Am i first?!

Yesss! Go me!

Oh! Uh...hi Laurie!

LOl, hi Juniormint :)

Did you ask Rajit if he knew what time it was? Sorry. Yes. i know. I am bad. It is bad. Why did i watch ANY of Flava of Love?!
Enjoy the haze! And the Friday. FRIDAY!

Hmm...your corner stores are more exciting than mine. Wait...I don't even go into mine... Maybe I'm not exciting enough! I need to small townify my life!

Pics of my new puppy are up at my blog!!!!!!!!!!

Did it actually say Flavor Flav? He must have an actual name, but legally changing your name to Flavor Flav isn't the weirdest thing I've heard of, scarily enough.

This reminds me of the time some friends of mine saw Jack White and then-girlfriend Renee Zellweger, who was very overdressed, in this almost unexplainable bar called Bob & Rob's in a particularly working class suburb here in Detroit. Bob was the 70-something owner (RIP), who sang in a Sinatra-ish, crooner voice to the old classics on what I think was a glorified karaoke machine, wearing a white track-suit, to whoever happened to be around. My friend's Mom once said she loved it there because it felt like something in New York or some other big city, and I had to explain that places that weird can only exist in the Midwest.

Flavor Flavor?! Hilarious! Southern CA is an AWESOME place, and the haze does burn off, just in time to enjoy the afternoon.

It did indeed say "Flava Flav" on the autograph! LOL

Is he still with that awful Brigette Neilson?

I grew up in NYC so I'm more enthusiastic about the small-town friendliness & wanting to talk. People in Maine seem to want to talk. I'm convinced it's not just the South, it's how many people you see in a day.

This is one of the nicest pieces I have ever read about any city in California.

I really enjoy living in Cali, even if it is only vicariously through you and your cats.

God I miss California.

And it is haze, and it will indeed burn off. Works like a charm.

haha, haze! When I went to Garden Grove a few years ago for a wedding, everyone told us it was sea mist!

Hey, Miss Flav, did you get the present I sent u?

Optimism is contagious isn't it?

My CircleK man is Dave, I see him every morning and he jokingly chastises me for being late for work ( when I am... which is usually.) But he makes the best coffee (Hazelnut for my 'flavor flavor') because he meticulously sanitizes the pots between brews...and has a second pot ready if one is low, what at a difference! Love You Dave!... Your wife Ranjit is not quite as gung-ho with the coffee love, but she's patient with my goofiness so you will both receive Christmas cards (again). Here we call the haze a 'marine layer' which is a fancy name for high fog on the coast when it's steaming hot inland.

Good Lord, you've made me homesick. I even miss the "haze."

My friend wants me to move to L.A. That would involve moving across the continent. I like the sound of that. But really, it is smog. Why not just admit it? Apparently smog is everywhere, but we can't see it.

What's up with this new fangle talk Laurie? You said "you're all" and then "you know." Shouldn't that have been ya'll are... and then ya'll know. Please don't confuse me like this :D

OOps. That was me up there. I think I should be allowed to go home when I start posting anonymously on non-work related websites.

I've never been to hazy L.A. but I get a kick out of your writing, Laurie! Flava Flav, huh? My friend, Valerie, had a thing for him a few months back. I just can't figure it out... :)

That was the best story. Flavor flavor!

That is a great story!

We have haze too. Not smog, but haze. San Francisco and LA haze to be exact. It all comes to the central valley to nest.

Thanks for the story. Made me smile. : )

Great story -- thanks for bringing a bit of southern hospitality to southern CA (which doesn't always have much!)

Brilliant! L.A. is, if not the most optimistic city, then definitely one of them. We all, alone in our steel cages can believe that we can be the next somebody. That going to the Coffee Bean might bring our chance to, if our dream is not to become a celeb, then to befriend someone whose star shines brightly, and a little of the glow will rub off on us.

Uh I must be old - who is Flava Flav?

Awesome!!

I'm trading my big city (Portland, OR) for a small town soon (Pinehurst, NC) and I will miss some of those things that make a big city interesting and fun to live in!

Although my neighborhood is very like a small town...walk to the corner market, corner hardware and tons of cute shops and restaurants. Sigh. I will miss that!

Every time we've been in LA we've always had star sightings. My fav so far was watching Rosie film her show at California Theme Park with the whole cast from Drew Carey.

Oh girl. You kill me. My friend claims he saw Flava Flav here in NYC on the subway late one night...that guy gets around!

Hey Amy - Here's the scoop on Flava:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flavor_Flav

He was in a hip hop group called Public Enemy in the 80's, starting the 'rappers with insanely large bling' trend (he's still known for the big clocks)... recently he was on the Surreal Life on VH1 and then had his own dating show "Flavor of Love"...
That should answer it ;)

You, girl, should run for mayor. Have a great weekend!

I was "anyone" back home too. I'm moving back to it. The town is just barely big enough for it. And, yes, it really was smog. As I crested the hill this morning, I took a look back. Definately brown. Definately smog.

