Lifestyle
It All Started With a Ouija Board
Laura Marie Acker was visiting her mother in Lewes, Del., in June 2023, when she joined a group of her mom’s friends for a Ouija board night. “During the session, my father came through via letters and numbers with a surprising message,” Ms. Acker said. “I would be engaged in 2024.”
When she tried Ouija again five months later, she said another message from her father, who had died in 2016, advised her to keep going to church. “I thought the whole thing was crazy.”
It was the end of 2023, and Ms. Acker continued to experience an “unsatisfactory dating life” after years of living in Miami and New York before moving to Charleston, S.C., in 2020. “I didn’t hold out much hope because I’ve always dated men with no interest in marriage or family,” she said. “My career was a priority.”
Things changed in April when Ms. Acker, 39, met Evan Alexander Menscher, 41, through a friend from her Bible study group in Charleston. Her friend knew Mr. Menscher, a divorced father, through their daughters’ ballet class and quizzed him about his interest in marrying again. The friend felt he and Ms. Acker were a match and introduced them via group text.
After a short phone chat, Ms. Acker and Mr. Menscher met at Bar167 in Charleston later that month. “When I saw Evan sitting on a bar stool, he took my breath away,” she said.
Mr. Menscher, 41, said Ms. Acker was 20 minutes late and wearing a bright yellow dress with her hair pulled back. “I thought she was the most beautiful woman I’d ever seen,” he said. “I was taken aback as we locked eyes.”
[Click here to binge read this week’s featured couples.]
They closed down the bar talking about their life journeys, values, careers, different religions (she is Roman Catholic; he is Jewish) and dreams. “Time stood still,” she said. “I felt my father’s spirit had a role in guiding Evan to me.”
After a parting kiss, she quickly texted her best friend from college to say, “I might have met my husband.”
Mr. Menscher called his sister to tell her, “I’m going to marry that girl.”
Their second date was a few days later at a pizza party. Ms. Acker met Mr. Menscher’s 5-year-old daughter and watched as he engaged her in a game of Mr. Napkin Head as everyone roared with laughter. “I thought of the scene in the movie, ‘The Holiday,’” Ms. Acker said, referring to a scene in the 2006 Nancy Meyers film in which Jude Law plays the same game with his two daughters.
She later called Mr. Menscher to say it was as if she ordered the perfect boyfriend and his adorable daughter on Amazon and they arrived at her doorstep. “You better not return us,” he replied.
Mr. Menscher, who was born in New York City and raised in South Brunswick, N.J., has a bachelor’s degree in kinesiology and exercise science from High Point University, and a master’s degree in cellular and molecular biology from East Carolina State University. He works as a remote enterprise account executive at Zoom.
Ms. Acker was born in Raleigh, N.C., and raised in Clifton, Va., and holds a bachelor’s degree in marketing and hospitality from Florida State University. She is an executive vice president of Kreps PR & Marketing, based in Coral Gables, Fla., overseeing the firm’s southeast office in Charleston.
While they enjoyed dinners, movies and boating picnics, there was one early source of tension: different dog-parenting styles. Ms. Acker’s 1-year-old dog Sawyer, a spirited rescue Cavalier King Charles Spaniel, had the run of the house, including a seat at the dinner table begging for food. Mr. Menscher, who grew up with dogs and had two during his previous marriage, is more of a disciplinarian.
“Evan uttered a negative comment about Sawyer’s behavior under his breath, and I got angry, rushing to Sawyer’s defense,” she said. They talked about it and their first fight was resolved.
On Sept. 22, while the couple and Sawyer were enjoying a sunset beach walk on nearby Sullivan’s Island, Mr. Menscher got down on one knee and proposed. “I was so surprised I jumped in his arms before saying yes,” Ms. Acker said.
They were married on Jan. 2, in front of a roaring fire at the Farm at Old Edwards Inn in Highlands, N.C. The Rev. Carl Southerland, a priest at St. John’s Episcopal Church in Franklin, N.C., officiated before 10 guests. (Five minutes into the ceremony, his daughter yelled, “Kiss her already!”)
