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We didn’t actually get to Irvine until the afternoon on Wednesday. We decided to see more of Los Angeles before we headed south.

We drove across the city up La Cieniga until we hit Wilshire Blvd. At that point, we stopped in a coffee shop and had a cup and listened and looked at the world around us.

Wilshire Bvld, AKA the Miracle Mile. A place where high finance gurus and movie moguls and many wanna-bes hang out. I found it all fascinating to watch and to listen as deals were being sought and attitudes revealed. Money, arrogance, desire and poverty all swirled aroiund us like the creme in my coffee.

We took a 20 minute walk through a Beverely Hills residential neighborhood to see what that was like.

Then we back tracked a mile or so and parked just by Rodeo Drive and went for an hour’s walk there. Interesting indeed, but less so for me that actually listening in on the coffee shop conversations. But, I wouldn’t have missed it.

Then we took Sanata Monica Blvd east thinking we’d pass through the classic on Hollywood and Vine area but my map reading ws off and I think we by passed it.

We did get to see lots of the underbelly of Los Angeles, though. After going east, Santa Monica Blvd carried us quite close to the LA downdown and we went down into the belly of that beast and all throught the jewelery / Gold district and then out to the south into the “old downtown”.

Further on, we can to a major Salvation Army Mission area and the number of walking wounded we saw camped on both sides of the street for two blocks was astounding.

We continued a bit more but then I began to worry that with me driving blindly, we might find ourselves in south-central LA and that’s not a good place to be at any time, IMHO, so I cut east into the Little Japan area and then thrashed until I came up with a freeway. I knew that once I was on one, I could fake my way to Orange County easily.

An hour or so later, after a fast rip across the LA basin, we were driving into Invine and into an entirely different world.

Entirely too much happened at my son’s house to try to recount. Suffice to say, it was all lovely. Colette was introduced, hugs were passed about and we all talked for hours. Cody and Eden, my two grandchildren were and are just wonderful. I always enjoy them so.

In line with mentioning things I’m learning along the way, I had a discussion with my son, Dan, Wednesday evening that opened my eyes a bit.

I was holding forth about the fact that I really don’t ‘get’ relationships in which people fight like dogs and cats all the time and yet stay together.

Dan said that he thinks that folks like that love each other so deeply that they can afford to fight and fully express themsleves and still know that they can depend on their other half to still be there. Whereas, he said, people that don’t argue with passion – perhaps they are really indifferent to each other and just don’t know it.

I’m still thinking about that one.

dennis

We arrived about 9:30 in the morning after an overnight flight from Sydney. All uneventful. I read about half of Dan Brown’s new book, The Lost Symbol. I recommend it highly.

We picked up our rental car and went to the Days Inn where we were booked but they weren’t resdy for us so we decided to drive to the beach. We took Manchester west until it hit the coast a bit south of Marina del Rey. From there, we worked north to Venice Beach and then we parked for a look around. We liked it and rented two bikes and took a ride all up through Venice Beach to the Santa Monica Pier and back again. What a fun, insane and interesting area.

We came back and checked into our room and I called my friend, Charles, whom I’ve known since University days. He came and took us to a Brazilian restaurant which had great food and, best of all, it was quiet so we could talk easily.

Charles has been involved with politics for many years so talking with him is always a pleasure. He said several things which gave me pause for thought.

He said that the first thing to realize, if you are a liberal, is that the other side are not doing what they are doing from greed. They are genuinely doing it because they believe it the rights of the individual.

He also said that one of the reasons why many poorer folks in the USA vote for the Republicans is that Americans, unlike many other peoples, vote based on their asperations rather than on some pragmatic equation resuting from their actual circumstances. So, they vote for the interests of the rich because they hope to be rich someday.

And he said that the way change comes, politically, is not the way most of us would hope it would come. But it comes. Decades ago, civil rights and women’s liberation and the pill and all of that were on the edge as subjects. Now, we largely take them for granted.

So, today’s discussions and complaints by the Occupy Wall Street movement people in which they question why there is such a huge disparity between the richest and poorest of us may become part of ever man’s consciousness and thus part of the national thinking about what’s fair and right – rather than a strange idea – as it seems to currently be percieved to be.

A lot more was discussed as it always is when old friends get together. I’ve known Charles for nearly 40 years now.

Today, we’re going to drive north up the 405 and cross over on the 2 into the Beverley Hills area for a look around. Then we’ll continue through West Hollywood, north of downtown L.A., proper, and then swing around and begin heading south to my son, Dan’s, place in Irvine down in Orange County.

It’s November but the weather’s very comfortable here in Southern California. 22C/72F and sunny and dry. Perfect.

dennis