This has been a month of transition — I switched coasts, started a new (short-term) gig, and said goodbye to life in LA… for now.

I spent most of May soaking up the things I love most about Los Angeles: my friends, my job, and food. And coffee.

Let’s start with work — it has been a gift to be back at Young & Restless these past few months. I filled in as an assistant to our Executive Producer, who is truly fantastic to work for. And I jumped back into my old position as Production Associate / Script Supervisor in the booth for a few days; it was a blast to reunite with those co-workers.

Here’s a glance at my desk. I joked that I ran a produce section since I often picked up fruit and avocados at Trader Joe’s during my lunch break.

Speaking of lunch breaks, I’d try to get up to the rooftop area to sit in the sun as often as possible — that’s the helicopter pad below. They have a few lounge chairs which make for a perfect mid-day relaxation spot.

Here’s the photo I mentioned last month — I snapped a shot of our head writer and co-EP Charles Pratt, Jr. on-set with our actors for this issue of Soaps in Depth magazine. Came out great, and I got photo credit in the mag!

I will miss working so close to the Grove… it’s fun to pop over here for a walk during lunch or to get coffee in the morning.

Here’s a few good-bye photos with co-workers — that’s the supremely wonderful Christian LeBlanc on the left, and members of our production team getting drinks after work at Wood Ranch. I love these people.

I saw one play: I and You by Lauren Gunderson at the Fountain Theatre in LA. It’s about two teenagers who connect in a surprising way while working on a homework assignment about a Walt Whitman poem (the title is a line from Leaves of Grass). It ran a tad too long but the build-up leads to a moving twist in the show’s final moments.

Oh man, I ate so much good food this past month. Perhaps even TOO much good food, if that’s possible.

Meals pictured below, starting in the upper-left corner and going clockwise: grilled chicken and veggies with kale mustard salad courtesy of my good friends Kelley & Irving, chicken shawarma dinner from local kosher grocery store Cambridge Farms in Valley Village, a sampling of happy hour menu items at La Piazza in the Grove, and delicious pizza from DeSano Pizza Bakery in east Hollywood.

I tried a local favorite cafe (within walking distance of my apartment!) called Steampunk Coffeebar + Kitchen. It’s a game changer, folks. In addition to creative coffee concoctions (I tried the vanilla cinnamon latte and Mexican mocha), they are known for The Stack — fried chicken, waffles, bacon, and egg (which I skipped), plus sautéed kale or fried potatoes and a cayenne maple aioli. I can also vouch that their french toast and homemade granola are excellent options.

I finally got a chance to visit Grace & Rian’s new place in Hollywood! We had a fun night catching up and got hooked on HBO’s The Jinx after watching the first three episodes.

That next week I got dinner with Grace & Tamar at The Federal in the NoHo Arts District, my old ‘hood. Such a treat to spend time with these two.

I don’t have photos of this, but I also grabbed dinner with Tamar and our friend Eva at Octopus sushi in Glendale before going to Tuesdays at 9 at the Atwater Village Theatre — this group meets every week (though they’re on hiatus during the summer) to present cold readings of scenes from plays or scripts that are works-in-progress. Actors get the material just minutes before the reading so they tend to make bold choices, which is fun to watch. Around six scenes were presented with one musical guest performer. This LA ground is a spin-off of the NYC series of the same name, produced by Naked Angels. Lauded playwright Kenneth Lonergan has worked with this group on Tuesdays at 9 over the years.

Another highlight from this month was going to dinner with two of my favorite LA couples — Kelley & Irving and Jenny & Ziggy. We went to Masa of Echo Park, home to the best deep dish pizza in the city… which happens to be perhaps my favorite meal of all time.

I took a quick walk around the lake with Kelley & Irving afterwards — love this area at twilight, just before it gets dark and becomes a sketchy park. (For a fun photo flashback, check out this post about walking Echo Park with my friend Allison last year.)

Speaking of Allison, I went to brunch with her and my co-worker / awesome roommate Laura at Bottega Louie in downtown Los Angeles. We ended up walking to a bunch of fun spots so I’ll save those photos for a full post coming tomorrow.

Our friend Jenny celebrated her birthday with brunch at The Roof on Wilshire, a fancy restaurant at the top of The Hotel Wilshire. Tables surround the pool and guests enjoy 360-degree views of Los Angeles while dining on delicious food.

Here’s a shot of our whole group, courtesy of my fisheye lens:

Check out these highlights from the brunch menu… I enjoyed the croissant french toast with a spicy pineapple and coconut compote, and several of my friends raved about the pancake lasagna (featuring layers of pancake, cheese, and bacon).

Randomly I ran into my good friend Steve from college, who was also dining on the rooftop with other Emerson alums. It was fortuitous to run into him because we were long overdue for a catchup and it makes me SO HAPPY to see him. We set a plan to meet up after work that next week, and our friend Natalia and her fiancé Kyle were able to join us last minute. We all go back 10+ years… the three of us were in a co-ed fraternity Zeta Phi Eta in college, and Natalia and I were roommates while studying abroad in the Netherlands in 2003. It made my month to catch up with them.

I also had a blast dining out with my good friends Jenny & Ziggy this month — every weekend we tried one or two new restaurants, which was an excuse to eat good food and enjoy each other’s company. Here are a few of our dining exploits… Iroha Sushi in Studio City, fresh poke from Poke N Roll in Glendale, more fresh poke from Mainland Poke Shop on Third Street, and ice cream from Carmela also on Third Street. (My favorite: Mainland Poke. OMG.)