Of their nine-month romance, Mr. Menscher said, “We moved fast because there was never a moment of doubt for either of us.”
Ms. Acker said Mr. Menscher made her feel confident, safe and at peace. “Evan encouraged me to always be honest and transparent,” she added.
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The 2025 Vibe Scooch
In the 1998 World War II film “Saving Private Ryan,” Tom Hanks played Captain John H. Miller, a citizen-soldier willing to die for his country. In real life, Mr. Hanks spent years championing veterans and raising money for their families. So it was no surprise when West Point announced it would honor him with the Sylvanus Thayer Award, which goes each year to someone embodying the school’s credo, “Duty, Honor, Country.”
Months after the announcement, the award ceremony was canceled. Mr. Hanks, a Democrat who had backed Kamala Harris, has remained silent on the matter. On Truth Social, President Trump did not hold back: “We don’t need destructive, WOKE recipients getting our cherished American awards!!!”
Lifestyle
How to have the best Sunday in L.A., according to Keiko Agena
Keiko Agena likes to create moments of coziness — not just on Sundays, but whenever she possibly can.
“Oh, there’s my rice cooker,” she says when she hears the sound in her Arts District home. “We’re making steel-cut oatmeal in the rice cooker, which by the way, is a game changer. I used to have to baby it and watch it, but now I can just put it in there and forget it.”
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.
The 52-year-old actor, who played music-loving bestie Lane Kim in the beloved series “Gilmore Girls,” delights in specific comforts like a bowl of warm oats, talking about Enneagram numbers and watching cooking competitions with her husband, Shin Kawasaki.
“It sounds so simple, but I look forward so much to spending time on the couch,” Agena says with a laugh.
It is time that she’s intentional about protecting, especially amid her kaleidoscope of projects. Over the last couple of years, Agena starred in Lloyd Suh’s moving play “The Chinese Lady” in Atlanta, acted in Netflix’s “The Residence,” showcased her artwork in her first feature exhibit, “Hep Tones” (some of her ink and pencil drawings are still for sale), and performed regularly on the L.A. improv circuit. And her work endures with “Gilmore Girls,” which turns 25 this year. Agena narrated the audiobook for “Meet Me at Luke’s,” a guide that draws life lessons from the series, and is featured in the upcoming “Gilmore Girls” documentary “Drink Coffee, Talk Fast.”
She shares with us her perfect Sunday in L.A., which begins before sunrise.
5 a.m.: Morning solitude
I like to be up early-early, like 5 a.m. I like that feeling of everything being quiet. I’ll go into the other room and do Duolingo on my phone. I am a little addicted to social media, so the Duolingo is not just to learn Japanese, but also to keep me from scrolling. Like, if I’m going to do something on my phone, this is better for me. I think my streak is 146. Shin is Japanese, from Toyama. So I’ve been meaning to learn Japanese for a while. For him and his mom.
Then I’ll do [the writing practice] Morning Pages. I don’t know when I learned about Julia Cameron’s book [“The Artist’s Way”] — probably around 2000. I know a lot of people do it handwritten, but I’m a little paranoid about people, like, finding it after I die. So if I have it on my computer and it’s password protected, I can be really honest.
Then a lot of times, I’ll go back to bed. Shin, as a musician, works at night, and so he wakes up a lot later. So I’ll fall back asleep and wake up with him.
9 a.m.: Gimme that bread
I don’t do coffee anymore because it’s a little too tough for my system, but I’ll walk with Shin to Eightfold Coffee in the Arts District. It’s tiny but very chill. Then we’re going to Bliss Bakery inside the Little Tokyo Market Place. We get these tapioca bread balls. If you make any kind of sandwich that you would normally make, but use that bread instead, it ups the game. It’s life-changing. The Little Tokyo Market Place is not fancy or anything, but it has everything that you would want. There’s Korean food. They have a little sushi place in there. You can get premade Korean banchan and hot food in their hot food section. They also have a really good nuts section. It’s just one big table with all these nuts, just piles and piles.
