With a toddler, a Shih Tzu and several chickens, actor Poppy Liu has a full house.
“I’m raising so many beings,” said the “Hacks” star, who recently appeared in the Netflix drama series “No Good Deed” and will star alongside Tessa Thompson in the streamer’s upcoming series “His and Hers.”
In Sunday Funday, L.A. people give us a play-by-play of their ideal Sunday around town. Find ideas and inspiration on where to go, what to eat and how to enjoy life on the weekends.
“I love having chickens because it feels grounding to eat eggs from my own backyard,” she explained. “I was really devastated when two of them got picked off by coyotes. I was concerned about the mental health of the third one. It’s like, ‘At this point, you’re my pet. I’m concerned that you have depression.’”
When we speak, the hyper-organized, bullet journal-loving Liu has already planned her perfect Sunday down to the hour. “I put together a schedule,” she prefaced. “Normally I might do this over the course of two days, but I’m going to do it all in one very ambitious Sunday.”
In a departure from many of the other new parents interviewed for this column, Liu chose to imagine a perfect Sunday with “robust child care” that she would spend largely alone. “My day would look really different if it was a full day with my toddler,” she said. “It would be a lot of the parks that we go to, the baby gym, Descanso Gardens and stuff like that. But I actually decided to do my solo day because I feel really private about my toddler, and I want to preserve all the parks we go to. I really like that we can be there, just the two of us, kind of incognito.”
On the agenda for Liu’s perfect solo Sunday? “Exciting” fruit, acupuncture and multiple sweet drinks.
This interview has been lightly edited and condensed for length and clarity.
8:30 a.m.: Wake up with baby
Right now, my baby is going through a bit of sleep regression because I was out of town for a little bit. So now that I’m back, they’re very, very clingy, which I think is so cute, and so we’ve been co-sleeping. They love to wake up and then turn to look at me and just hold my face in their little hands and go, “Mama.” You can see the relief when they wake up; there’s a moment of disorientation and then they turn around and see me and they’re like, “Ah.” We just lay on the pillow, just smiling [at each other].
10 a.m.: Window shop while enjoying a fresh smoothie
On Figueroa Street in Highland Park there’s a smoothie stand called Tropical Juice LA where I love to go to get a green juice or some kind of smoothie. And because Figueroa has a ton of cute little shops on it, I just get my little juice and walk around. I’m often going to Wasteland or the Bearded Beagle to go thrifting. Kitchen Mouse is there, which is good for a coffee, breakfast and to meet a friend. Cookbook has a nice wine selection, and there’s a florist right next to Tropical Juice LA for when I get fresh flowers. It’s a nice walking street.
10:30 a.m.: Personal training
I then go to see my personal trainer at South Pas Fitness. It’s a 10-minute drive from the juice place. Her name is Nailah Jamerson; she’s amazing. I’ve been seeing her for a year now. Usually we just do weights, and if I see her twice in a week, I’ll do an upper-body day and a lower-body day. When she asked me what my goals are, I was like, “I want to be toned, but also I want a huge butt. Like fattest ass, tiniest waist.”
11:30 a.m.: Acupuncture recovery
Right after, I see my acupuncturist, because I’ve trained, my muscles are sore and now I want to relax them. My acupuncturist, who I love, her name is Sau Sum and she’s at Dear Song Acupuncture in Pasadena. She’s such an empath and very intuitive too.
I feel like she’s very much a healer in the real sense. Every single time she checks all the things: looks at my tongue, checks my pulse, looks at my complexion — all of it — but also mentally and emotionally [checks] where I’m at too. We’ll have two-hour-long sessions sometimes. She’ll do acupuncture, cupping, moxa — which is the cigar [therapy incorporating burning mugwort] over acupressure points. One week I missed [talk] therapy and she ended up being my therapist. I was talking to her and ended up crying a bunch. And I was like, “Oh, this is what I needed in therapy.”
1 p.m.: Quick bite at Amara Café
Right next to my acupuncturist’s place in Pasadena is this really, really yummy Venezuelan place called Amara Café. They’re a mom-and-pop shop. I didn’t know what Venezuelan food was before [I started going here], but it’s awesome. It’s hearty but also kind of snack-ish, and there’s a lot of “stuff inside of a thing that you can hold,” which I love. I don’t even know the names of the dishes, but they have a lot of pictures there so you can be like, “that looks awesome.” And they also have coffee. I like my coffee milky and sweet like a dessert. If I’m feeling spicy, I’ll get a latte, always with a nondairy milk. I want it to taste like candy, like a melted chocolate bar.
3 p.m.: Trek to Koreatown for fresh fruit
On this particular Sunday, I’m really craving fresh fruit, so I make a little bit of a trek to K-town to go to Co Co Fruit, which is this mom-and-pop fruit store with the yummiest exciting fruit: hairy lychee, longan. I don’t love eating dragon fruit, but I find it to be beautiful. Sometimes my mom will get sugar cane. The majority of Chinese or Asian fruits, there’s just a nostalgia about them for me, and they’re always interesting and strangely shaped.
7 p.m.: Dinner at Levant Bistro
After all of this, I go to Levant Bistro + Bake Shop in Silver Lake, which is amazing Lebanese food that’s also gluten-free. (I’m gluten-intolerant and I get eczema if I eat gluten.) I like to have a really leisurely dinner. Like I love a Spanish dinner, if you will, which just goes into the night. I don’t smoke cigarettes, but one where you’re smoking a proverbial cigarette and the wine is flowing. A leisurely dinner is a minimum hour and a half, two hours.
9 p.m.: Movie night
After this, I go to the AMC Atlantic Times Square to see a movie. It’s in a mall with a giant Daiso, so while I’m there, I’ll go to Daiso for things that I need at home and little fun stuff. Daiso is like a Japanese dollar store, but that is not doing it justice. You can get everything that you need there, and everything’s very cute. Daiso is where I’m getting the sweet-and-sour Hi-Chews that I’m sneaking into the movies.
And then as I’m waiting for my movie to start, I go across the street to Huge Tree, which is a Taiwanese spot, for a little snack. And then I also go down the street to Half and Half for a bubble tea. I like to get their kumquat tea, because I like that it’s not super sweet. I get boba grass jelly and aloe vera in it, 50% sweet, regular ice. I love all the little chewy things in there.
11:30 p.m.: Couch rotting before bed
After I get home, I’m couch rotting on TikTok for an hour as my wind down. Sometimes, on a good day, I’ll read a little bit before bed, but it’s just so much more fun to go on TikTok. Recently I got really into watching this person who finds furniture on the street and refurbishes it. Or Nate the hoof guy, who cleans the hooves of cows and horses. It could be good for my nervous system actually, because I’m watching ASMR.