Well, I didn't have the time to walk into Los Angeles today and I couldn't have lugged home the two bags of groceries I bought if I had. Today I went to Olson's Scandinavian Deli which is about midway between the two neighborhoods I lived in from 1987 until I came back to my childhood home in the San Fernando Valley 2.5 years ago so I could take care of my parents. That would be midway between what is known as Windsor Square and what was always referred to as "adjacent Beverly Hills," ABH for short. Especially if you were looking for an apartment or house to rent the renters loved to call it that. Like ALMOST Beverly Hills. Yes, you've just about made it! You're so close!
Anyway both were nice neighborhoods and I felt a little homesick for both places. They yielded great walks for me too. And bicycle ride--insane bicycle rides that had me returning home sprinting against rush hour traffic on Sunset Blvd. from Whittier Dr. to N. Doheny Dr., if you're ever there at 5 PM think about it.
I took a couple of quick shots from the car of the 1st ABH apartment. I left this Valley to move here. There are only 3 units. Our apartment was the entire top floor behind the smaller front apartment. Two bedrooms, a walk in bar (which wasn't a good thing for me... ever), a nice balcony and a really large kitchen. The living room was split by French doors with the 1st 1/2 used almost exclusively as a photo studio.
We contemplated buying the place when it went up for sale. It's a rather sad story. Briefly, the owner had a clause in his will that his son could manage the building and live in the downstairs unit for as long as he wanted. However, he had AIDS and his health was waning rapidly about 6 months after we had moved in. Once he passed away his mother flew in on her broom and prepared to sell the buliding.
We moved here. That apartment was the 1st home to my son, this would be the next. Only 5 1/2 blocks away and even more ABH. We were the 1st house on the street south of Beverly Hills. That converted garage behind the house was our studio here.
My son's 1st birthday was at this house. Bigbird was the attraction. Unfortunately we had a lot of people in and out of this place and more than one housekeeper whose ethics I would question. The 1st video camera we had, the one with my son's first steps and that birthday party among other treasures was stolen from a bedroom closet. I guess I'll never forget that. Asshole.
From there we moved into "our" home or was it "her" home? Whatever you wanted to call it it was this place. It didn't have any of this overgrown sort of rampant landscaping. There was a cute little gate at the end of those steps and I had nursed 70 distinctly different rose bushes back to health when we 1st moved in. The roses were impressive after a years work bringing them back. The previous owner didn't give a shit about his home. Once again the garage became a studio and two blocks away on the famous Larchmont Blvd., a children's clothing store was converted into an Italian deli/market/restaurant named after my boy.
I ended up talking to my old neighbor at the house you see on the left when I went to take this picture. For years we were neighbors but for the life of me, I don't think I ever knew his name. He was always Nina and Michelle's dad. Anyway, we had a nice talk.
I had no idea I was going to write about this when I started. I don't expect anybody to be interested in any of this. I thought I was going to write about my walk. Which I also wouldn't expect anybody to be interested in. The point about driving into L.A. and seeing my old stomping grounds was going to lead into how much driving, sitting in a car for about 2 hours had influenced a 4.5 on a scale of 1-5, 5 being the worst, pain for the tensor fasciae latae muscles during the walk. That really sucked so I'm glad I wrote about this drivel instead.
Here's one thing from the walk though. Right in front of my house. I put down about 2 lb of wildflower seed in October and some stuff is already showing signs of flowering, alyssum especially. That's what I thought this was at 1st, a purple alyssum but now I'm not so sure. Interesting though with all the seed that went down there is only this one little spot of 6-8 flowers. The entire cluster isn't much bigger than a quarter.
EDIT: The purple flowers are a verbena I planted about 6 months ago. I thought they were a goner. I guess they like the new company coming in. I suddenly realized.
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