Sparkle in the Fog
Thursday night, I picked up Kristen at the airport. The plan of record was for us to spend the next morning in San Francisco doing some shopping, then fly down to Los Angeles for the weekend, so we had decided to spend the night in the City. I drove up in the van so we could crash in the camper for the night.
When I picked Kristen up, it was already pretty late, like 11PM, so we went for a nice dinner at Zuni Cafe (thanks to Payam for the tip). Zuni Cafe happens to be open late, and is really quite good.
Then we drove to the parking lot under the Golden Gate Bridge, which I thought would be a swell place to spend the night. It was quite foggy, so we couldn't even see the bridge, and the fog horn was warning us of rocks every so often. Shortly after we poped the top on the van, we had a light in the window; a police officer had come by to tell us we couldn't camp out there overnight. Bummer.
So we trecked on up into the Presidio, where the housing is and so on, and ended up at a parking lot next to the Log Cabin, under a big tree. Free of police scrutiny, but still within range of the fog horn, I asked Kristen to marry me and gave her the ring we were supposed to be shopping for in the morning. She was pretty surprised, and it was all good.
Friday, instead of shopping, we got some coffee and munchies, then went to Grace Cathedral to walk their labyrinth and generally enjoy the cathedral, which is quite beautiful. We then drove home and flew to Los Angeles for the weekend.
We flew into Burbank airport, got a rental car, and went looking for food. Kristen had never been to Los Angeles, so over the course of the weekend, I gave her the full tour. 
We drove by the Warner Brothers Studio, by my old apartment in Toluca Lake, and over the Hollywood Hills into Hollywood. We got some dinner on the Sunset strip, where everyone is dressed all fabulous and different, so the people watching was quite good.
By this point, it was pretty late and we were very tired, so we went in search of shelter. We ended up thinking we'd fall alseep in the car, so we pulled into the first motel we could find, which we now call the "Motel Sketchy," in Hollywood. There was a sign: "No drugs. No prostitution..." Yikes. But we were too tired, so we crashed and spent the night worried about the rental car getting stolen. Surprisingly, we slept pretty well.
In the morning we got out of there in a hurry and went to Santa Monica's 3rd Street Promenade for some brunch, walking by the beach, and shopping. Then we continued the tour of Los Angeles through Westwood, Century City, Beverly Hills, and so on. We stopped at a splendid knitting store called Knit Cafe, did more shopping in Beverly Hills, saw the Hollywood sign, drove through Hollywood Boulevard, and back up to Burbank, where the Best Western is not at all sketchy, checked in there, and had some dinner at the El Torito where by boss at my old job at Disney Kevin used to take us for margaritas.
Phew. At this point, it was time for a nap.
But then we were off again, to downtown Los Angeles for the L.A. Burning Man Decompression Party. That party was under the 1st Street bridge. We were greeted by friendly and familiar faces and announced to several of our friends that we had just gotten engaged. At the San Francisco Decompression Party, I had told several of our engaged and married friends that the following weekend we would be joining the club, and everyone was throughly excited. We got to see a couple of those friends as well as several others at the L.A. party and that was a lot of fun.
A little bit of rain cut our stay short at the party, so we got in touch with Chris and Thairin and met them at The Dresden Room in Hollywood. We helped our waitress by encouraging some squatters to move along and ended up with our own booth next to the band. We got to share our news with them as well, and had a great night there with our fruity drinks and music.
Chris and Kristen got chatting about this artist who worked with a bunch of scientists to present human bodies in this fabulous educational exhibit called Body Worlds. It turns out that the exhibit is in Los Angeles right now, so Chris told us how to get to the California Science Center, and the next day, we went there to see the exhibit. It's hard to describe how cool it is. Real bodies, opened up so you can see exactly what's going on in there, posed and preserved. In case this sounds it, there is nothing morbid or gross about it; it's simply fascinating to see. If you get a chance, get on over there.
We stayed that night in West Hollywood and went to the Improvisation Cafe for some comedy, but they were closed for a private event that night, so we went instead to the Improv Olympic, which is more improv comedy rather than stand-up comedy. There was a John Kerry fundraiser going on there, and while I was getting tickets for the following show, the crowd from the Kerry thing was leaving and Kristen gave me this look. It turns out I was standing next to Eric McCormack, from Will & Grace. I got a great view of the back of his head.
All in all, an action-packed, lovely, educational, and celebratory weekend for us.