting, i finally saw my chance. i pulled out on the pch and made my way over 3 lanes before i realized that my destination (the 4th lane) was lined up beginning way before i even joined the pch. basically, i was going to have to cut someone off. luckily (well not really as it turned out) all of a sudden i spotted a gap in the traffic and i pulled into a space in the left turn lane for the incline without having to technically cut someone off. i mean, no one had to slam on their breaks and curse and gesticulate wildly - no one HAD TO …oh but someone did. the guy behind me in a jeep was PISSED! he tailed me the rest of the way up the incline and honked at me. i tried to speed up as much as possible but the light at the top of the incline was red and there was nowhere for me to go. we spent a few tense minutes at the red light with him ON MY ASS which is not fun when you’re driving stick and sitting on a steep hill.
finally, it was green and i tried to make my way down california ave. across 1st and 2nd as quickly as possible when i noticed the jeep was still following me. i started to get nervous. i turned south on 3rd and the jeep followed. i made a u-turn in front of the restaurant as did the jeep. damn. i thought he was definitely going to jump out of the car and scream at me or possibly kill me if he could catch me (which would not be hard. tomorrow’s headline would read, “newlyweds witness hobbler gunned down in sleepy santa monica.”)
it turns out, he wasn’t a homicidal maniac ready to gun me down but none other than one of julie & dave’s wedding guests! since i had arrived first, angry jeep dude had to wait for the single solitary valet guy to park my car a million miles away and sprint back. angry jeep dude gave me the worst kind of hate stare. so i tried to be nice by informing him of a rock-star parking space right in front of the restaurant entrance. he gave me the “i don’t need your stupid help bitch” look and waited for the valet. oh well!
i went inside and mingled and told my embarrasing road-rage story to a handful of friends. when it was time for dinner, i sat down next to my date when low and behold ANGRY JEEP DUDE IS SEATED RIGHT NEXT TO US!!! i hissed “that’s him! that’s angry jeep dude!” in my date’s ear. he replied with, “who, ryan? he’s normally so nice.” then i leaned over to magic dan and told him of my misfortunate seating arrangement. “that’s ryan, dave’s and my lit agent,” he responded. then he added, “he’s got serious anger management issues. you should’ve seen him at the bachelor party!” (they drove bumper cars around as one of their bachelor party activities and apparently angry-jeep-dude-ryan-the-lit-agent is very competitive.)
eventually, the situation on the california incline was mentioned and ryan and i made up, but i had to do a lot of appologizing and explaining. “i don’t normally cut the line, it’s just that i didn’t enter the road until the middle of the line and i had no choice!” i’m not sure if he bought it but he had enough social graces to know he’d look better if he just forgave me. as it turns out, he is best friends with fred who used to date kamra who knew anne-marie (a friend of mine from high school.) when i first moved to LA, i was sad to not yet have any girlfriends. so anne-marie gave me kamra’s number. at that time, fred’s sister, lorraine was living with kamra and we all ended up becoming roommates a few months later. now lorraine apparently moved back to ohio to date magic dan’s ex-roommate from college - SMALL WORLD! (did you follow that? not even sure i did - so no big whoop.)
what a night!