BA's Corner: Graduation Celebration

The night before AA's graduation, we planned a celebratory dinner at Katsuya.  Unfortunately, there have been so many other "current events" recently that this post is now long-overdue.  But since AA is still recovering from the bar exam, I thought I'd share this post because we had a great time that night, and I don't want the memories to be passed by. 

Katsuya is a special place to us.  In a lot of ways to me, it represents LA.  There's nothing bad on the menu, and everytime we went, we'd end up trying several new things on the menu (and loving them).  You pay for it, but it's a wonderful place for a special occasion.  And this was certainly a special occasion.

It was also a rare event - Leah was coming out to dinner with us.  In addition to being in a hotel room at this point, her schedule was about to be thrown off for the evening.  I think we were the only people in LA to eat dinner at 5 p.m. on a Friday night, but it was necessary. 

Since we ate so early, we scored the Tom Hanks booth again!

"Wait, is that my grape juice?"

Leah did great at the restaurant...staring dreamily at our Bradley-Cooper-look-alike waiter and flirting for a little attention (as if she wasn't getting enough already).  She got some exercise crawling back and forth on the benches.

The Peanut had reached her limit, and cried almost the whole way home in typical 405 traffic for 7 p.m. on a Friday (sorry Grandma and Aunt Haley who were stuck in the back seat with her).  It was frustrating because we knew that if we could just move, she'd fall asleep.  But we sat and sat.  It was a long ride home. 

After we got Leah to bed, it was time for a celebration.  We surprised AA with a TCBY cake and champagne for starters.  AA's parents also sang a song to her that they had prepared for the occasion. 

One of my gifts to AA was a dispenser of personalized M&M's.  I was very proud of how neat the images turned out...there's a picture of AA holding Leah while she studies - I thought that was appropriate for a graduation gift.  Do you see anything odd about this picture?



Yes, the Pepperdine mascot is the "Wave"


Well, there's something you need to understand here.  As a die-hard Florida State Seminole, I make it my personal mission to not allow the colors "orange" and "blue" to be used together.  We just can't have that other Florida school represented in any way.  Heck, when possible, I just remove orange completely to make sure it doesn't happen. 

Problem: Pepperdine's colors are orange and blue.  C'mon people....has the LA smog corrupted your brains?  Who decided the most beautiful campus on Earth should be frosted with orange and blue?  Yuck.  I can't even comfortably write those two colors in the same sentence.  But as I told AA, this occasion was all about her and her achievements - not my never-ending love of fried gator tail.  So for this one day, for this one occasion, it was not about me...it was about AA.  So we rolled out the orange and blue.  Look now...you'll never see this again from us (unless Leah goes to Pepperdine). 

We ended up leaving quite a bit of cake for the housekeeper, but had a great time celebrating while Leah slept peacefully in the other room

During the visit, Leah also decided to surprise AA's family with another "first" - waving.