We woke up on our third LA day, the same as before: cold. Haha. I have to admit though, the weather grew on me really fast. For Alex, not so much, haha. He was even turning on the heat in the car! Crazy, I know. My only complaint was that I wish I packed another pair of socks.

So I haven’t mentioned it here, but one really random thing that’s been happening lately in my body is some sort of strange gum issue. I’ve been to about four different doctor/dentist’s so far and all i’ve gotten back is “it seems like an auto-immune thing” and “it looks like your gums are eroding, I don’t know” — k cool. It was REALLY bad three months ago— it flares up and then goes away. And with the exception of this trip, I’ve been really careful– trying to see if is a new allergy causing it or not. It seems as though it’s been getting better each month since the initial pain. All I can do is put this in the “post infectious c. diff” diagnosis box— just like all the other doctors have done— and then work on it myself.

So anyway, I woke up this day in California with my gums screaming at me again— and I instantly knew I would have hard time eating again. When it does happen, I can’t even eat mashed potatoes it hurts so bad. And it’snot my teeth– my teeth are squeaky clean and cavity and plaque free. So it’s been odd. To put it bluntly, it’s been shitty. Like, I already lost enough weight with the c. diff and my body already doesn’t gain more– but then to have a week out of the mouth where I can hardly eat food? Ooof what a nightmare. So I woke up and went into this day with a mission to find as many soups and smoothie options as I could possibly find— and I was VERY grateful that I had eaten so many delicious foods the two days prior. It made me less mad that I couldn’t on day three. Ya know?

But before I continue, I will say that that the painful flare up was lasting a week each time before— but this time it really only lasted a day/ day and a half of pain– before it started getting better! It seems like my body is doing it’s job to fix the problem on it’s own. And whatever the F is going on in my body now, IS on it’s way out. I hope so and think so anyway. To be quite honest, I’ve kind given up on trying to figure all the BS out— now when something random happens in my body, I kind of just throw my hands up and say “well, this will pass too”— it seems to be the appropriate method to handling my body and keeping my mind sane 😉 SO yeah, there’s that in health lately– now back to chilly and amazing LA….

One of my favorite things was that the houses and landscaping is so very different than back home. I mean, we have citrus, and bananas, and succulents here too— but we’re mostly saturated in water loving plants over here. In LA it was succulent city and there was lots of gravel and sand— lots and lots of sand. The houses had a lot of character too. I’m guessing that varies depending on the neighborhood– like everywhere else in the world, but around where we stayed (in echo park) the houses were mostly super cute!

We started off day three with our second LA farmers market. This time in Hollywood. (The Hollywood farmers market if you want to get super specific and stuff).

Alex found giant mulberries, coffee, and a tamale, so he was happy. I found veggie miso broth in a cup– so I was definitely happy with that.

Look at these pretty eggs! The colors are insane. I mean, I went to the market with other vegans— and I’m taking pictures of eggs– is that weird? I’m okay with it.

These flowers make me think of India 100% And more specifically, they make me think of my friend Analu in India (on this day)— I don’t know if I’ve actually seen them since I was there– so it was sort of magical to see them the day of Analu’s wedding 🙂

We met up with these cool kids at the farmers market– Ruby Roth, badass artist and author and Justin Bua, apparently artist dude (to be completely honest, I didn’t completely know who he was when we were hanging out). But then, funny story, the guy I lived with in Arizona was OBSESSED with Justin. We had his art prints everywhere. And then here I am in LA, randomly walking around with the dude and he’s telling me where to get the best veggie broth to remineralize my body.  Life is rad. Alex and Justin spent a good amount of time– longer than one would expect– doing impersonations. They are surprisingly both very good at it. Anyway, these two gave us the proper tour– and took me to a cute vegan restaurant where I gave the cashier chick my tempeh, cause my mouth couldn’t eat it and I found the most amazing natural gum oil, which has actually helped 🙂 Again, life is rad.

Also, I feel like I should mention, Ruby is smaller than me. I now know two adults who are smaller than me, haha.

After the market Alex and I drove downtown and picked up our friend Raha. We then went for more Asian food (at Pine and Crane)— because that seems to be the most logical thing to do in LA. I think I actually liked Pine and Crane more than the other Asian restaurants we visited. Which is interesting considering this was a fast casual set up and the other two were actual sit down/server establishments. I don’t know, maybe it’s because I thought I wouldn’t be able to eat anything, and ended up pleasantly surprised when they had a spicy silken tofu dish that made my mouth very happy.

