Connected at 31500 kbs, on a Mac. This is weird.
Yesterday we took Naomi to tony Holmby Park, in the middle of Holmby Hills, you know, where Aaron Spelling lives. We're staying with The Grandparents in Bel Air, and this happened to be the closest park to the house. We took the dog (everyone in LA has a dog) and took turns giving her a turn around the park. Tightfaced old ladies with toy dogs. I have nothing else to say.
This isn't just any park. The green expanse in the middle is reserved for golfers: it's an open chip and putt area with manicured greens and sculpted hills. On Sunday afternoon the greens were full of impatient fathers who probably wished they were doing something productive instead of wasting valuable time with a recalcitrant 8 year old who didn't seem to care for golf or his father.
Further down there is an even more contrived lawn for "lawn bowling", which I'd never heard of before. Apparently, it consists of old men in tennis whites rolling balls at other balls, kind of a cross between shuffleboard and horseshoes. I asked if almost counts in lawn bowling too, like horseshoes, handgrenades and thermonuclear war. Nobody got the joke.
After a few minutes at the park I rememberd how I hated living here: among these beautiful semi-famous people I feel like the ugly duckng no one invited to the party. I sat on a bench watching Naomi play in her Children's Place dress, waiting for someone to realize we didn't belong there and kick us out. The other mothers were gorgeously unkempt in expensive sweatpants and Rolex watches and engagement rings the size of cruise missles. I was just unkept in my cheap shoes and last year's Gap tank top.
I always laugh when I remember the opening cradits of The Fresh Prince of Bel Air, because th house they live in has this huge expnse of green lawn. Nobody has that kind of lawn in Bel Air. The houses are butted up against each other so densely that you can reach out the bedroom window and touch the house next door. Extensive and aggressive landscaping creates the illusion of privacy and seclusion. And the illusion is what matters here.
Staying in Bel Air is nice but you really, really can't walk anywhere. To get to Sunset boulevard I'd have to walk a mile or so down winding canyon roads (past Anna Nicole Smith's old house by the way). To catch a bus anywhere I'd have to walk another few miles to Westwood Village, where UCLA is.
Everyone in LA wears sunglasses all the time. I remember that about living here. I once asked someone why, and they looked at me incredulously and said "crows feet!". Oh. that hadn't even occurred to me. But by the time I moved away I was fully converted to the crows feet prevention way of thinking. I wore sunglasses lke everyone else. In fact, my eyes were so accustomed to being shaded that I couldn't drive without them. I tried to put sunglasses on today on my way out the the Santa Monica Promenade but I coudn't stand it. I cound't see! Plus, it did weird things to my new haircut.
you "fit in" everywhere you go. I wish you could see the Kate that I know and adore.
You carry yourself with confidence, even if it's really just an air of confidence, noone else can tell, i promise!
Posted by: kris | Tuesday, March 08, 2005 at 03:39 PM
we miss you! come home to philly-delphia (naomi's special pronunciation) where no one cares about crow's feet, anyway!
Posted by: kristen | Tuesday, March 08, 2005 at 06:53 PM