Abigail M. Schilling

Sunday was free museum day in LA so Amanda and I decided to take advantage and get ourselves cultured. Of course, at the last minute I couldn't part ways with the dog (her eyes! her eyebrows! they control me!) and so we decided to check out Sunset Junction instead because it was featured on Design*Sponge last week.

See, Silverlake is dog-friendly and cultured.

(Side note: On a scale of one to going to hell, where would I be if I crafted a cape for Maddie so I could take her everywhere with me?)

We hit up the Cheese Store and Intelligentsia and filled up on very pretentious food and drink. At the cheese store I got a baguette with brie, apples, and fig spread. It was really, really, good but only for about half the sandwich, then I got overwhelmed with the flavors. Also, I had a salted caramel for the first time and hoo boy, those are salty. I like my caramels regular, I think.

The best part ever though, was when I was ordering our coffee at Intelligentsia. Amanda wanted a caramel macchiato. While I was waiting in (the very long) line, I practiced in my head how I was going to say our orders. I looked around at the other patrons, angling whether or not I fit in, regretted not wearing cuter shoes, and practiced over and over again how to say our drinks while still remaining breezy.

"Can I get a caramel macchiato?"

The barista looks at me, waits a beat, and I interrupt myself, and say, "Oh, do you not have syrups?" I say in a way that suggests that it is totally normal that they don't have syrups. I figured it was a 50/50 chance and I would come off least dumb if I acted as though they had them, but then didn't act surprised when they didn't. (The alternative being asking straight up if they had syrup and then feeling even more dumb when they look at me like an idiot. Which they did anyway.)

And she is all, "No, we don't have syrups, and our macchiato is different than any other macchiato you've ever had. Are you sure you want it?"

I was all, "Yes, please, also can you make latte art with your condescension? THANKS!"

The coffee was great, but as someone who goes to pretentious coffee shops as a hobby, I can tell you that they all have "really good coffee" just like the rest of them! Once coffee is good, the margin for difference is very small. And also, I still like Starbucks. So there.

The other awesome part was when we were sitting outside of this awesome gellato place and I was complaining about my tummy hurting (too many figs), and Maddie was basking in the sun and then this guy with a remote control car got a very cute gleam in his eye and from half a block a way he remoted the car right up under Maddie's nose. She was all, "WTF??"

What did you do this weekend?