A Day In The Life, Brought to You By Mastercard, Official Sponsor of My Indulgence

Five gallons of regular unleaded: $21

Two "energy drinks": $6

Admission to The Huntington Library, Art Collections and Botanical Gardens: $10

Chicken Quesadilla at the Huntington Café: $9

One "energy drink" at the Huntington Café: $6

Two hours spent in a lobby with screaming brats because sometimes it does rain in Southern California: Endless

Another "energy drink"  at the Huntington Café: $6

Spending seven hours in a car with the Little Womedievalist while traveling a grand total of 51 miles: Priceless

Comments

[Belle Lettre]

You drink a lot of energy drinks. Do they really give you more energy?

That was a very sweet post.

[eM]

Sounds like an airwolf way to spend a day.

[Mike Schwartz]

Energy drinks are an interesting phenomenon. They've always existed in some shape or form (ie: 32oz cups of coffee), but recently, the array of such drinks available everywhere from high school vending machines to Shakeez has gotten impressivley vast.

Then there's the energy drink's handy counterpart: energy bar.

Nutritionally, energy drinks and bars are only narrowly distinguishable from soda and Snickers. But their sleek packaging and healthy-sounding titles create the impression that they're a far more sensible choice than Sprite and Caramelo.

And the irony, of course, is that I consume energy cuisine at a dizzying pace. Just yesterday, for example, lumch consisted of a chocolate Powerbar and RockStar. Mmmmmmmmmmm.

[Miriam]

Ah, but a reader's card at the Huntington would have saved you the $10. (Shouldn't you get a reader's card? It's a pretty quirky collection, but there's an endless supply of Jack London on the premises.)

[The Little Womedievalist]

My two cents:
Getting to page through the Stafford Gower MS (EL 26 A 17) and smell the ink/parchment: f*ck*n' awesome.

And the husband took it all like a rock star. (Though, come to think of it, the number of energy drinks might explain this last observation...)

[Rich Puchalsky]

When I lived in L.A. I used to visit the Huntington quite a bit, mostly for the gardens. They are worth a wander if you haven't already done so.

It's a classic L.A.-area "public" space, though. How do you get green space in L.A.? By having a guy who inherited vast wealth (and, if I remember rightly, married his stepmother after his father died) set up his estate as a park in his will.

I also remember that in addition to his various super-valuable first editions, the guy who set up the place also liked to buy leather-bound sets of the world's classics by the yard and use them as presumably never-read decorations. There's still a room in the Huntington displaying them.