“It’s oh so nice to go traveling…”

One of the best things about taking a nice, long road trip every summer to Grants Pass, Oregon (by way of Santa Cruz, CA) is that being away from Los Angeles for any extended period of time always reminds me of just why I love L.A. so much in the first place. Yes, I admit it, I love L.A., probably more than anyplace I've ever lived.

In fact, having been down here for over twenty-two years now, Mrs. Yeti and I have officially lived in L.A./Burbank longer than we've ever lived anywhere else. And though we love to get away, something about this crazy, sprawling urban jungle just makes us feel excited and alive. Maybe it's because we were both born down here, who knows? But for us, L.A. is home, and as we drove over the Grapevine on Sunday night and caught our first glimpse of the shimmering lights of the San Fernando Valley in the distance, I'm not embarrassed to admit that we both got more than a little choked up.

I'm not sure if that was because we were relieved that some of the more dramatic episodes from our trip were behind us, or the simple fact that we were just happy to be home. But for whatever reason, we practically kissed the ground when we arrived!

And today, as Greta and I grabbed lunch at a totally 80's Taco Bell on Ventura Boulevard — which is one of my two favorite thoroughfares in L.A., BTW, Wilshire Boulevard being the other — I spotted a dude with the long grey hair and tight, studded jeans of a faded rock star enjoying a Meximelt while a crazy-eyed trannie demanded the key to the restroom at the register, and I just smiled from ear to ear. Oh, L.A., how I've missed you. It really is good to be home!

 

 

Posted with Blogsy

“Judge not lest ye be judged…”

Had our annual garage sale this past weekend. Not much new to report on that end other than it kicked our asses. Weeks of prep, careful sorting and pricing, the psychological roller-coaster of: “Should we get rid of this precious piece of Greta’s infancy?” (the answer is usually “Yes”, by the way) seriously, everything about garage sales are hard. But, we’re kinda hooked. This is the fourth one we’ve had and, despite proclaiming that this year’s sale would be our last, we still carefully packed up a few boxes for next year’s sale, so, if you’re in the market for an electric can opener, talk to me in October 2013!

Anyway, this go around we didn’t make much money, but, we did get rid of a lot of stuff that has been junking up our garage for years, so, yay! The only thing we didn’t get rid of was some of the primo, name-brand baby gear that we had on sale. I don’t know why, but, people were not buying baby stuff this year. Or maybe they just didn’t wanna pay what we were charging. Either way, we brought a lot of baby gear home, hoping to sell it on Craigslist instead.

And then, this morning, got an e-mail from our garage sale buddies — the one’s who own the lawn we shill our wares on every October — saying that he got an e-mail inquiry about our Combi Shuttle Stroller and car-seat combo from a dude name SkumLove. Apparently, SkumLove missed the big sale and was wondering if the stroller listed in our Craigslist ad was still available.

Mrs. Yeti was, understandably, a bit concerned about inviting someone named SkumLove to our home, so, I e-mailed him back and then agreed to meet him and his wife in the Bob’s Big Boy parking lot by our house. And guess what happened? SkumLove was the coolest dude ever. Sure, he and Mrs. SkumLove were all pierced and tatted up and stuff, but, they were the most normal people we dealt with all day at the garage sale. And they were so excited to buy our beloved Combi stroller that I just wanted to cry. I know I shouldn’t care what happens to our stuff when we sell it, but, I get terribly attached to things and when they find a good home, well, that makes me happy.

And trust me, our stroller car-seat combo could not have a better home than it now has. And on top of all that, I learned a valuable lesson: do not judge a person by their e-mail handle because you never can tell. I mean, hell, I’d be $50 poorer if I had. Oh, and get this, SkumLove e-mailed me back later tonight to tell me that he and his lovely wife might want to buy our video baby monitor as well.

Yee-haw! Bring on the SkumLove!