Smog is very cliche but also very prevalent in Los Angeles

Jan 29

Jan 29 Smog is very cliche but also very prevalent in Los Angeles

I like visiting LA, but I could never live there.

I'd say the smog is unbelievable if we didn't spend what felt like our whole time there in a car, directly contributing to the problem. I feel for the environment, but as that ship's sailed, it would've been nice to spend some time out of the car to get a better sense of the city, and to take more photos. Yes, this is a longwinded way of saying that I didn't take many photos on this trip.

I've been to Los Angeles twice now, and while it is enormous, I don't feel like I got much of a sense of it either time because you have to travel everywhere inside a car. Maybe that's why convertibles are so popular in California. (I imagine they are, but I don't know that for a fact. It feels like it's right though, and 1 year into Trump's America, that's as good as time-honored truth)

Still we saw parts of the city I didn't get to see last time. We wandered around Chinatown and later the same day, Japantown. Ate ramen and tacos and In N Out, and I drank charcoal lemonade — twice. It was fun to spend the week with two locals, our friends Jake and Katie, and their two antisocial cats. They were more social than in Boston, where the stress of living in a crazy, busy household of many people would make me go insane too, but they were still no Best Buds.

Who are the Best Buds you ask? Lia and I met the Best Buds while at an animal shelter with our other friends, Lily and Caitlin. They told us over brunch — a brunch I paid $7 for orange juice at. Daylight robbery — they wanted to go look at a Chihuahua. The chihuahua they were interested in was broken, old, and ugly, so after looking into the sad faces of every pitfall the shelter had to offer, Lia and I went into the cat room. Where we met the Best Buds.

Two fourteen pound spheres of good cat loving. They were the fattest animals I'd ever seen and we were both instantly smitten. They were so social and craved pets and love, and we spend 10 minutes just standing there, hysterically happy, seriously trying to figure out a way to get them back to Seattle.

Even in my deliriously overjoyed state, there was no way I was volunteering to carry an additional 28 pounds of mammal through the airport, so the Best Buds stayed there. Hopefully they've been adopted by now. Lia and I think of them every day. We know we made a mistake not bringing them home.

I figured I'd start with the highlight of the trip, but we did do other fun things too. Almost as cuddly was the night we all stayed in Jake's family's cabin in Arrowhead, which hadn't been updated since the 50's, and still had quaintly sexist soap ads framed on the bathroom walls. We cranked the fire, watched Call Me By Your Name, and cuddled. It was very romantic. But the sexiest part was when I landed a ping pong ball in a cup from an entire floor above the table. The least sexy part was when I overconfidently tried to wing making s'mores dip in an oven I'd never used before, and turned the chocolate layer into a burnt puck. Oh, and I shot a BB gun! It was the place I realized my untapped potential as a lethal marksman in a few different pursuits.

Another sexy LA moment — everything is sexy in LA — was had driving back from the cabin the next day, when we pulled off to enjoy to view (smog).

We went to the Getty, and enjoyed the smog.

Apparently this is one of the best views of downtown Los Angeles

And went to the set of the new Justin Timberlake music video, "Say Something", aka the set of the original Blade Runner movie. But who cares about that?

It was an incredibly fun time, and so great to adventure with Lia after she was away for Christmas. And if nothing else, we left LA with a parting gift of the city's first rain in months. Truly miracle workers, are we.