apparently it’s impossible for me to have a bad weekend. last weekend maria’s cousins and brother were in town (billy took clayton and i to the shooting range on thursday night) then saturday was arden’s birthday party plus pat had the home-brewed beer tasting slash st. patrick’s day party at his house. sunday asa and glen invited pat and i for “adorable couples’ brunch” which turned into “angry starving couples’ last stand” when we waited over an hour and a half for a table at doughboys before asa just grabbed a couple of recently-vacated tables and shoved them together. which sounds like a bad time, but was actually really entertaining.

anyway – this weekend! friday night i went to glen and kristina’s for some nerdery – d&d! andrew and i rolled our characters, pat studied his dungeon master’s guide, we drank wine and ate mini corn dogs. it was glorious.

saturday pat and i loaded up the rental car and drove to las vegas. his cousin jamie and her fiancé nick moved to vegas on thursday and brought pat’s electric piano with them (which he needs to practice for their wedding). the drive is about four and a half hours, and we spent the whole drive listening to music (arrah & the ferns, the mix cds lindsay made for me, ryan adams, nickel creek) and looking at the scenery. i finished the invention of hugo cabret too, and it is so so good. also ryan adams? i love him.

we got into town around 5, dropped off our stuff at nick and jamie’s, changed and headed out for the night. nick and jamie? are awesome. they’re a great couple and really easy to get along with. sadly, nick and pat did not have the wrestling match that was threatening all night, but maybe next time. we had dinner at lindo michoacán, pat’s dad’s favorite mexican restaurant, ever, and it was really really good. pat ordered emergency guacamole (made table-side) and margaritas (really strong) and we stuffed ourselves in preparation for the long night ahead.

after dinner we drove to the hilton for drinks at quark’s bar in the star trek experience. pat and i split the borg sphere…which smokes from dry ice has something like 10 ounces of alcohol in it. we were there for awhile. jamie and nick had two beers with a long pause in between before we got close to finishing the sphere. while sipping our bright green drink, we noticed some people at the end of the bar dressed in starfleet uniforms, so pat and i got our photos taken with them. they were super nice, and turns out one of the couples (including the woman dressed as counselor troi who had a working original series communicator and really cute andorian action figures) met at a trek convention and just got engaged at one. they plan to get married at the star trek experience…which is where the other uniformed couple were married (on the bridge. saw the photo – klingons!).

with about an inch of green left in the drink we admitted defeat and left for the strip. on the way out pat bought a 6-pack of romulan ale (to drink while he and i watch ‘first contact’) and i got a starfleet academy tshirt. i think at this point i called pat’s dad and left him a long message (since he’s always drunk-dialing pat) in which i referred to myself as pat’s boyfriend. i swear i was barely buzzed. anyway, we parked at the venetian and walked to the wynn for drinks on the patio at parasol down. the patio overlooks a large reflecting pool with a two story flat waterfall. the whole area is surrounded by tall trees and it doesn’t feel like you’re on the strip. every half hour there is a media show to go along with the music – a head-shaped screen rises out of the water and video is projected on it, a giant frog appears at the top of the waterfall and sings, and the light show playing off the water and on and through the trees is pretty impressive. we didn’t know that the show happened though, so were caught off guard the first time it happened.

after the wynn we walked through caesar’s and the forum shops (saw the very end of the fountain show) on the way to the bellagio. we had drinks at the fontana bar, which faces the lake in front of the bellagio. we went out on the patio for the fountain show and it was so beautiful – definitely one of my favorite things to see in las vegas. we stayed at the fontana for quite awhile and did some dancing because the band there was AMAZING. they were INSANELY good. dian diaz and her band did incredible covers of awesome songs. every musician was fantastic and dian and the male vocalist have ridiculously good voices.

on our way out of the bellagio we saw the chocolate fountain at jean-philippe patisserie just off of the chihuly glass and butterfly conservatory – i found the one thing in vegas i’d seen but pat hadn’t. we were going to finish the night at the rio, but it was 2am and we’d been out since 6.