Flava Flav? Whew. Now I don't feel so bad about not knowing who Denise and Richie are. (Please don't anyone tell me. I need some mystery in my life.)

When the haze burns off, can you see Brigadoon?

This is my new small town, rightcheer, rightnow. Your writing is totally involving. I can see how we scratch each other's itches. Watched this PBS special where monkeys bathe with people, pick their noses, etc. This is the same kind of monkey business that you are promoting. Gorgeously fun.

Thank you, thank you for the hilarious faux-intimacy of your writing.

New-found fan, pickin' and grinnin'right along witcha...

Vicki

This is my new small town, rightcheer, rightnow. Your writing is totally involving. I can see how we scratch each other's itches. Watched this PBS special where monkeys bathe with people, pick their noses, etc. This is the same kind of monkey business that you are promoting. Gorgeously fun.

Thank you, thank you for the hilarious faux-intimacy of your writing.

New-found fan, pickin' and grinnin'right along witcha...

Vicki

Too weird. My comment showed up as being Lucia
s. Why not...but what happened to hers? Was it magic. I am sorry, Lucia. I didn't do it on purpose. Just trying to find my way around here. It's the smog, obviously.

Vicki,
your comment is on top of your name.
It took me awhile to figger that out as well... thank god I'm not alone.
---SAM

Oh Laurie,
I do love you so!
And you're right- this is a pretty damn' ptimistic place. Never in LA will you hear the arguments "Oh, THT will never happen" or a flat "We just don't DO that here" (oh please, between the genetic engineering start-ups and the porn industry in the Valley, there's NOTHING we "don't do here"!!!
AS for the haze- well, it's a little bit of smog AND a little bit of haze (that does burn off later- so there). BUT- ya'll have NO idea how bad it used to be- we used to have "smog alert" days in elementary and junior high where we went on rainy-day schedule for P.E. 'cuz the air was too bad to be running around in. And my mother tells of days where her chest would ache simply from walking home from school (yow!).
However, that all said, my personal mantra as an Angeleno is still "If ya can't taste it- it ain't AIR!". ;-)

It is indeed "haze".

And I propose that all new-comers to our fair piece of the planet be allowed to fly into and out-of LAX only at night. That way they won't be confused by the haze/smog controversy.

Que cosa bonita, el amor del gente, de la ciudad, del fumo, er, "haze"...

Jackie, apparently I did a crappy job of expressing myself, it's a syntax thing or maybe a comma splice, but aanyway. I meant it like "all the same, no matter what the hell thing they name the streets, you're on the road in this here traffic..." See? it's "all the same" not "you're all."

LOL. You folks and your syntax police!

Actually, that would be a cool job. Syntax police.

That haze is so not going to burn off by this afternoon....but I agree with you about this being the place where you can make your dreams come true. When can we do lunch? and have you heard of La India? Try to hear Ese Hombre.

Ok,somehow I must have been living in a different Southern California because yours sounds so much better than mine. Mine was a terrible place where the air is always brown and people shoot other people on the freeway while you are trying to get to work.

Or maybe it's just that you, Miss Laurie, are the optimist! :)

I am an optimist, it seems.

jenny, I will email you :)

Crystal. Your dog is SO CUTE I could die, ya'll DO NOT let me get a dog. I mean it.

You need a dog to herd the cats!

And now I've been earwormed with Flava Flav yelling his name.

:) I'm with LauraA - Flavah, FLAAAVE!!!

Too funny. I love how anyone can get so thrilled about a celeb siting. Of course, FF is a bit of a *PERSONALITY*, so it stands to reason that (1) he would be shopping at CAP's convenience store, and (b) he got Rajit all bustin' a vessel.

Happy weekend!

Wow, you make me want to visit LA, whereas previously, I would have had to have a real good reason to go. It'll have to go on the list of places to go "just 'cause"...

Wow, I wish I lived in a city I could wax rhapsodic about. Dayton's all right, but I definitely do not get poetic about it. :)

Too funny! But what does the Spanish mean? (Can't help it, took German in high school).

I remember asking folk about haze when I moved to LA. They said it was "sillicate particles" ( I dunno), and not really smog or fog. Hence haze... lol!

I spent my childhood in hazy LA and Orange counties, but now live in one of those little towns where everyone you bump into at the store went to high school with you or your older brother or baby sister. I did have a "Flava Flav-like" close encounter once out here in the sticks, a couple years back, at the Rite Aid checkout. A tall, striking, clean cut blondish man in his 40s was buying what I thought was a disposable camera, just the two of us in line. A lot of fighter pilots train here in my little town in the California desert and he was dressed in what I assumed to be an Aussie Air Force flight suit. Actually, he was wearing a khaki motorcycle wind suit. I'm not all that curious or nosy but there was just something about this guy. Bits and pieces of the film "Hidalgo" were being shot just down the road. Turned out the guy was Viggo Mortenson: be still my small-town girl heart.

