“I’m sure that I could be a movie star, if I could get out of this place.”

Kat

We solemnly swear not all posts will be about Gilmore Girls. Please continue to come back and read.

In October, Caroline sent me a link for a Gilmore Girls themed Christmas event happening at Warner Brothers Studios in Burbank. The text following the link said, “Let’s go, and I’m serious.” I’m always up for tomfoolery, and this was the pinnacle because we could only be in California for about 30 hours. Shout-out to Caroline’s children for the time constraints. We planned to go on December 30th and come back on New Year’s Eve because we both hate the 31st. What better way to dodge the inevitable of a new year than by walking around a fictitious Connecticut town in southern California?

Upon landing at LAX, we took a shuttle to get a rental car. I’m not a planner by nature. Caroline is. I’m not. But we both [Caroline] dropped the ball on getting a car reserved. There was a football game and a parade happening in nearby Pasadena that’s apparently a big deal. Who knew? The first place wanted to charge us $400 for a car for 26 hours. I’m no math genius, but that seems a bit steep to cruise the 405 in a minivan. So we immediately started calling other places and were able to secure a car after a few tries. We had to travel to another rental place, so I was in the process of calling an Uber to take us there. A driver pulled up on the app, and it was only $5. Score. Caroline suggested I look and see exactly how far the rental place was. It was 650 feet away. Literally next door. We were about to have someone drive us 650 feet, but you know what? Vacation equals frivolity.

Caroline had put me in charge of planning what we would do with our time before our Warner Brothers Tour, so I had created a very specific itinerary of filming locations from our favorite movies and tv shows:

• the house from Father of the Bride
• the house from the Brady Bunch
• the offices of Dunder Mifflin
  

We jetted around quoting the shows and singing theme songs. Basically, my average Monday.

I put the Brady Bunch address into the GPS and said, “We are now going to the second most photographed home in America. Caroline, trivia. What’s the first?”
“Umm. Oh! The Home Alone house!”
“Yeah no. The White House.”
“Well, Kat, I wasn’t thinking political.” #obviously

At Warner Brothers, we did the studio tour that ended in Stars Hollow, the imaginary town that Gilmore Girls is set in. They had Lorelai’s house set up with costumes and props from the show. And the smell…..you know how Lorelai says she can “smell snow”? Well I want the ability to smell Lorelai’s house all the time. It was like the bakery of cherubim. We walked around the town square quoting and singing. Again, nothing out of the norm.

Caroline indulged my desire to go the restaurant that serves as the bar in New Girl. It’s called The Prince and is located in Koreatown. If you’re in the area, it an interesting spot and looks exactly like it does in the show; however, if your eating habits are like ours, you’ll probably only be there for the photo opportunities. I got a pink wine because #newgirl. Caroline asked for an iced tea and got a glass of ice water with a tea bag. We ordered chips and salsa and sweet potato fries to snack on. Our waiter said, “Have you had our sweet potato fries before? They are sliced very thin and are sprinkled with sugar.”
“Sounds great to us!” Yeah, no. It was basically like eating sugar covered hair, but we ate probably more than we should have.
If you know the pilot episode, a lot of it takes place in the bar and the episode ends with the main characters singing, “Time of My Life”. When we got in the car after leaving the Prince, “Time of My Life” started playing. The Lord’s love is so specific. #onethousandgifts

The next morning we went to the restaurant that serves as JJ’s diner in Parks and Rec, and I had the fluffiest pancakes of my life. Embarrassingly, I can eat a lot of panckes. My best friend of 25 years calls it a “phenomenon”, but I met my match at JJ’s.

A frivolous drive around Beverly Hills was called for before going back to the airport. A lot of Troop Beverly Hills was quoted on that leg of the trip.
“I’m sorry we’re late, your honor. We were describing the fall fashions to the blind.”
We were essentially Lucy and Ethel driving around and looking in every car at every stoplight hoping to see a celebrity.
“Is that Penny Marshall walking her dog?”
“Is Penny Marshall dead?”

Thankful for teacher schedules that allow us to do things like this. And thankful for Paula Stewart who helped watch Caroline’s children so we could go. And finally, a shout-out to our other sisters who showed no bitterness upon not receiving an invitation to live out a show that they have never seen. I feel very blessed.

(I hereby resolve the need to talk about my hatred of the new year and my love of Gilmore Girls for the rest of January. You’re welcome.)

Join us on Friday!