10 a.m.: Nature without leaving the city
We’ll go to Los Angeles State Historic Park near Chinatown. I like that place just because it’s very accessible. Like, they have accessible bathrooms and I’m always checking out whether a place has good bathrooms. We call it Flat Park because it’s a great walk. Like, you’re not really out in nature, but there’s a lot of greenery. You can take your shoes off and at least touch grass for a second.
11:30 a.m.: Lunch and TV cooking shows
One of my favorite salad-sandwich combos is at Cafe Dulce in Little Tokyo. A Korean cheesesteak and a kale salad. That’s always like a — bang, bang — good combo. So we might go there or Aloha Cafe, though it’s not fully open on Sundays. But I love it because I grew up in Hawaii. They have this great Chinese chicken salad and spam musubi and other Hawaiian food that is so good.
We’ll bring home food and watch something. Cooking competition shows are my cream of the crop. My favorite right now is “Tournament of Champions” because it’s blind tasting. To me, that’s the best way to do it. “The Great British Bake Off” is Shin’s favorite. He loves the nature and the accents as much as the actual cooking. He just loves the vibe, the slow pace of the whole thing.
I’m such a TV girl. I love spending time on the couch and eating a meal and watching something that’s appetizing with my favorite person in the world. I’m lucky because I get to do that a lot.
2 p.m.: Browse the aisles
I’ll go to this bookstore called Hennessey + Ingalls. I love art and architecture and design, but you can’t always buy these massive books. But you can go into this bookstore and look at them and it’s always chill.
If I have time, I’ll walk around art supply stores. Artist & Craftsman Supply is a good one. I’ll look at pens, pencils, stickers, tape, washi tape, different kinds of paper, charcoals. In my art, I try to find things that aren’t meant for that particular purpose, like little things in a hardware store that I’ll use it in a different way.
5 p.m.: Downtown L.A. in its glory
We really love to walk the Sixth Street Bridge. It’s architecturally beautiful and they’re building a huge park over there, so we’ll walk around and check it out, like, ‘Which trees are they planting? Can you see?’ We sort of dream about how it’s coming together. But the other beautiful thing about that walk is that if you go at sunset and you walk back toward downtown, it’s just gorgeous. Los Angeles doesn’t have the most majestic skyline, but it’s so picturesque in that moment.
6:30 p.m.: Cornbread and Enneagrams
I’ll head to the Park’s Finest in Echo Park. It’s Filipino barbecue. It’s just so savory and rich and a special hang. Their cornbread is really good. Oh, and the coconut beef, but I’m trying to eat less beef. They have a hot link medley. Oh my gosh, just looking at this menu right now, my mouth is watering. OK, I’ll stop.
One of my favorite things to do is ask friends about their Enneagram number. So the idea of sitting with friends over a good meal and asking them a bunch of personal questions about their childhood and what motivates them and what their parents were like and what their greatest fear is and then figure out what their Enneagram number is? That is a top-tier activity for me.
9 p.m.: Rally for improv
Because I get up so early, if 9 o’clock, I’m ready to go to sleep. But I am obsessed with improv, so on my ideal day, there’d be a show to do. There’s this place called World’s Greatest Improv School in Los Feliz. It’s tiny and they just opened a few years ago, but the vibe there is spectacular.
Then there’s another place where my heart is so invested in now called Outside In Theatre in Highland Park. Tamlyn Tomita and Daniel Blinkoff created it together and not only is the space gorgeous — I mean, they built it from scratch — they have interesting programming there all the time. They’re so supportive of communities that are not seen in mainstream art spaces. It’s my favorite place. Sometimes I’ll find myself in their lobby till 12 o’clock at night. The kind of people I like to hang around are the people that hang out in that space.
11 p.m.: Turn on the ASMR and shut down
I am firmly an ASMR girl and I have been for years. I have to find something to watch that will slow my brain down. Then it’s pretty consistent. I don’t last very long once I turn something on. My eyelids get heavy and it chills me out.
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