The best thing that never happened to me

Carmageddon.

It's been all over the news for a little while, and it took place this past weekend. The city was closing the 405 for construction for two days, which was going to make traffic in LA into something like a natural disaster mixed with the apocalypse, and every resident of LA was encouraged by city officials to stay off the roads at all costs.

Harry and I took this very seriously.



For weeks ahead of time, we planned everything around Carmageddon. We planned to hole up in our apartment with our favorite foods and movies, and limit ourselves to walking to the 3rd Street Promenade and the beach, and that would be it. Which I was totally fine with. We've been traveling almost every weekend so some down time at the apartment sounded really nice.

Saturday morning we walked down to the 3rd Street Promenade to a breakfast place we found that we really love called Monsieur Marcel.



Harry was certain we were sitting next to a movie star whose name he couldn't quite remember. We split french toast and crepes, and then meandered down to the Santa Monica Farmer's Market to get some berries Harry kept hearing about at work. I kid you not-- the farmstand that sells them is called Harry's Berries. They grow these fantastic strawberries right by the ocean so they are exploding with tart juiciness. We bought a basket, and would have bought more, but were limited on the cash.



We also managed to find Harry some running shoes at the Puma store at 40% off! I was thrilled about these shoes because NOW I can finally coerce him into going running with me! Win win!

We walked home, and I was all prepared to break out a bathing suit and the boogie boards we stole from my in-laws and hit the beach, when we got a text from Dan and Aja, who live in Hollywood, and who we were sure were at least 2 hours away by car in the supposed "traffic jam of all time."

They wanted to go see Harry Potter, a movie that I've been looking forward to since I finished the final book in the series back in 2008. Not only that, but they wanted to DRESS UP-- not optional. Wands and capes mandatory. I knew it the moment Harry read the text to me… Carmageddon or not, this sounded way to awesome to pass up.

We got onto google maps to survey the traffic damage. Only, according to google, every freeway was completely and blissfully traffic-free! My best guess is that the majority of LA people really had the fear in them and were honestly staying off the roads. We felt like this was a dirty trick and that as soon as we started off for Hollywood, we'd get caught in a jam that would keep us on the road for hours. You can imagine our glee when we got to their house in RECORD TIME-- 20 minutes. We'd never made it that quickly before.

We dressed up as best we could and snapped a picture for posterity. No, Dan didn't dye his hair just for this movie so he could look identical to Draco Malfoy. But he did get that question about 45 times throughout the evening, especially from a girl who asked if he would take a picture with her.



We went to the movie. One thing I realized that I love about LA is you dress up like a Hogwarts student and people not only love it, they completely EMBRACE you for it. I was walking around Universal City Walk in Harry's white button up shirt, gold and red tie, gray skirt, and an enormous hooded black cloak, frizzy hair a-flying, holding a twelve inch stick in my right hand, and the reactions I got were, "AWESOME!" and a plentiful amount of high fives and pats on the back.

Harry was wearing my graduation robe from two years ago over a shirt and tie in the Ravenclaw colors. I have had that graduation robe in the trunk of my car since graduation day in 2009. It has moved with me from Provo to Irvine to Palo Alto to Vegas to Palo Alto to LA, and has NEVER left my trunk. Somewhere deep inside I knew I couldn't get rid of that billowing sheath of navy blue polyester, and I'm proud to say today that my tendency to be a pack rat paid off in spades.

The movie did not disappoint. In the last few years, I have started crying in movies at the drop of a hat. I have no explanation for this. I've cried in like five episodes of "Friday Night Lights" (it's all your fault, Tim Riggins) and I cried three times during Harry Potter.

The next day was Dan's birthday celebration. We made our infamous Apple Pie (Mac and Julie once won a bake-off with this recipe. It's fool proof and amazing every time).

It's just not right to bake on Sunday without something British playing in the background. Which is why you can see "Downton Abbey" on my laptop. Being in an apartment that doesn't have a lot of baking equipment can be an interesting experience. I used a pot as a mixing bowl, a bottle of wine (a gift from the apartment owner) as a rolling pin, and a potato masher for a pastry cutter. Harry helped me by peeling apples.





We then fearlessly hopped on the freeway, arriving lickity split to Dan and Aja's apartment. Aja made the most amazing pizza for everyone and we had such a great time hanging out with friends and family. We feel really lucky to be surrounded by such great people out here.

On the way home, Harry and I decided Carmageddon should really happen more often. We've never experienced such convenient traffic conditions in our entire lives.

How about it, Los Angeles? Doesn't the I-5 need some repaving?