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Los Angeles. Love/Hate Relationship. SPECIAL SERIES: A Tale of Two Cities. 2021. Part 1.

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Midtown Atlanta I am making this a "sub-series" within the series on my Love/Hate  series  of Los Angeles.  I descended back into the City of Angels on December 29 after being in Atlanta since December 1. While Los Angeles went further and further into lockdown, I was able to eat indoors in restaurants, and go to bars, go to the gyms indoors and sit in a hot tub or sauna while in Georgia. I couldn't go to the movies, a museum or theatre. There were restrictions in medical offices, some greater than here, which I learned as I took my father to a number of appointments. Some schools were completely open, others hybrids, others yet online only. I went and looked at properties to purchase with an agent, albeit socially distancing and with masks on. I attended open houses with limits on numbers of people in the property, social distancing and again masks. But all in all, life was as normal as it could be with a pandemic never seen in our history. On occasion, I found plac...

Los Angeles. Love/Hate Relationship. Part 5 of series. Descending to WeHo!

Be sure to have read at least Part 3 and Part 4 of this series before reading this entry to fully enjoy the story.  We woke up fairly early New Year's morning despite having stayed out fairly late at local bars celebrating New Year's Eve. I don't recall where we went other than I was mostly outside drinking and smoking cigarettes, something hard for me to fathom now as an adamant ex-smoker. I first started smoking on/off sneaking into woods during cross country in middle school at Cranbrook . I was roughly 14, so way too young! By the time we were in 'upper school' we were actually allowed to smoke on campus in designated areas. When I moved to New Jersey and went back to public school at Morristown High School, I think we could smoke outside; either way, we just left campus at lunch anyway... My first year at Concordia University in Montreal you could smoke in class, and tellers at the bank and postal workers would be smoking. Then Quebec caught on albeit French...

Tony incognito #4. This was one of if not the last communications, that were pleasant anyway...

To really understand most of this blog entry, you really need to read:  Someone homeless in your house ,  Tony's first days back...  and  Tony incognito #1  prior to this entry.Read the messages in reverse, as they are Tony's replies to my messages. When Tony did come and received the IRS check he all but fell to his knees in thanks. I forget why, but I didn't have it at the front desk and I had him come to the door, just not inside. Later, he seems to have a very different memory.  Date: Mon 11 May 2020 Subject: RE: re: We have a package of something you ordered05:12 PM We also received something from the IRS for you. I will leave both at the front desk. ~~~~~~~~~ Tony wrote: Thank u! Ive been around elsinore still waiting for covid to stop ruining things. Ill try and grab that day after tomorrow unless im.up there manana ~~~~~~~~~ Robert wrote: It looks like something that may have come from wish. Where are you? What is up? Subject: re: We have a ...

Los Angeles. Love/Hate Relationship. Part 4 of series.

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Be sure you have read  Los Angeles. Love/Hate. Part 3  ,  Los Angeles. Love/Hate. Part 2  , and  Los Angeles. Love/Hate. Part 1  prior to reading this post... My ex, Bart, and I, along with our 2 cats, Chloe and Zuma, loaded up my roughly 8 year old Volvo 740 station wagon, which I had recently bought from my stepmother, and drove from Capitol Hill in Washington, DC and headed to West Hollywood. We left right after Christmas planning to arrive in West Hollywood for New Years Day 1997. Bart had bought me this stuffed Energizer Bunny for Christmas so we took it along the way and took pictures of it at given destinations on our journey. Mind you, we didn't have smart phones, but film cameras, so we only took so many and not all were worthy of keeping. Not to mention, I was a little overzealous spring cleaning a year or so ago.   We went through parts of Shenandoah National Park crossing through Virginia. We drove to, but didn't go into Dollywood (I wasn't...

Los Angeles. Love/hate relationship. Part 3 of series.

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Since the first time I had ever rented anywhere to live, I seldom lived in an actual "apartment." and only once in one owned by a large company and it isn't even in the "big 10" in LA (companies like Avalon, Palmer, Equity, etc). My first 2 years of college in Vermont I lived in a dormitory in a school of 500 students. I guess that was a quasi-management situation. There was no other option. I also lived in a dorm in my second year, when I transferred to university at Concordia in Montreal and was among the few as almost all lived off campus. They converted 2 apartment houses into dorms. We only had dorms for a few hundred students in those buildings out of 25,000 students so it was more like an unlikely co-ed fraternity than a managed setting. I left and lived in an apartment briefly with a boyfriend which might have been a "managed building", but it was his lease and I was only there a couple of months. We then rented a 2nd story of a 2 unit building...

Los Angeles. Love/hate relationship. Part 2 of series

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Los Angeles had been beaten and battered in the few years leading up to my arrival. Starting in 1991, the Los Angeles basin shed over 200,000 jobs, primarily in the aerospace industry. Military bases were closed throughout Southern California. I've later learned much more about how this largely changed Southern California's "landscape" and diminished our middle class. The  Northridge earthquake of 1994  was one of the most costly natural disasters in US history.  I remember watching coverage on television. While there are cracks and shifts in buildings from the earthquake to this day and I remember noting some minor damage on trips to LA in 1996 prior to my moving, in reflection I have to say it was amazing how quickly things overall were repaired. But, it's impact did contribute to people leaving the region and a decline in prices. The earthquake occurred less than 2 years following the  1992 Los Angeles riots , which arguably was far more devastating to ...

Designer Jeans. Richie, David & Andy. Part 3 in a series.

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Designer jeans started to become a fad - which has evolved into a mainstay of American fashion to this day - starting around when I was in 3rd grade. Gloria Vanderbilt  was the pioneer of the industry, creating a line of denim jeans for women bearing her signature on the back right pocket and a swan on the front right pocket. The audience targer for these jeans were geared towards women, not girls. So people like my teachers and Mother. At this point, I don't think my Mother even owned a pair of denim anything. My Father had always looked at jeans as something for farm workers and other "laborers." Some of our teachers did get pairs, but to this point, the idea of jeans on a teacher at school was definitely not part of the dress code. I think Mrs. Edwards, our school Librarian, might have led the "charge for change" and been the first to take that leap and wear designer jeans to work. Keep in mind that women wearing pants was relatively new in the work pla...