So much to do...

Yesterday I noticed a rattle in the back of my car. As first, I was a little disconcerted thinking that the spare tire cover had come loose, but then I quickly remembered that the slight clanking was my newly acquired beach chairs. Yes...I own beach chairs because I am now a southern Californian. Whatever one may think of LA proper, there is a vast and delightful world beyond the boundaries of the city. While getting to that world may require Herculean efforts, it is there nonetheless. Since we have been here, we have already been hiking in the mountains and spent a day lounging on the beach. The ability to do both within a day’s drive is a delightful change for a water girl who has spent the last five years landlocked.

I am continually amazed at the diversity here in LA that evidences itself in almost every arena. The variety of cultures that co-exists leads to a panoply of languages and food that is rivaled by few places. But the diversity is not just multi-cultural in the sense we have come to learn. There is also a diversity of lifestyle that ranges from beach bum to ranch hand to swanky Hollywood chic. We are currently living in Burbank, a town where many places bear the name “media city,” and Jay Leno’s nightly show and the Warner Brothers studios are right down the road. A short drive around Griffith Park (home of the Griffith Observatory), and you are in Los Feliz, a trendy area that boasts one of the best bookstores in LA (skylightbooks.com) and some equally wonderful-looking food. Only twenty minutes north is the La Canada area, a community full of well-to-do lawyers and doctors that looks a lot like most suburban neighborhoods in the rest of America with a Target and a aTrader Joe’s, but where the price tags on homes usually include the words “point” and “million.” And in and among each of these areas is everything else you could imagine.

If you drive an hour to an hour and a half in any direction, you are in either mountains, desert, or on the beach. Some people here drive every weekend up to a ranch to ride horses in the desert. Others do what we did last weekend and load up the beach chairs and umbrella and head down to the water for a day to just chill. And others stay in the city to have an early afternoon brunch at one of the many breakfast places that have a line stretching out the door and around the block.

Pretty much, whatever you want to do in LA, you can do. It may take you awhile to get there, but even with the traffic, it’s a lot quicker to get to the sand and surf from Burbank than it is from Denver, and this ocean girl is pretty happy about that.

Learning to rethink

Growing up my family traveled the I-95 corridor along the east coast more than most people, and on any trip, we always visited a Cracker Barrel. The reason? Consistency. That and the availability of vegetables. My mother liked that she knew what we were getting and the opportunity to get something green.

Now, however, I have to admit that I have very mixed feelings about the homogeneity of the United States. In am not a huge fan of shopping centers or driving through a town and seeing all the same restaurants that I see in every other town. I am sad about the loss of local establishments, local color, and a sense of community that I imagine these establishments to provide. Anywhere I go, I search up and down for a good coffee shop, and I am not usually happy until I find one that “feels right.” I often prefer the unpredictable. I am often dragging my husband into places that look a little sketch, just because they have a “local” air about them, and I am willing to take the risk.

But being new in LA has challenged my usual distaste for the predictable.
Today I went to Whole Foods. Sure there are plenty of other grocery stores around, and I’m sure they are all just fine. I am even loving checking out the Trader Joe’s that I always wished for when we lived in Colorado. But I didn’t go to Whole Foods because they are better or have better options. I went because they are familiar. They are known. When I wander up and down the aisles, the offerings are predictable, so much so that when I found a jar of 365 salsa, I hugged it to my chest and smiled. For the last two years, I have had a lot of issues with food, and Whole Foods is one of the places that I have been able to find a lot of foods that I can eat. For this reason, I love walking up and down the aisles and feeling at home.
Since our move here, Panera has been a similar experience for me. When I walk inside, I know what to expect. I know that I can eat a bagel, and it will be good. I can use the internet, get work done, and the atmosphere is fine.

This is not to say that I have not tried out new places. I have visited a cute cafe for lunch, and I have tried out a local bakery. I have also had fun visiting a local bookstore and discovering a local yarn shop. But I am surprised by my desire to find something that is known. In the midst of upheaval and transition, there is something comforting about walking into a grocery store that I do not have to figure out. And there is something calming about seeing a Panera sign and knowing what it is and that I can get wifi there.

This realization is a challenge to me and has made me think about community and comfort and that maybe there is a place for all types of establishments. I still really dislike how everything looks the same everywhere, but maybe homogeneity is not always at odds with community. Or maybe it just has something different to offer. Either way, I was glad this week for the salsa and the chance to think about some of my assumptions.

Citburban

I grew up on the East Coast. I am used to traffic, and I have parallel parked a Crown Victoria in downtown Boston. But I am also used to real city, the kind that has subways and metros and allows you to live car free, if you so desire. LA is not that city. In fact, I am even wondering if LA is a city at all. These days, it seems to me to be more like a whole herd of little citylettes all shoved together in the same suburban area. But even more shocking than the lack of city-like amenities in this city is the complete lack of suburban-like amenities. The really baffling thing is laundry detergent. Where in a non-city, non-suburban world does one buy laundry detergent if they do not want to pay grocery store prices?

I know many of you out there are thinking, “duh Walmart,” but that in and of itself is an interesting situation. For some reason in this craziness of life that I like to call citburban, there is apparently one Walmart for every 2 million people. Kind of makes you think of Jan and Dean. At least their girl to boy ratio was a little more favorable.
From where I am living in Burbank, the closest Walmart is 10.6 miles away (a distance that google estimates to be up to 25 minutes away in traffic), and the shopping experience promises to be delightful with reviews like “i live here in panorama dis place is ghetto the way i grew up” and “It is located in Panorama City which is not the safest location at the corner of Roscoe and Van Nuys Blvd (gangs).”

