Haunts

Falling in love with LA is something that's turned out to be a huge surprise to me. The first couple years I lived in the city I seriously thought I was going to lose my sh*t. Pushy people, everyone claiming to be an actor (as they help you try on your shoe or pass your tea over the counter), the snazziest car at the four way stop goes first--unwritten rules that I was unaccustomed to and, quite frankly, highly annoyed by. Then around year three, once I started working for myself and had more free time (read: no longer chained to the desk for 12 hours/day), an interesting thing happened. I would wake up in the morning and want to be in certain parts of town or at certain places. And the things that once worked my nerve, well I didn't notice them as much anymore.

Cut to a couple years down the line when the Chef and I began doing dinner and a movie once a week, and the fascination grew. We discovered some seriously great places, and after awhile developed a handful of favorites that became our top spots to hangout at for hours. Apparently we weren't the only ones finding them either because we'd often run into the same people over and over. And after awhile some of those people became friends of ours. This city is delightfully unexpected that way.

Yesterday we popped into a coffee shop that used to be relatively unknown, but is now kinda not so much. We sat down to grab dessert and I glanced next to me to see the tiniest girl. Suddenly it dons on me: Ellen Page. Juno in the house! I loved her in that movie and also thought she killed it in Inception...Canadian too by the way and no I'm not usually a name dropper. Anyway we're all sandwiched in elbow to elbow and I'm fighting everything in me not to turn and embarrassingly exclaim I think she's bomb (to which she'd probably be like, lady are you 53 years old with that terminology and do I know you?) when I hear one of her friends mention how pretty LA is. And she responded with something along the lines of LA is a very pretty city--enchanting in its own way and in ways you wouldn't initially think it would be. Kindred spirit.

And then the server brought my peanut butter banana cup cushioned in the flakiest pastry you ever did try. The rest is a blur.