It nevers rains in California

I am refusing to be a tourist in So Cal with every fiber of my being. But why?

The Hubster asked me Wednesday night if I had been taking lots of pictures and I have not. Unless you count the ones for insurance purposes that I took when the back passenger tire on T’s car decided to spontaneously melt away.

On Thursday, T and I drove down into Malibu to have lunch on the point outside at Geoffrey’s, (pronounced JAWF-frees if you please). It was gloriously sunny and we enjoyed the three-hour window where the skies were crisp and blue over the Pacific waters. I didn’t even mind that Carmen Electric was ruining my view. The woman is tiny but somehow still manages to suck up a lot of space.


I shifted in my seat to alter the view, but when I looked a little too my right a certain aging rock star thought I was lusting after him so I turned behind me to wave my empty martini glass at our waiter, Ernesto, (the second Ernesto in as many days), the ancient soap diva sitting there thought I was toasting her and excitedly raised her glass and reached into her purse for an ever-ready glossy to sign, and I wondered whether it was getting hot or was I having a seizure brought on by the constant noise of construction vehicles backing up below us. I escaped to the ladies loo, nearly being smacked by a gesticulating 50 something actress who was doing her best to convince the producer she was meeting with that with just the right lighting and soft lens she could indeed pass for 30-ish and no, I wasn’t buying it either.

You know… maybe if the rich and infamous spent less time getting in the way of us lesser beings, they’d have more patience for the paparazzi. Hey. I’m just saying.

Which takes us back to New York. When I perambulate the streets of New York City I shoot so many pictures that as I view them later, on my computer, I wonder what possessed me. I believe its love. I take pictures of New York in the same manner I took pictures of my tiny to grown son and now take pictures of my cats.

As if their every stirring is monumental and priceless.

I am smitten with New York from the grimy sidewalks on up to the old water tanks that are still sprinkled on top of the older buildings in the skyline. We don’t choose whom we fall in love with and apparently this applies to locations as well.

I had a conversation with a friend of my host’s on Friday morning – Yes, St Patrick’s Day and we were in a pub – why I would not care to ever live in California. She looked at me in a perplexed manner while I tried to explain that it wasn’t any one thing, it just doesn’t appeal to me, at all. “But what have you got back on the East Coast that’s so much better?” She asked still struggling to understand the apparent incomprehensible notion of anyone not loving California as she does.

I didn’t have an answer for her. Not an answer wrapped up in nice succinct verbiage that she could make sense of. Try though I did, now at her house where our little group of happy revelers had moved on to and where her husband had been preparing our evening feast of Corned Beef, cabbage and all sorts.

Still I did not have an answer that was clearer than, “It just doesn’t appeal or speak to me in any way.” Or I think that’s what I said as the pub’s Guinness’ had given way to vodka when we arrived at her house. And that’s all I’m saying.

I’d like to tell you that we finally resolved the issue but alas, I can’t. Perhaps somewhere over the course of the evening we may have, but in the light of a sober Saturday afternoon, we couldn’t remember and it no longer seemed quite so important. All that mattered was that we could make each other laugh easily and that was more than enough of a common ground.

Despite my non-swaying stance on not living in California I was made an honorary member of the gated community they call home and I fly back east knowing that I look forward to future visits with a group of folk that became very fast friends indeed.

Dedicated to T, NJ & S who are no more desperate than I am ~ I tip my drink in your general direction! Please girls, keep in touch.

©2006 Dawn Marie Kelly, all rights reserved.