this morning we loaded the piano up in the car and went to brunch, then i drove home while pat did some script coverage. he burned me some cds of science friday, the writer’s almanac and mark kermode’s film reviews. when we got back to burbank i took a nap while pat did some more reading, then at 5 meghan and josh arrived and we had easter dinner. maria made her amazing ham and everyone gorged themselves. we played a game of carcassonne, had dessert (strawberries and pound cake) then spent some time checking out various sightseeing things to do in LA for this week when my parents come to visit.

next weekend? warner bros. studio tour, the getty, hollywood sightseeing, and possibly the second round of beer brewing at josh’s if my parents are up for it.

photos from this weekend here

…or at least until 3am. we started out, just will, cameron and i, with bohnanza and 6 nimmt!, both german card games – both a lot of fun. we moved on to elvenland when jack and pat arrived. then we played puerto rico (which took hours) and tikal. hopefully this becomes a regular thing.

friday night i met up with my practice group at citizen smith for dinner (went to pat’s first to check out the new bar asa bought – it’s fantastic) then we all went across the street to hotel cafe to see ankur’s band, seneca hawk. they were really good and i stuck around to see the band after them too, the evening episode, who are really worth checking out too.

saturday meghan, josh and i met up at pat’s place so josh and pat could transfer the beer the boys are making into the secondary fermentation tank. we went to doughboys for lunch (i had the beefy mac and cheese and it was sooooo good). we had reserved tickets for the opening of the new broad contemporary art museum at the LA county museum of art and the place was crazy. this is the free community weekend so there are all kinds of activities – magicians and stilt-walkers and other performers. the museum was really cool – there’s a giant glass elevator in the middle that makes you feel like you’re an exhibit – and the collection was pretty impressive.

after bcam we went to the la brea tar pits and it was SO COOL. the museum was great – lots of skeletons! and pat pointed out that the page museum itself totally looks like the raptor enclosure in ‘jurassic park’. the museum is mostly underground – you walk up a big hill and the museum is embedded in the top, so all you can see from the outside is the very tops of the trees that are in the big sunken courtyard. after we saw the museum we went to the observation room over pit 91 where the current excavation is underway. you can see bones sticking out of the asphalt and everything!

meghan and josh had to head home to check on watson, and pat and i drove to the culver city art district. we saw a photography exhibit (very dark and disturbing – awesome) and a cool blown-glass exhibit. there is an amazing exhibit going on at project: gallery right now – tessar lo and chris devera. tessar lo is so good and also a bit unfortunate to have a very similar style to james jean (who is one of my all-time favorite illustrators – see ‘fables’ and ‘the umbrella academy’ covers). he just graduated and already has a fully developed style but it’s so similar to james jean’s he’s having a hard time getting out from his shadow.

anyway, thinking of james jean reminded pat that the owner of project:gallery had told him there was a james jean mural up at the beverly hills prada store, so we drove up there to check it out. it. was. amazing. we ended up talking to one of the associates at prada for a bit about the mural (which you can see on james jean’s website under ‘work’) then we took a look at the clothes that have his illustrations on them. see prada.com for the clothes, the mural in situ, and click on ‘trembled blossoms’ for the animation based on the illustrations.

after all of the cultural enrichment pat and i were exhausted so we took a two hour nap before getting some awesome thai food and having an impromptu party with some of asa’s friends before they went to another party. then i watched ‘casablanca’ for the first time and oh my god, that movie is incredible. after ‘casablanca’ pat and i wanted to watch something else WWII-related, so we put in band of brothers. we ended up watching 3 or 4 episodes and staying up till 5.

today i’m going over to will’s for a whole afternoon/evening/night of board games and i am SO EXCITED. some carcassonne, some settlers of catan, other games i’ve never even heard of – it should be fantastic!

i looked at my bank statement today, and all of my debit expenditures were for food, gas…and comics. how much could a person possibly spend on comics you might ask? oh, about $230.

$230!!! HOLY CRAP SOMEONE STOP ME.