We then headed back to our Airbnb where Raha and I got dressed for Analu’s wedding and laughed at the amount of makeup we both own (read; basically nothing) and Alex fell asleep on the front porch. He’s so handsome with his beard. *heart eyes*

photo 1 of 20. The rest of the photos mostly include me falling all over him. Hard to tell, but the hill was super steep + me in heels? womp. The wedding attire was “festive”– Alex planned to wear a bolo tie but then ended up taking it off in car, womp. I was super happy with my romper choice– mostly because I can wear it all the time in flats now 🙂 Also, I should really get rid of these shoes. Ive had them for maybe a decade, and they’re in great condition, because I only ever wear them to weddings and take them off about half way through.

We then headed to the wedding, where I only cried a combined total of one time. I’m not really an emotional person, but weddings alway make me tear up, I’m not sure why. Even on tv shows– Marlowe will turn to me and go, “are you going to cry now?” haha. I started tearing up as soon as I saw Analu (pre reception) but didn’t cry during it at all– mostly because I think the awesomeness of the piñata distracted me.

This is our LA selfie. 



Raha and I made it a point to take a picture together pretty early on— so that we could then both take off our heels and layer on some jackets, but still have a nice photo to look back on. *We fancy*

fiesta fiesta. Buy the end of the day my mouth was feeling moderately okay and I was able to eat a few plates of soft food. I often feel like an 86 year old woman with my mouth and digestive issues. But a badass 86 year old woman, of course.

And then we changed. Flats of course. And I layered on a sweater and new jacket that I ended up having to buy for the cold weather. Which strangely matched my romper— in the best way.

These two. I like them. 


And these two. awww awwww. I always have mixed emotions about taking photos at peoples weddings, even if they are totally okay with it. Only because I know that if Alex and I had an actual wedding we’d ask for it to be a cellphone/camera free wedding. I just make it a point to not take photos during any of the critical points– like the walk down the isle and stuff like that. But I do of course like to take a few photos with and of the people I care about at other moments so I can keep them forever, you know? How do you guys feel about taking pictures at a wedding? Either way, I like these two a lot. And their wedding made my mexico loving heart so happy.

So I don’t want to get overly emotional here– but this trip and especially this day made me so happy. I really feel like things in life happen for a reason. And yeah, this year was hard as freaking hell for me and my body, but overall, life is super good to me. And this trip just made me feel that even more. Every single person I met up with in California was through this blog/my instagram. And even more amazing than that, four of the people I met up with in California I met through my india trip. When I was planning my india trip I imagined all these amazing adventures and moments—- but I could have never imagined how it could affect me long term, especially in regards of friendships. I’m so freaking grateful for it. I made lifetime friendships through that trip. And I didn’t want to say this to any of the girls during my trip– because I definitely don’t like getting mushy and crying– and I definitely would have cried if I had tried to say it in person, but I so incredibly grateful for each of them. And I feel so, so lucky that each of them chose to come to India with me– and chose to be my friends, and I could gain such amazing friendships through them. Okay, I don’t want to cry so I’m just going to go, but I love you girls a lot. K? Please come visit me again soon.

K.

Happy wednesday, friends. Thank all of you for being part of this blog-space and being such a hugely positive part of my life.

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9 Comments

  1. Sounds like great times. I mudy admit that I woukd love to hear ur hubbys impersonations lol. Another reason that I dropped off is that Zachary Quinto resembles him. Im sure youve heard this before.

  2. As long as you're not stupid about it, I think taking pictures at weddings is fine – especially if you take just a few and then enjoy the rest of the night!

  3. I don't know about wedding photo protocols, I know that spontaneous, non-edited, even blurred or in bad lighting friends' photos are usually the best, hahah! In general it seems you had a great time in L.A.and lots of nice food, long live food tourism, it's the best!!

  4. I have such mixed feelings about taking photos at weddings. I usually don't myself (bad blogger, I know,) and while I was initially a little annoyed by it at my own wedding, my friends got some epic photos of my husband and I on the dance floor- even better ones than our photographer did (no easy feat, since she was pretty kick-ass.)

  5. Hahaha. Natalie, I was going to comment with basically the same thing. I am a professional wedding photographer and I actually went to a wedding as a guest last weekend and had MAJOR anxiety about even taking casual photos with my phone while I was there! And you better bet I knew which of my friends' family members had brought DSLRs and were behaving badly with them! There always seems to be an Uncle Bob these days, I agree!

  6. That wedding looks like it was all sorts of fun!

    My sister is a professional wedding photographer and my husband is a professional wedding videographer so I hear a LOT about the frustration of having non-professional, non-hired "photographer" guests at the wedding taking photos. Most of the time it's Uncle Bob (that everyone seems to have at least one of) holding up his iPad the whole time recording vertical video (UGH) but sometimes it's the stubborn guest who wants the (inevitably poor quality) shot of the bride coming down the aisle and will actually step into the photographer's way and ruin the shot the couple is actually paying someone to take. I think you snapping candids at the reception is completely fine and it's always nice to have photos to remember the day by that aren't posed or edited. It's definitely something most wedding guests don't think about, though, so I commend you for your consideration.