The First 24 hours

Most of my first day in Las Angeles was devoted to food. The woman’s whose place I’m staying at had been out and needed to go grocery shopping. Apparently shopping for food in this town is long and convoluted. We went to one place for really affordable stuff, then to another for regular stuff. And these places were not close. You have to drive everywhere in L.A. and it still took time to get to each one.
My hostess is a vegan, but the fruits and vegetables are so fresh here that it looks like an easy lifestyle to pick up. Hooray for perpetual summer. However I am getting more fibre in my diet than I am used to.
After the shopping I took her to a Mexican restaurant for dinner. I have a co-worker who always complains about the Mexican restaurants in Edmonton. They aren’t authentic enough. The meal here was good, but I filled up on too many tortilla chips and couldn’t finish. Leftovers.
She also has three cats. Not quite a cat lady. They seem to like me. One has climbed on top of me and I think is planning on stealing the keys off my laptop. They all seem to like sleeping on top of my luggage.
Today we went to a park in Malibu for her friend’s birthday. It is a nice area, but not as green as I expected. Actually, it looked like the scenery in M*A*S*H. We got a map and then went for a hike. We started out with two guys, both named the same, and two girls. But when we got to the end point, we swapped one of the guys for four other girls. It was a nice exchange. I.e. I was alone with six girls. This is what dreams are made of.
Oh, and that end point? The actual set for M*A*S*H. It was overgrown so it looked too small, but there were the rusted remains of a jeep and a bus. And if you climbed a hill, you were climbing up the same hill that the actors rush in the opening credits. At the top, the flat area where the helicopters land. Very cool!
We split up after the hike and went back to town. There the birthday girl, my hostess, and myself went to a tattoo parlor. Since they were lifelong friends they had decided to get matching tattoos. What surprised me is that I suggested a design that they both loved, and it is what they got. I am now responsible for two people’s tattoos.
A power symbol