On Sunday Amy and I took John and Katie from the airport to Wilshire Boulevard. We took Wilshire all the way down through Westwood and Rodeo Drive and the rich people’s houses. Then we went briefly through Korea town before passing by Echo Lake and driving past where I work. After that we went through downtown to the other side and parked in “little Mexico.” The place was a few blocks of town made up to look and feel like Mexico. We ate at a restaurant called the Paseo Inn (I think), but I’m sure all the restaurants there are the same. They were all the “authentic” type with traveling mariachi bands. Ours was even tilted on the side of a hill. Having been to Tijuana I can say that the feeling of Mexico is fairly authentic, except the wares are not at Mexico prices. After that we took them to Hollywood. They wanted to see the sign, but by the time we got to the mall to look over at it, it was dark. Who knew they didn’t light the Hollywood sign at night? Then it was back to my apartment for lychee (actually coconut chunks with lychee flavoring to be exact) treats. They had never had lychee, so we decided to take them to the nearest bubble tea (or “boba” tea out here in the west) shop. The shop turned out to be completely out of it and the closest one they knew of was in Studio City. So we gave up and took them back to the airport. I think they were probably pretty tired by that time anyway.
Monday I went after work with Amy to the Staples Center for the final match of the WTA tour. It was Serena Williams vs. Maria Sharapova. When we arrived we found a squatter woman in our seats trying to save four seats “for (her) husband and kids, I been here since 6 o’clock!” (it was only 6:30). We told her to move over out of our seats because we HAD TICKETS for those seats. She reluctantly did and moved further down our row…but the trouble was brewing because eventually everyone else who had tickets for our row showed up to claim their seats…and that is when the battle royal began. By that time the woman had brought in her husband and kids who were not willing to move. Her rude husband even stepped on Amy’s feet while fighting to take two seats that had already been taken by the rightful ticket holders. At the same time, the other two (of the four) ticket holders came for their seats and were trying to figure out why their seats were taken. Amy and I brought them to an usher had the obnoxious family removed. The only problem is that we did it in the middle of the match, and we weren’t allowed back into the stands (as is customary) until the match (or set or whatever) was over. So those freeloaders got to sit there and watch the whole match/set/point because nobody could come in and move them… After that annoyance was over we could concentrate on the game. Towards the end of the whole thing we started to get annoyed by Serena. She left the arena (at least the public part) for about five minutes at one point and left everyone wondering what was going on. Then she started having her trainer do things to her in between each set/match/point/whatever. This was part two of her stage performance. Part one was when she came out to play in what basically amounted to a homemade LA Lakers cheerleader outfit. She played to the “home” (even though she now lives in Palm Beach, Florida) crowd all night. After about five minutes of hearing “you go girl” from all the sistas in the audience every time Serena made a point (most of the time from a Sharapova unforced error) I had to start rooting for Sharapova. The (seemingly) fake injury got worse and worse as the night wore on and Sharapova started to look better and better. This really pissed us off because Serena knew this way she wins whether she actually wins or not.. “oh Serena wuz jus’ hurtn’ girl, you know she woulda smokd dat little Russian girl if she hadn’t been hurtin.’” Which was bullshit, but try telling ten thousand people (total attendance was eleven thousand) that. I felt sorry for Maria, because she is only seventeen and from Russia. And here this cocky African American girl is playing to the crowd (not a very professional move for a tennis player by the way) like it is her home crowd…even though it isn’t. It has to be pretty maddening to come to a tennis match and actually feel like you are the visiting team…even though both players aren’t from there. Serena’s little loser speech at the end was an act as well. She referred to her playing as her “performance” and the court the “stage” and still other words to make it sound like she was accepting an oscar, and not a second place trophy in a sporting event. She made sure to mention to the crowd at least three times how she was jealous that she didn’t win the million dollars. A crowd which included Woody Harrelson, Greg Kinnear, Brandy, and the Olsen twins, by the way.
