Hamburger Mary's and The Getty Museum

August 10, 2010

A couple of weeks ago, I found myself with a little spare time on my hands, as the kids were with their dad in San Diego. Lisa's girls, it turned out, were also on vacation with their dad. We decided it was time for some sister bonding time sans children. At first we thought we'd go see a taping of "Don't Forget the Lyrics". I love that show (I totally rock at song lyrics, especially when playing the game from the comfort of my own couch), and Lisa had actually recently auditioned for the show. (She didn't get called back, but that's okay.) Plus, although the new host, Mark McGrath, is no Wayne Brady, he's nothing to sneeze at, either. We got tickets, and we were on our way to planning our adventure.

We called up our other sister Laura, and invited her to join us. She lives in Hollywood, not too far from the studio, so Laura invited us to stay at her place the night before the taping. That left us a free Wednesday night in Hollywood to find something fun for us to do together. Lisa had heard about a big weekly charity event in Hollywood that she'd always wanted to check out. When she told me what it was--Drag Queen Bingo at Hamburger Mary's Restaurant--well, I knew we couldn't pass it up. It was a total blast. Very interactive (much yelling and cheering), great prizes (we didn't win any), for a great cause (the proceeds from our Bingo night went to providing school and medical supplies to children in war-torn countries). Fantastic! The MC was quite funny, and Bridget, who ran the game, was gregarious and a lot of fun. She even let us take our picture with her afterwards. To be honest, the food was only mediocre, but you really couldn't beat the atmosphere.
The next morning we got up and hit the road for the game show taping. Laura had decided not to join us, since she'd had to get up at an unearthly hour to go to work. As can happen in L.A., the traffic got a bit snarl-y and stand-still-y, and it soon became apparent that we weren't going to make it to the studio in time. We're flexible sort of people, my sister and I, so once we realized we were going to spend the day Mark McGrath-less, we refocused our energies into figuring out what we were going to do with our day in L.A. Suddenly, we were given a sign. Literally, a sign appeared. As we were crawling along the freeway, we passed the road sign for the upcoming Getty Museum, and suddenly our plans were clear. The Getty is on both of our lists of Things To Do In Our Lifetime, so we followed the signs to our new destination.
The Getty is a beautiful place, and it houses some pretty impressive works by masters, including Renoir and Monet. It even houses Lisa's favorite painting, Van Gogh's "Irises". It is also currently showcasing work by the artist Gerome. Neither Lisa nor I had ever even heard of Gerome, but after seeing his exhibit, we are both fans. It was quite an extensive exhibit, spanning his whole artistic career. It will probably not surprise you to know that Lisa and I amused ourselves throughout the museum by making up stories and snarky comments about the subjects in some of the works. We didn't even realize we had gained a fan until the docent in one of the rooms suddenly appeared behind us, giggling at one of our 'assessments' of a painting. "I like to keep you girls here all day to make me laugh," he said, startling us both. We did not know anyone was listening to our nonsense reviews. He walked over to another painting and pointed, "How you making fun of this one?" That guy thought we were hilarious. Of course, we often think we are hilarious, but not everyone joins us in that opinion.These signs, by the way, cracked me up. They were everywhere. Don't they look like they should say, "Please don't POKE the sculpture"?
We spent about four hours roaming through the museum, and had a great time. I just love days when you have no idea what's going to happen, but it all works out even better than you expected. We really love getting the whole family together, kids and all, but it really had been too long since we had been able to have that much uninterrupted adult sister time. We've really got to remember to not let those outings get put on the back burner for too long at a time.