Anything But Standard

Today, Raquel took me to the pool.

Pools are a dime a dozen in LA. Lots of apartment buildings have them, families invest in them... but rarely are they all that nice. Sometimes you can crash a hotel pool, without having to be a guest, but lots of swankier places have clued into this and started having pool parties where drinks cost too much, people are too beautiful, and lounge chairs come at a price.

Oddly, one of the swankiest places on the Strip didn't do that to our little gang of ruffians on a sizzling Wednesday afternoon. We went to The Standard, which is one of those" places that occasionally winds up in a tabloid or gossip blog. I'd been there for a pool date once before, when a friend was staying there. he held me a poolside seat alongside 3 girls, the 4th of which assumed my seat was actually hers. Of course, much cattiness ensued. I chose to ignore the nasty comments coming from the pool area and occasional directioned kick splashes for a while, but eventually got tired of the extreme lameness and bailed.

So I wasn't feeling terribly comfortable about this particular outing, but hoped that the fact that it was midweek would help, and we could relieve our overheated selves. We were about 10 people strong, and there was safety in numbers as we took over a corner of the grounds, did plenty of pool floating, sandwich munching, cocktail drinking, and laughing. The wait staff was having fun with us, and it turned out to be a lovely day in LA.

Who'd a thought it?