[Dean's World] Trudy W. Schuett: L.A. is a great place to visit, but...

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Posted by Trudy W. Schuett:
L.A. is a great place to visit, but...
http://www.deanesmay.com/posts/1173021752.shtml


   At least L.A. wasn't as cold as Washington. Still chilly by Yuma AZ
   standards, in the 50s and 60s, and one day was pouring down rain.

   The freeways and traffic were everything I'd heard they were. We only
   got lost once on the way in, tho. While I was working, I stuck to the
   surface streets, because there's more margin for error. At least on
   surface streets, if you miss a turn, you can usually go around the
   block, and not end up in Idaho.

   One trick I learned - nobody gets up very early, so if you've got
   places to go, it's a good idea to get on the road before 8 a.m. or so.

   One day on the way back to the hotel, I found myself in the middle of
   a gang dust-up. There were 5 or 10 guys blocking traffic, bouncing off
   the hoods of cars. To put it mildly, I was a little concerned. Didn't
   see any weapons, fortunately. It was one time I was glad for
   aggressive L.A. drivers - I stuck behind a guy that looked local, and
   hit the gas when he moved out. Whew!

   The hotel was nice. We had a good view of the L.A. Harbor from the
   10th floor at the Crowne Plaza in San Pedro. I liked San Pedro, as it
   has a bit of small-town atmosphere, and some very good food. Best
   pizza and bagels we've had in a long time! It's kind of a mixed sort
   of place, with some serious urban renewal going on, so you might have
   a fancy-schmancy restaurant right across the street from a downscale
   liquor store with check cashing and etc. and right next door, three
   empty storefronts.

   Still, I think it would be a good weekend getaway. I'd go back and
   hang out for a couple of days and see the sights, fer sure. They've
   got a museum, a couple of lighthouses, and lots of shopping I missed!

   Paul and I took a drive one day, which was, sadly, the
   pouring-down-rain day, but we did find something way cool. Rancho
   Palos Verdes is an upscale community with multi-million dollar homes,
   and stuck right in the middle of a residential area, is a Ralph's
   grocery store. It is a veritable cathedral of food. The small
   deli/floral/bakery area you usually see in grocery stores took up half
   the building, in this case. Right in the middle of that was a little
   café where you could stop for a nosh if you couldn't wait to get home.
   Adjacent to that was a wine section that would fill up your average
   7-11.

   The produce was magazine-perfect, and the whole place was soft
   lighting and hushed music. It made me think of things like Beef
   Wellington and asparagus crepes. I would've spent a fortune in that
   place, if we'd had any way to keep food! (Maybe it's better we
   didn't.) Still, I could've hung out there for hours.

   We've been eating Marie Callender's frozen dinners for ages, and this
   was the first time I got to eat in one of the restaurants. Now,
   usually, when we're traveling, we like to find local stuff, but since
   this Marie Callender's was located at the corner of Western and Trudie
   streets, I took it as a sign. Glad I did, too. The chicken fried steak
   was yummy, and my only regret was that I didn't have room for pie.

   Thing about L.A. is that it's a place where a two-bedroom fixer-upper
   with one bath costs $660,000. I can't even imagine paying that much
   for that kind of house, and in a not-so-hot neighborhood, to boot.
   Meanwhile, we heard on the local TV news that foreclosures are double
   this year what they were last. In some cases, people are just
   abandoning their houses when they can't make their new adjusted
   mortgage payment.

   Only about 40% of local people can afford to buy a house, they said.
   It seems there's something really wrong here, and I wonder what's
   going to happen. Will we see a whole new class of homeless people
   emerge? Or what?

   Inexplicably, there's also plenty of new construction going on.
   They're building apartments and calling them "lofts," and they're a
   bargain at "only" $500,000. The whole family including the kids, would
   have to have jobs to cover that kind of a mortgage and still have
   money for frivolous things like food and utilities. I really don't
   know how that's going to play out.

   One of the things my husband found entertaining were the giant
   raccoons. Since I took off with the car early every morning, he
   wandered around on foot. (It was a real vacation for him.) So he'd go
   over to a corner of the underground parking garage and watch the
   critters exit from a drainpipe or something and saunter off, on their
   way to work like everybody else. Thing about them was that unlike the
   Michigan raccoons I've seen, which were about the size of a miniature
   poodle, these guys were more German Shepherd stature, or Golden
   Retriever. Must be good whatever for `coons out in L.A.!