Laurie, go you have so captured LA right there. Made me homesick for a bit. I even kinda missed the traffic. I do miss the bazillion 7-11's surrounding my house (my fave 7-11 was on White Oak and Vanowen, btw).

I'm gonna go call my mom and tell her to buy a slurpee in your honor.

Sue, It means something like "to love you like this..." or "to love you the way I love you."

It's a great song, if you like sappy spanish love songs ;)

I love L.A.! (We love it!)

I love the haze... it's so much better than the June gloom.

I was so surprised when I moved to my part of the valley, the sheer # of 7-Elevens. Holy moly. There are two on my street. Two. (And 7-Eleven day is next week... wonder if they'll still give away free mini-slurpees...?)

Okay, so here's a question for you west coast peeps: is the haze in L.A. the same as the fog in San Francisco?

Hi Laurie,

I am a newbie with regards to your blog and I am hooked.

I love your writing - kind of like John Steinbeck without the depressing.

Who would collect the money on a Sin Tax?? The Sin Tax police?
I digress.
Nice bit o writing!!!!!
Its keeps me coming back...LORD knows its not for the knitting.....

Tell Rajit to get some more of his cousins into the US...I'm drowning in them out here....

Haj, we could get rid of the federal deficit with a sin tax. But who could we trust to collect it? Hey, a dirty job but someone's got to do it.
Laurie, you even make smog and 7-11s sound poetic! Instead in Boston we have occasional fog and a CVS drugstore on every corner.

serriously wishing I could " hijack " your date .
:-P

Hee hee...Flavor Flavor....heh.

The biggest secret about LA, I think, is that it's a whole collection of small midwest towns bumped up against each other. Real people, living together, getting to know each other with a clean slate. We just don't have the miles of open space between each enclave. That "haze" though will rot out your lungs if you breathe it for too long--at least it doesn't make your eyes sting and burn any more, the way it did when I first came out here.

But what did Flava Flav BUY? That is the real question. Did you get a gander at what the receipt was for??? Slurpie? Big Gulp? Twinkies? I'm going to be wondering all day.

I so cannot wait for the next season of "Flavor of Love."

Hey, we don't have fog or smog in SF -- its merely a 'marine layer'!!! Come on people, get it right!!

I love Flava Flav -- what a car wreck of a celebrity. Love him to death.

I so love LA for being the frontier of reinvention -- my god what a great town for getting to totally become a new you. I used to work in mental health -- I confess, I was a therapist -- and one of my clients used to say, "I would leave *wherever* to reinvent myself, but then I would get off the plane and 'I' was still on the tarmac". He may have been psychotic, but he had a point.

Anyway, I love California and the promise of leaving our old selves behind and meeting up with the Flava Flaves of the world.

Darling, you make even the haze sound sexy. Glad you be loving that town. La La land is a little too scarey for a small-town Aussie.
Love your blog:)
Mia

If it's smog AND haze, does that make it smaze? Or hamog?

I live in the Mayberry of Southern California. Or maybe at least the Stars Hollow. My town even stands in for Stars Hollow on occasion. And the cool college town in Old School. Imagine Will Ferrell running ncked down the main street of my Mayberry.
You nailed it -- LA is just a bunch of small Midwestern towns bumped up against one another. And I was a Midwestern girl for 33 years before I moved to Mayberry last year. Maybe that's why I like it here so much.

And it is totally haze when it isn't brown. In the summer, sorry, it's smog.

The absolute BEST time to live in LA is the day after a rain (and damn are they few and far between!).

Caribbean blue sky, so crisp you could take a bite, absolutely to die for.

That 7-11 sounds very lucky. Have you considered buying a lottery ticket from Rajit?

Even some of us from the right coast have to admit that the left coast is ass kickingly wonderful. Smog, er, haze aside. :)

What is "Chapin" on the bumper sticker? I think "y que" means
"so what". I guess "Chapin" is probably something rude.

Douglas Adams on L.A.: "the air is, for some reason, yellow."
Yet despite picking on it, he also wrote that he recommends to anyone picking up and moving someplace new and different, to reinvent yourself or whatever, as he had done by moving to the L.A. area. I have to agree even though I moved FROM big smoggy city TO smaller college town. It works either direction!

Syntax police? Oh yeah, that's me. Actually this summer I am typo police. Syntax police would be even better though.

Oh yeah, and one time you said something like "come on, admit it, you grocery shop at the 7-11 too" and I have to say no, I do not either grocery shop at 7-11, even if it's 2 am or I just have no energy for a real grocery store. ...I go to Walgreens.

Sunflower -- "Chapin" is the slangy/nickname word for someone from Guatemala. So, you'll see occassionally "Soy Chapin Y Que?" which is "Yeah, I'm Guatemalan, you want to make something of it?"

("Guanaco" is the term for a person from El Salvador. And most Mexicans use Mexicano, although some use Charo for cowboy.) I love LA! It's an education :)

I love So.Cal. and the ever present (in the morning, at least ) "marine layer"!