Westwood Blvd. Bustop

This is definitely a true evaluation of the party I attended last night. My lovely landlady Yvette is a kick-ass neuroscientist at UCLA, and she'd invited me to "a little get-together" she was having. Turns out, it was the annual Christmas-party for all the neuroscientists/biochemists/and more-ists at UCLA. Them: "What department are you in?". Me: "Eeh...film & tv?". Them: "Oh." Silence.

But joking aside, they really were a super-cool bunch of people - I just didn't always catch their jokes. I mean, I can't even convey them to you, because I can't remember all the technical terms, but they were something like: "Hahaha...what is the charging of peptic acid, Miriam...? Haha..." Or "Hahaha...we haven't managed to isolate that receptor yet, but by golly we'll get that sucker! Haha..!" And seriously, people laughed! I did too. I didn't want to seem un neuro-scientific, you see.

But whatta ya know? Scientists like a good drink just as much as the next person. Neat!

 Neuroscientists Miriam and David (actually I'm not sure which '-ist' they were, but 'neuroscientist' seemed the safest bet)

Ooh, and this particular event was a so-called 'pot-lock' (Danish: sammenskudsgilde)...and lemme tell ya: A LOT of food was brought! And I believe we counted 10 different nationalities at the party, so there was food from France, USA, Japan, China, Poland and the list goes on. First Christmas-food-baby of the year: check!

 Fancy salmon-spread. (I swear there's salmon in there somewhere)

Brainy discussions. My spot was next to the old geezer with the white hair and yellow blazer, so I was definitely in the middle of all the action. He was lovely. He apparently lives in Yosemite on a breathtaking estate that everybody raved about all night and he has fostered more than 200 children with his wife in the last 30 years. I don't know how people do that. Oh, and during the weekdays he lives in a mobilhome in Culver city and tries to crack some peptic acid-problem in UCLA's labs. People are interesting.

 More brainiacs.

 Gastro-membrane-something superstar scientist Dr. George Sachs (he invented some medicine to help people with overly-active gastric acid production, that won him the Gairdner award, which is considered to be a precursor to winning the Nobel Prize in Medicine) picked the best spot. At the bar. All the booze to himself and nobody to bother him while enjoying his meal. I like his style.

 Meanwhile, all the desserts were waiting backstage.

!

The departing guest-professors from Germany. Apparently, it's a tradition to single out the departing guests and interrogate them (before showering them with gifts and praise). In addition, these two promising scientists had just gotten engaged. To each other. I wonder what their children are going to be like...

 The interrogating crowd.

 Yvette!

 See, how cool she is. Always smiling and energetic. Needless to say, we get along really well.

 Picture on the fridge of her and her daughters, Veronique and Stephanie. I just love this picture.

Party's over.

Hollywood still life...

...and me in the middle of it.