Baseball, Ant Man, and Christine

Well I had a lovely weekend and it all had to do with my friend Christine who came down from Oakland.  She arrived Friday night and we headed over to Veggie Grill for dinner.  That is one of my favorite places in Long Beach to eat.  In fact I think I've eaten there 5 times in the two weeks I've been here.  Talked all through dinner to try and catch up.  We've know each other for 19 years and it has been a couple of years since we hung out together.

We sat in Bre's house and chatted until way past our bed times while we tried to stay cool in the unseasonably warm weather southern California is experiencing.  We got an early start on Saturday morning which is rather unusual for Christine.  She is so not a morning person but she had her head on enough to suggest going to The Grammy Museum which was so much fun.  There were costumes from The Supremes, Michael Jackson, and Taylor Swift.

I loved the videos of Grammy performances, acceptance speeches and special awards.  There were nice snippets of music from 4 decades and I also really enjoyed playing some of the percussion instruments they had available.  It was much more fun than I was anticipating.

After lunch at Smashburger, Christine was very gracious and suggested we go to a quilt shop so we headed over to Sew Modern which I hadn't been to before.  I really liked the shop.  It was bright and airy and although there weren't a ton of samples on the walls they had a couple of bag samples that I just loved.  

There was almost a whole wall of solids so the color selection was amazing!!!!!!!!  They also had a pretty nice selection of patterns and books.  In fact I bought a Doctor Who Tardis quilt pattern.   GO DOCTOR WHO!!!!!!

They carry Cotton & Steel which I am attracted to but haven't yet purchased. They also had some linen and some silk.  The down side of this little shop was that I got a $68 parking ticket.  (Don't worry mom I'll take care of it.)  Is this the most confusing parking sign you have ever seen?

We had another couple of hours to kill before we went to the Dodger game so we headed over the Giant Robot store and it turns out that the Museum of California Art where Christine works had just curated a show featuring Giant Robot artists.  Check out this video of the show.  She enjoyed seeing where some of the art went after the show.  I enjoyed checking out all the cool toys.

We headed over to Dodger Stadium detouring around some protest or other.  We sat in the very top row above the third baseline and both of us liked the seats.  It was really really hot for about the first 3 innings and then it cooled down a bit.

 The game was great with a bunch of homers and hits and the Dodgers won.  I ate a huge, gigantic slice of pizza and a large bottle of water for the small fee of $12.50.  Geez.  So now the Dodgers can be checked off the bucket list.  We stayed a little while after the game to let the traffic clear out and watch Back to the Future on the Jumbotron. They let folks sit on the outfield on blankets to watch the movie. Such fun!!!!!

On Sunday we tried to enjoy the Long Beach Flea Market but the sun was relentless so we gave up after about 3 rows.  Mimi's for breakfast was air conditioned and we didn't have to wait 2 hours like we would have for the place on the water, plus the muffin was amazing.  Then we drove by the Queen Mary to kill some time before the start of the Ant Man movie.  Both the car and movie theater were air conditioned which was a major priority.  Ant Man was a blast. Christine and I loved it.  So funny and great computer graphics in the fight scenes.

After dinner at Coco Renos which is another favorite place to eat, I dropped Christine off at the Long Beach Airport.  It was a terrific weekend.