Santa Monica Place

Jane will turn thirteen in just a few days. She’s having all the girls from school sleep over Saturday night (expect to see a lot of me on Twitter and G+ Saturday night, not much else I can do) and she’s having three non school friends sleep at a hotel with her next week.

Oh, to be clear, that’s three friends, Jane and me in connecting rooms.

I loved the idea of a hotel sleepover, can you say, “no cleanup”? Jane really wanted to be close to Santa Monica Place so that we could take an evening walk to the food court. If you’re not in Los Angeles you don’t understand that the food court includes an incredible cheese bar and more than one sushi restaurant. It’s a food court that doesn’t suck. Most of all Jane wanted a hotel with an indoor pool. The only hotel with an indoor pool in Los Angeles is the Biltmore downtown, and the Biltmore is neither new nor in a safe neighborhood.

So I started calling Santa Monica hotels but there were no rooms available. The Viceroy had ONE room free and at $1,600 a night I took a pass on it. Apparently there’s a film festival that weekend so Santa Monica was either booked or price gouging, either way it didn’t work for us.

Jane agreed to try Beverly Hills as a sleepover destination. Of course since she is thirteen and has the palate of a billy goat she wanted to stay on Wilshire so we could walk to California Pizza Kitchen. I smiled and agreed that it would, all the while thinking that I could have a crappy salad and a glass of wine there and then order room service from the Beverly Wilshire. See, I’d gotten a fabulous deal from the folks at Four Seasons and Jane was going to have a perfect sleepover while I had a perfect night of pampering.

I think we all know that man plans and god laughs. Well this plan of mine had god guffawing, and maybe peeing his robes a little.

Jane found out that the Marriott in Woodland Hills has an indoor pool and is located next to TGI Friday’s and a mall. If you’re 13 this is the equivalent of the Four Seasons and an afternoon of shopping at Barneys. If you are 41 this is hell on earth. Whomever told her about this hotel should make sure their affairs are in order.

I get my friend Shana to prove that she loves me and agree to dinner with the girls. We’re not actually allowed to sit with them or next to them but we are allowed to pay for dinner. Yay? Shana, in a stroke of brilliance, reminds me that there’s a Kate Mantalini next to the Marriot and we can go there. I tell Jane that this is an option and she agrees to it.

Mr. G. unwinds that plan. He says, “It sounds like Kate Mantalini is to make you happy and it’s not your birthday. That’s a place that yentas have lunch.”

Umm… does he not realize that I’m trying to raise Los Angeles’ next fabulous yenta?

So I’ll be staying at a $125 a night Marriott and dining with Shana at TGIF. Hopefully I don’t get bedbugs and hopefully Shana doesn’t come to her senses and find something better to do.