LA Journal, part 1... I hope....

My plane left at 8:45, which seemed like a perfectly reasonable hour when I booked the ticket. I arrived in LA at 10, Santa Monica by 11. On the bus from LAX I met a couple foreign boys studying business in Malibu who kindly gave me directions. They also observed that hamburgers are available on every street corner in the US.
What did you expect? I asked.
Steak, maybe, he replied.
The Pole told me of his obsession with Taco Bell, to which I shook my head. Why not try to get real Mexican food? He wasn’t convinced.
He also talked about Bay Watch, but the German instructed him never to talk to women about that show. (He said they’d seen it being filmed. It was a highlight.)

Without knowing where I wanted to go, they instructed me on where to get off the bus. I had to trek back a few blocks to the Santa Monica Pier where I planned to rent a bike. It was a fun detour since I got pulled into a market research study about chocolate covered almonds on the way. It began with a few simple questions about my eating habits. It’s always fun to be asked questions I know the answer to like that. Then I was instructed to taste 2 different kinds of almonds and rank my preference based on appearance and flavor, and describe why. Finally, for an additional $5 (the first part earned me a Starbucks card), I did an oral interview about my perception of different brands of almonds. Almonds aren’t that much different than buses; it was almost like work!

So, I rented a turquoise lady’s beach cruiser, and my bag was terribly heavy still despite all plans to pack light. I asked for “a bike, a helmet, a basket and a lock.” And the guy said “so, the works, hu?” With the map, he gave me directions along the beach bike path, and I didn’t have the heart to tell him I had no plans to bike along it but that I was going straight into the city.

By now it was after noon, and I wanted lunch. Under the direction of Yelp, I had selected an Bay Cities Italian Deli and Bakery which Yelp called “an institution”. It was more like an Italian deli and grocery shop with beautiful assortments of capers, sea salt, lemons in jars, peppers in jars, cookies, etc. I got out of there with “The Godmother” sandwich, a little Greek salad, and a box of mini cantalones. The place was mobbed, and procuring lunch took about an hour.
Overheard: now I know why this place is only for special occasions.
I ate at a table in the parking lot with sun-hat and –glasses. A mother and daughter (about 12), also celebrating something, joined me; I eyed the daughter’s meatball sandwich.

From there, I biked up Broadway, the closest adjacent street with a bike lane, to the Santa Monica Art Museum and the Bergamot Station which is filled with art galleries. The one exhibit that I found really interesting was in the far corner and involved acrylic cubes that formed 3D shapes such as a monkey and human scull, male and female human bodies with the internal organs, and a number of trees. If you looked at them from the side all you saw was clear acrylic.

Walking into one gallery, I greeted the person behind the desk as usual. He replied “Why are you so happy?” – I didn’t know I was “so happy” but I’ll take it. He spoke slowly and took a long time to get the point. I asked if the paintings were, more or less, done from photographs (most were of lovely blond young girls in surreal settings). And somehow we got into an impassioned (for him) conversation about artists over-pricing their art. Eventually, I pretended to get a phone call (something I almost never do) and snuck away to the restroom.

The Museum showed a movie of Jerusalem: the devout Jews blocking off the roadways to their neighborhoods for the Sabbath presenting a separation between two ways of life and thought in Israel.

Looking at art is exhausting, but I lasted as long as I could. I went from there to the Co-Opportunity Grocery Store, possibly LA’s only hippy-dippy co-op grocery store (?). I got some wine for Linda and Roger, Carolyn’s parents, who had kindly agreed to host me.

Classy Nails, found through yelp, was my next destination, and spending a hour getting pampered and having my nails tended was just what the doctor ordered. It wasn’t easy to find a color that matched the red of my dress for all of their 15+ available shades of red, but I think I did OK.

Then back to the beach to return the bike before meeting Rachel for dinner.

…

My first night here, I pulled off the shelf a book called “getting the love you want” a guide for couples. Saturday morning, Roger was trying to leave for Idaho and missing his book, it turned out the same one. (He called it a “convergence” that of all the books on their shelves, that’s the one I selected to read before sleep.) As a consolation prize, he suggested I look at “Lives in Progress” (Robert W. White).

More to follow… hopefully….