And we tried Mud Hen Tavern at Melrose & Highland — great atmosphere and food. I can vouch that the chicken and waffle croquettes, as well as the crispy brussels sprouts, are fantastic (both pictured below). And apparently Will Farrell was there during our visit — we didn’t see him, but I ran into a co-worker there who spotted him after we left.

Now let me tell you about Susie Cakes — I first learned about this bakery from an ad on Facebook (so clearly they’re doing something right with their marketing algorithm). The photos of layer cakes were so tempting that I immediately emailed Jenny about adding it to our dining list. But they close weeknights at 7p and aren’t open on Sundays, so it took a few weeks to finally get here — but it was worth it. I ran in just before they closed and picked out three slices of cake to share later that evening with Jenny & Ziggy.

We end up with slices of the vanilla funfetti cake, old fashioned chocolate cake, and red velvet. I’m torn between picking the funfetti or red velvet as my favorite — both are outstanding.

On my final afternoon in Los Angeles, I went to a park with Kelley & Irving and their almost three year-old daughter (WHERE DID THE TIME GO?!). We did a little photoshoot; here is one of my favorites from the bunch:

And I couldn’t leave LA without stopping one last time at my hands-down favorite coffee shop, Priscilla’s in Toluca Lake. I swear, sometimes this is what I miss the most about LA — spending a quiet afternoon sipping coffee (a large vanilla hazelnut spiced latte over ice with soy milk) while editing blog photos or planning future travels. The atmosphere is what makes this place so special — it’s not hip or trendy, it’s just a casual spot with a relaxed vibe, friendly baristas, and plenty of tables. For my money, there’s not a better coffee spot in all of Los Angeles, and I’ve tried quiet a few of them. Priscilla’s holds my heart.

Turns out I’m not the only one leaving LA this month — my dear friends Molly & Joe are moving to Colorado. They hosted a wonderful goodbye party at Malibu Wines; they even rented out the whole upper patio for friends to spread out and mingle.

In true Molly fashion, she put together these crafty photo boards to mark memories from 10 years of living in Los Angeles. Each board features a different part of their lives — jobs, marathon running, nights out with friends. This particular board below shows off memories of our time working together at Young & Restless. I poured over every image. She did such a great job capturing the spirit and faces of our time at the show.

Last but not least, I cleaned out the room I’ve been renting from my friend Michael. Isn’t this a great space?

I emptied out the storage unit I’ve been renting in Torrence for the last 2+ years — I put my stuff in there just before departing on my RTW trip in March 2013. And in mid-May I packed everything from the unit into a Uhaul cargo van, drove it to an ABF Freight terminal, and shipped all of my stuff to Connecticut where it will live in my parents’ basement until I figure out when and where I want to get an apartment. (This doesn’t mean I won’t be back in LA for stretches of time — I just don’t need to access all that stuff when I’m on the west coast. It’s cheaper to leave it in my parents’ basement in the meantime. Thank you Mom & Dad!)

I originally planned to stack my stuff on a pallet and shrink wrap it (provided free of charge by the kind folks at ABF Freight), but my items were too bulky to fit cleanly on a pallet so at the last minute I changed my strategy. ABF has the option of packing all belongings into the bulkhead of a shipping truck, and then they put up a dividing wall to protect your stuff at the very front. They use the remainder of the truck space to ship pallets of stuff across the States — so it takes 6-8 business days for each vehicle to make its way across the country (mine took 5 days total). When the truck arrived in Connecticut, the items were exactly as I had packed them up in California, and no one had touched them in transit because the dividing wall kept my items separate. This U-Pack option costs $1400 for five feet of space (the minimum amount). As you can see in the photos, I only used the bottom of my allotted space, and if I’d found other people willing to split it I could’ve saved money. But since this was a last-minute change due to the bulky nature of my items, it was the best deal I could figure out. If I had just shipped a pallet as expected (with the full height of the truck — seven feet tall), it would have cost around $900.

ABF Freight was excellent to deal with throughout this process, and they did not pay me to say that. I spoke with several of their representatives on the phone while researching this and each one was kind and informative. The guys at the terminal in Pacoima, CA were exceptionally helpful — assisting me with loading boxes onto the truck, which they did not have to do. And they were also helpful at the terminal in Orange, CT by providing me with a dolly when I asked for it. ABF Freight does residential drop-off and pick-ups, but since street traffic is tricky in LA and my parents have a steep driveway, it made sense for me to rent a Uhaul on both ends so that I could load and unload at the terminals (this is a few hundred dollars cheaper, too).

Here are photos from when I dropped my stuff off in Pacoima, CA —

These guys rig up the dividing wall to protect my stuff in the bulkhead:

One last shot… goodbye to my stuff for now! See you in CT!

Then I flew to Boston over Memorial Day weekend to visit my family on Cape Cod. It was a quick day and a half (and I was super jet-lagged from a red-eye flight) but we had a very fun time together. I’ll do a full post later in the week; in the meantime, here’s a glimpse of our weekend:

And then I started a new, short-term gig in New York City — working on my most favorite awards show ever. THE TONY AWARDS!!! More on that after the show.

And with that, 2015 is nearly half over. Life flies by with such speed. I’m grateful to document the moments here.