Sunday in The Grove with Ben

(Posted past midnight, Eastern time, so it gets dated Monday. But this is Sunday's entry.)

Our day off.
As such, not a lot to report on the stretching front. I did a half hour on the treadmill in the hotel and had breakfast after.  Eggs, fake sausage, and pancakes––nothing remarkable, but I took so few photos today, that I'm going to include the customary breakfast shot:

And for mid-morning:

As you can see, walnuts travel in larger herds than pecans. But what's with the mass quantities of sausagettes?

Anyway, the highlight of the morning was my facial at the hotel spa. Again, no photos. Sorry. My facialist was a very nice young woman named Jamilla. Since most of the time my eyes were covered, my impression of her came more from the auditory than the visual, and she talked exactly like Mindy Kaling, which amused me. There were various lotions and masks, the usual stuff, and a nice arm and shoulder massage, too. I was advised to exfoliate regularly! And I promised I would.
Since I am low on visuals today, I will show you the product she recommended for exfoliating. Not even expensive! Available in drugstores! Thanks, Jamilla!

After lunch, Ben and I went to The Grove, which is a Disneyland of shopping. It was crowded and lively, but I saw only a very small corner of it because we were there to go to the movies, to see Bridesmaids. (Plug: Go see Bridesmaids! Go more than once, like I did.) This is the first movie theater I've ever been to where you buy assigned-seat tickets. Leave it to L.A. to innovate when it comes to the movie-viewing experience.

High and low art at The Grove. And by high, I mean close to the ceiling.

We had a surprise invitation from Mari and her husband to come to dinner at their house tonight, so that's where we went after the movie. They live up in the Hollywood Hills, just off Mulholland Drive. Hummingbirds flitted around in the garden, and the conversation included a lot of name-dropping (which I love, of course), so I felt like I got a nice dose of Angelenos in their natural habitat.

And now, de rigeur, the celebrity countdown for today. Slim pickings, I'm afraid, but not a total loss.
I guess this is a good time to describe that the hotel has been hosting junkets the whole time I've been here. There is a daily schedule in the lobby. For instance:

That's probably too hard to read, but it announces that actors from these three movies––Beginners, Kung Fu Panda 2, and Super 8––will be somewhere in the hotel today, where they will sit in a room for hours on end, while local entertainment reporters from media markets all across the country parade through, each getting a short window of time to ask them the same questions, over and over. But you knew all that.

At various times today, I was in the elevator with Lucy Liu's manager on the way up to the 12th floor for the Kung Fu Panda 2 junket, a gaggle of hyper teenage boys who are in the cast of Super 8, and the only bona fide sighting of the day: Kyle Chandler. He looked handsome. You can google him. But then, if you have to google him, you might not think he counts.

Sorry to disappoint. I guess even celebrities need a day of rest.