LA Book Fair 2010 (The Legend of Bernadette Peters)

Earlier this week April and I had the following conversation:

Steve: (Silently reading the LA Times spread on the upcoming book fair)


April: "Any big names at the book fair this year?"


Me: "Um-let's see... Buzz Aldrin is going to be there, and it looks like Bernadette Peters, and-um-also..."


April: "Bernadette Peters!? She's a Legend!"


I'm sorry Mr. Aldrin, but apparently piloting the Lunar Module during the first manned lunar landing in history and then WALKING ON THE MOON does not qualify you as a legend.
Unfortunately we missed Buzz at the fair, however, we did see Bernadette Peters as well as a guy who was signing books as Bill Peet but who wasn't actually Bill Peet. We also heard Peter sans Paul and Mary perform Puff the Magic Dragon and April ran into Amber Tamblyn, who could not get enough of William.

The LA Festival of Books is the world's largest book fair and is an official Garff Family tradition. This year we saw the sights with our good friends The Reynolds and the Titeras.

Later we enjoyed burgers at the Apple Pan, one of our favorite LA haunts.

Born In West L.A.

Friday morning at about 8 AM April went into labor. She was just getting home from her morning run. Her doctor predicted that April was going to run herself right into labor. April's water broke right afterwards and we headed to the hospital. But not straight to the hospital. April couldn't help making a detour to take advantage of a killer Sports Chalet sale on the way. We cheaped out and parked at the Institute (it just feels so wrong to pass up free parking in Westwood). As we were walking to the hospital we were both thinking to each other; "gee, this isn't so bad, a few more hours of this and we'll be done."

Thirty-two hours later William Gary Garff came into the world at 4:00 this afternoon (that's right, I just yada yada yada-ed 32 hours of contractions, pain, endurance, etc... April likely has more to say about that).

And now the moment you've all been waiting for, William's first photo-op

This next picture was taken right afterwards too. April looks pretty good for someone who just endured over 30 hours of labor.

William measured 2o inches long and weighed in at, drumroll...

exactly 7 pounds, 2 ounces. Congratulations to to the brand new Grandma Garff who's guess was right on the money. She will be getting the secret prize, April's award winning cheesecake. That's right, I never told you that there was a secret prize. Congratulations also to Dagny and Meredith who tied for second place (sorry no cheesecake).

My parents flew in with perfect timing to see their new grandson.

The doctors, staff, and facilities here at UCLA have all been exceptional. My mom remarked that it's more like a hotel her than a hospital. Here's the view from our room.

April did an excellent job enduring the entire drawn out process.

His little face shows that it was all worth it.

Holding my son right after he was born was the most amazing experince of my entire life. My entire body was buzzing with emotion.

Welcome to the world William.

Graduation

Here are some pictures from Friday's graduation (with some captions).

Section 12

Mom, April, And Dave and Mary Lou

With Van (my first real client)

The MTA Destroyers

With Kirill and Joy

With Chris

The Mormons

Brett and Mike

We went to El Cholo afterwards

With Brian at El cholo

Marcin, Steve, Mac, Kirill, and I 

My wife whose patience and support made it all possible.

Booktober Fest 09

April and I spent our afternoon at the annual L.A. Times Festival of Books at UCLA. On our way to make a pit stop at the law school we ran into Hugh Hewitt who turned out to be a really nice guy. Here are a couple pictures.

Mom and Dad Visit

April and I were glad to have my parents come down and visit us for the weekend. For those who don't know, I will be graduating from law school on My 8th. In an unfortunate cosmic alignment my brother Mike will be graduating from the U's management school on the exact same day. This puts my parents in the very awkward circumstance of being in two places at once. So the have decided to divide and-uh-split the baby. My mom will come down here and my dad will stay up in SLC. In the meantime, they decided that they would both come down now, in part, to take some "fake" graduation photos.

While they were here we also did lots of other fun things like bike riding through Marina Del Rey, with Uncle Dave and Aunt Mary Lou, and touring Venice beach.

(here's the guy that jumps barefooted onto broken glass about to do his thing)

(and the two-headed turtle)

We also walked through downtown Culver City.

(From left to right: Harry Culver (seated), with Nike (also seated), Mom, Lillian Culver holding daughter Patricia, April (seated), Kiki on ground, and Dad)


And toured the temple grounds.

And of course we hit up a few of our classic culinary haunts including: Pinks,

Diddy Riese, Las Fuentes, and Tahoe Galbi (our favorite Korean barbeque in K-Town). If you've never had Korean BBQ you are missing out. they give you a variety of meats (all you can eat and most of them in some form of sweet marinade) that you cook up to your own liking on a grill in the middle of your table. You also get a smorgasbord of side dishes.
I think my dad enjoyed it the most. He even developed quite a liking for Kimchi.

Not long after I dropped my parents off at LAX on Monday I had my second real trial. I represented another MTA bus driver who was refereed to us by my last client. It went about as well as we could expect, and maybe even a little better. We should hear a verdict in a few weeks or so.