So enter the in-mall Target. In downtown Glendale, in the Glendale Galleria is a three-story target with all the laundry detergent that your heart could desire. With the nifty little cart escalators (escalators made just for your cart), the shopping experience is great. And the funny part is, that to get back to your free mall parking in the four-story parking deck, you tote your Target bags, the pack of paper towels and the ironing board you just purchased back through the mall past Forever 21 and the Apple Store. Citburban indeed, but a girl’s gotta look good in all this traffic.

Freeway Flyin'

There is something they don’t tell you about LA.  Sure there is a lot of talk about traffic.  Terms like commute and reverse commute, the 210, the 405, metered merges, and the like are on the tips of everyone’s tongues.  But what they don’t tell you is that here in LA, you get to drive really fast—almost all the time.  Because there is freeway access everywhere and these are the main ways of getting around town, if there is no traffic, you are going 70 miles an hour for most of your driving.  Sure, there’s a lot of traffic, but there is quite a bit of speed too.  I like it. 

Browsing vs. Buying

I never really thought much about homeownership. I’m the kind of girl that buys old cars that are odd colors just so I do not have to have a car payment. I do not like to be tied down. But now that I’m married and we have spent the last year gallivanting around the country, there seems to be a certain charm to the idea of settling down. The interesting thing though is that when you decide to start settling down, if you have never really thought about it before, you don’t really have a good idea about how to go about becoming a settled person. Don’t get me wrong…I love cute little houses and darling little yards, and even though I regularly point them out while we’re driving around, as far as my personal life is concerned, I had mentally gotten about this far—buy a house.

I am learning that it gets decidedly more complicated when you actually try to go buy one. First of all, there is the little matter of what to do first. Some people recommend that you get pre-approved for your loan. How you do this, however, is quite another matter. My favorite conversation about this topic was with my father. When I asked him about getting pre-approved and shopping for interest rates, he said something about how the newspaper used to print current interest rates and I could check there. Yeah…I’m thinking that my blackberry-toting father probably hasn’t done this in a while. Others recommend that you find an agent. Still others suggest that you take time and really scope out the areas. Some even suggest you live somewhere for a year first.

Then there are the more quality of life things like the type of house including layout, color, lot size, etc. And then there is the issue of where in this vast world that is the greater Los Angeles area would I want to live. Which highway views do I prefer to see while I’m stuck in traffic during my commute?
And in the midst of all of this there is the ever-clearer-growing distinction between talking about buying a house and actually buying a house. I drove past a house the other day that heretofore would have garnered an “oh, that is so cute…I would love to have a house like that “ from me. But this time I actually looked it. That tiny house…right, like anyone but Ken and Barbie could comfortably fit in there. Buying versus browsing…ah the differences.

You also see neighborhoods in a whole new light when you are thinking about actually plunking down your own hard-earned cash for a domicile. What before may have been like a “Hmmm…well the yards could use some improvement and it would be nice if more people kept up their paint, but it is a fixer-upper” conversation quickly turns into, “Did you see all those bars on the windows last time we drove through here? Lock the doors.”

When I moved to LA, I thought I would be choosing a house. You know…selecting. Like when you read a real estate ad in Atlanta or small-town Iowa about amenities such as granite countertops, two-car garages, an alarm system, and a yard, you think, “Great, I’ll have to check it out and see if it is the color granite I like or if the two-car garage is large enough for my two SUVs.
Here…they do not list amenities like that in our price-range. Here the scenario is more like. There is a structure in our price range. Let’s go see it. If it doesn’t look like it is right in the center of gang territory or it doesn’t need to be razed, let’s call someone to look at it. It doesn’t have countertops? That’s ok. I hear they are overrated anyway.
 We joked the other day that we just wanted to find a house that we could have our parents come to, rather than having to meet them at a hotel. Even a girl who never wanted to settle down has to have standards.

Surf's Up

Having just moved to LA less than 10 days ago, we have decided to hunt for a house.   In this economic downturn, we are figuring that it is a good time for us to dive on into the market and invest in a home of our very own.  Besides, I would really love to have a garage to store our amazing amount of gear in.  I would also like a yard.  I saw some urban gardening show years ago about a family in Pasadena who grew like 40,000 pounds of produce per season in their little urban garden, and ever since then some feat that approximates this wonderfulness has been my dream. 

So there you have our house requirements.  A garage, some grass, oh and a bedroom, bathroom, and kitchen.  Pretty basic. 

Yeah…this is LA.  Enter the scene where your house dreams are a sweet little sailboat floating on a calm little sea flying a charming little blue and white flag of hope.  Suddenly the wind kicks up, the realtor you contacted replies to your sweet little email, and with one ugly, frothy wave, your dear little vessel is splintered into a thousand sharp pieces of wood on the cavernous rocks that are this downturned market.  And as your now seemingly tiny blue and dirty-white flag is snagged on the black volcanic backdrop, you realize that only a downdive of epic proportions such as people fleeing the state for fear of their lives would have made it easy for you to take a nice little dip into the homeowner’s world of LA. 

But we are not deterred.  Oh no.  Sure, this adventure may be a little more complicated than we first imagined, but hey…what would the experience be without a getting a little wet?  Maybe we need a surfboard instead.  So bring on your best wave real estate lady.  Or maybe I just need a new agent.  One that wants to ride the waves, because I have a board and a wet suit, and I’m ready.