When Jenny Lewis was born, her parents were part of Loves Way, a musical lounge act in Las Vegas. After they split up when she was 3 years old, she moved with her mom, her older sister and their babysitter (a female Elvis impersonator from Memphis, Tenn.) to the San Fernando Valley.
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.
Lewis remained in the Valley for most of her life, with some sojurns to the Eastside of L.A., Nashville and New York. Now she’s firmly back in the Valley, except, of course, when she’s on tour.
Lewis is a former child actor (you may remember her from “Troop Beverly Hills” and “The Wizard”), but has spent her adulthood as a celebrated musician who has released five solo albums, including 2023’s “Joy’All.”
She recently reunited with her bandmates in Rilo Kiley, the indie rock group that captured millennial hearts in the early 2000s. They are currently touring the United States and will play two local shows at the Greek Theatre on Oct. 14 and 18. Calling from a hotel in Nashville, she details what she likes to do on Sundays when she’s back in L.A.
This interview has been lightly edited for length and clarity.
8:36 a.m.: Caffeinate, let the dog sleep in
I tend to wake up almost every day at 8:36. When I look at the clock, nine times out of 10, it’s 8:36.
I have a cockapoo, Bobby Rhubarb, she’s 4 1/2, so my life kind of revolves around her. I actually wake up earlier than Bobby, who tends to loaf about in bed until 11 a.m. She gets her zoomies around midnight because she was raised on the road. The first year of her life, three months of it was spent opening for Harry Styles and living on a tour bus. She’s on tour schedule perpetually.
So I get up — I’m very quiet so as to not disturb her — and then I’ll make coffee. I love Canyon Coffee. It’s a single-origin organic roaster based in L.A., run by this really cute couple.
9:30 a.m.: Love to clean, clean to love
Sunday is my clean-the-house day. I’m a bit of a neat freak, and now that I live on my own, I can indulge my tendencies. It’s also really good exercise. I’m typically working out a couple days a week, but cleaning is an active thing to do and it’s very loving when you are lucky enough to own a home. You don’t really get to know a house until you get on your hands and knees and clean the floor.
11 a.m.: Open-hearted flea market-ing
The first Sunday of the month is the Pasadena City College Flea, second Sunday is the Rose Bowl, third is Long Beach and fourth is Topanga. I prefer the first and the fourth Sundays. I like the smaller fleas, and there are a couple of vendors that go to both PCC and Topanga that have amazing stuff. I have relationships with them where they’ll be like, “Oh, I pulled this with you in mind.”
Flea market vendors tell the history of where you are. These people are experts on old chimayos and Navajo blankets and Midcentury Modern furniture. If you stick around, you learn a lot about stuff that you never thought you needed to know about.
For me, the nature of thrifting and flea market-ing is based on an open heart and a generous spirit. I’m always donating and going through my closet and putting it back into the thrifting community. When I offload a bunch of stuff rather than sell it, I feel like I will be lucky at the flea market.
You can’t really go with any expectations; that’s not really how it works. I’ve been looking for the perfect fake leopard-skin coat for 20 years. I actually have a new song that has that as one of the lyrics. Maybe one day I’ll find it.
2:30 p.m.: Chinese food cravings
If this is a Pasadena day, it’s an opportunity to get Chinese food, which I crave on Sundays. I’ll sometimes go to Woon. It’s really close to where a lot of things burned down [in the Eaton fire], so it’s pretty cool to go there and support that spot.
It can be a little jammed on Sundays, so sometimes I’ll go to the Glendale Galleria — also jammed, but in a different way — and Din Tai Fung.
I always park on the top deck. You get a little sunshine. If you need to smoke a little doob, you can do that, or not. And you just walk right over the bridge into JCPenney, which I love walking through.
Din Tai Fung, there’s a hack if you’re by yourself, or if you’re two people: You can sit at the bar and not wait an hour. I’m gluten-free. Normally you would get dumplings, which look amazing and I want to eat them, but I can’t eat them. I’ll get the beef broth soup — it’s unbelievable — and some vegs. Depending on the day, sometimes they tell you the glass noodles are gluten-free and sometimes they tell you they’re not, so I wouldn’t recommend that to anyone who is celiac.
3:30 p.m.: Mall massage break
Out in the middle of the mall, near the Uniqlo, there’s the best 30-minute chair massage. It’s just incredible. And I’m a big mall massage aficionado.
I prefer it to a bougie massage. I would rather do a Thai-style massage where you have your clothes on or Chinese acupressure. Typically mall kiosks are Chinese acupressure. It is the best massage for what I’m looking for, which is something very strong and therapeutic.
I don’t need to go to the spa, especially when I’m on the road. Oftentimes, the bus will be at a Radisson on a day off and there’s a mall across the highway. I’ll always look for the massage at the mall, and it sets me straight.
I’ve written so many songs while getting a massage in the mall, because there’s always ambient music that you can’t totally make out. There’s something about that and the sound of people — it’s a very freeing frequency for me to write lyrics.
5 p.m.: Dinner provisions
I’m heading back to Mint Chip, which is the name of my house, to see Bobby. On Sundays, depending on what I had for lunch, we will do either burger night or grass-fed filet mignon night.
I’ll stop at Gelson’s, and they’ve got two grass-fed fillets that are relatively reasonable. I’ll get a baked potato or mashed potatoes, a salad, pick up a bottle of natural wine and then go home and make dinner for myself and Bobby.
I like things well-done, which no one likes to hear, but it’s the reality. If you’re my guest or my dog and you like things a little bit more rare, I’m happy to make it your way for you.
I’ve become a really good cook and I make a great martini. I make the Mint Chip Martini. I call it a maximalist martini because it’s extra dirty, olives and a twist. It disguises the alcohol. I just look at the vermouth — I don’t put it in the martini; I glance at it, and that’s enough vermouth.
I couldn’t do anything before the pandemic, so I really cherish that time of learning how to take care of myself.
8 p.m.: Cult classics
I have a projector set up in my living room that projects onto a white wall. I’ve been really into this app called Night Flight [Plus]. “Night Flight” was a cult late-night TV series [it originally ran on the USA Network from 1981 to 1988]. They played a lot of music videos, punk and heavy metal docs. Now they have this awesome streaming app, so you can watch these old episodes. Right now, there’s a movie called “Kin-Dza-Dza!” from 1986. I love that Soviet stuff. Music from that era is so weird and cool.
10 p.m.: Bedtime with crime
I’ll take Bobby out before bed and then we will go into the master bedroom. I will typically listen to an audiobook or a podcast and then it’s off to sleep.
I am a true crime enthusiast, so I’ve listened to all of them. As of late, I really enjoyed “Crooked City.” Also, “Up and Vanished: In the Midnight Sun” is great. I really like Payne Lindsey and all of his shows. There’s another great one called “Dead and Gone,” which is the crimes that happened in the surrounding areas of Grateful Dead shows. It’s like the full Grateful Dead history. I love the Dead, but I learned a lot about the Dead listening to that, and I was really just listening for the crime.
I’m considering a career shift into forensics. I mean, not really, but I’ve been to CrimeCon; I want to go to CrimeCamp. I’m obsessed. And again, this happened during the pandemic because there was never space for me to truly indulge my hobbies. I’m educating myself.
