California last day

On Monday, our last day, we had a slow morning at Katherine's house and then headed to the Venice area with her so she could attend some meetings at her office. Edie and I entertained ourselves by walking the canals, playing at the beach, walking the boardwalk and having a hipster lunch at a place called Gjelina.

She brought her stuffie from Disneyland (Marie from Aristocats):

Checking out muscle beach and all the other weirdos at Venice:

Not pleased to pose for me:

More pleased this time to pose because she found a bird of paradise on the ground that she wants to show me:

By the time we got back to the street with shops and restaurants we were both starving. Our flight was in a few hours so we needed to eat before getting a ride to the airport - we didn't have time to hunt for the most kid friendly joint. It turns out that Katherine's office is in a super hipster neighborhood so I took a risk and we went into a too cool for school restaurant that had a few oven pizzas on the menu that I hoped would appease Edie. I wish my kid was cool enough to want to order mushroom toast and cauliflower salad (also on the menu), but alas - this is not the case. She is however cool enough to wear a psychedelic unicorn dress, which it turns out, charms the kind of people who DO eat mushroom toast and cauliflower salad. When taking your child to traditionally non-kid friendly places I highly recommend first dressing them like a cross between a tiny adult, Punky Brewster, and Mary Kate Olsen.  I swear it buys you a few extra minutes of good will.

While Edie and I eat out together a fair bit, this place was definitely the least kid friendly place we'd ever been; I had a moment of panic when we got seated at a banquette with two hipster couples on either side of us (like really close to us). I knew there was a risk that Edie wouldn't like any of the food we ordered so I thought I'd appease her in another way and let her order a lemonade. The waiter instead offered, "sparkling lime aid" to which Edie replied with a face that said, "crushing disappointment". I assured the waiter that water would be just fine. But then he surprised me royally by bringing back a glass of homemade lemonade that he obviously had just made just for her with freshly squeezed lemons and sugar. Edie was over the moon. Overall I was so surprised by how well the whole experience went. Edie even ate pizza with HERBS on it and LIKED it. The risk paid off especially after lunch when they brought the dessert menu. They had gelato on the menu, which is one of Edie's faves because they have it at our favorite neighborhood joint (which you may recall from her birthday dinner photos). The waiter laughed when he listed the gelato flavors for Edie because when he got to stracciatella, she exclaimed, "Yes! Stracciatella is my favorite!"  He had no way of knowing that this is one of the staple flavors at our neighborhood place - it sort of looked like I just had a real bougie kid who liked pretending to be an adult. Anyways, after licking her bowl clean and tipping the waiter like 40%, we peaced out of there and hitched a ride to the airport where we made it home safe and sound in time for bed.

Edie literally licking her goblet clean while I worked on my black bottom banana cream pie.