In June our family relocated from San Francisco to Los Angeles. We were in San Francisco, actually inside the city itself, not on the perimeter, not the Area, not NorCal. But the city itself. For 15 years.

Now we are settled in Eastern Los Angeles, in the village of Los Feliz (yes, it’s a village).

Initial impressions of LA:

• Hot. Like an oven. Oppressively so. This morning it was 90 degrees by 9am. Is this the standard temp for early September? Will it break? I’m not even going to ask about rain.
• Lizards. Dozens of the little freaks scurrying around, startling me when they jump in the ivy. Geckos, I think. Some the size of my hand, many the size of my index finger. But I’ll take them over rats any day.
• Homeless. Back in SF, we had and have tons of homeless, vagrants, lost kids, druggies and a lot of mentally ill. Here they make great encampments, stretches of tents and mattresses and torn clothing to create shantytowns in the shade of the many concrete overpasses. Signers and those who walk in the middle of the street abound.
• Fashion. LA got style. San Francisco not so much. LA fashion is avant-garde, loud, exciting.
• Driving. And driving more. Now I consult travel times and traffic patterns and the Waze app before I so much as pick up my keys. Distance and traffic can have more influence on where I go to dinner than cuisine or reputation.
• Industry. Most everyone has something to do with the Entertainment industry. Scriptwriters and directors and independent projects are discussion topics. But even us plain-ol’ entertainment consumers are seriously up on our celebrity knowledge.
• Spanish. Duh. But seriously the concentration of Spanish speakers is immense, and pleasing to the ear if I do say so. In California it has become the norm, but in most of the country English is the only language consistently heard and read. Vamanos.

More to come as the weeks roll by…