We thought we were cool enough, given that we'd flown in from Nova Scotia.  NS is a place most Angelenos couldn't find on a map with both hands and a miniclip-StarWars-laser-flashlight from The Sharper Image.  We had Keanu Reeves-knock-off sunglasses; both of us wore black.  And we landed two hours late.

Armed with door-to-door directions provided by a computer program called "MapBlast," we were promptly and efficiently lost in East LA.  Not good.  Fortunately, we had a cell phone.  This bit of equipage is ubitquitous in LA--- so much so that it's no longer even listed in the "What You Need To Be Cool" booklets they hand out to tourists at the airport.  We phoned.  We waited patiently through the guffaws, and eventually made our way to the lovely "starter mansion" (so-called by the residents) occupied by our chums.

  The very next morning, the he of the couple was off to "take a meeting" and possibly "do a deal"--- something I hadn't really counted on seeing close-up, at least not right away.  But there he was, waving cheerily as he slipped into his decidedly uncool Jetta, (that's ok, because he's not in showbiz. Yet.) attired in LA's version of meeting-taking, deal-doing haberdashery: a black tee-shirt, jeans, and a black sport coat.  The she of the couple, pregnant with twins at age 48, could have worn a felt hat and smears of jam as far as I was concerned.  I regarded her with equal parts horror and awe while we were there--- though she seemed to be taking it all in stride.  Most of the strides, of course, were either to the refrigerator or to the bathroom.  To be fair, these are decidedly not LA People.  They are, in fact, transplants from Nova Scotia--- they only play LA People on the coast.

  I had to shop.  I mean, I HAD to shop.  U.S. shopping.  Glittering excesses of outrageously pricey wearable goods, and simple excesses of deliciously affordable consumable goods.  Whatever.  Handbags.  Fruit.  Shoes.  Fruit.  Mrs. Field's Cookies.  Shirts and sunglasses, fruit and designer fruit and *kinky* bottles of hot sauce (one brand is called "Submission," another "Slap My Ass And Call Me Sally!")  We went to the Beverly Center on our first full day in LotusLand and I had to take drugs to stop myself from taking wing into the three-story atrium out of sheer ecstasy. 

  ASIDE: Ever wonder where pimps get their clothes?  In a pricey store called "Berini." True!  Irridescent shirts ($295.), purple brushed-fake-fur fedoras, royal blue plastic fake alligator loafers, tissue-paper-thin animal print harem pants ($350.)  Unbelievable.  We giggled into our tacos grande.  There is lots of Mexican food in LA.  Lots.  By the end of Day One, there was also lots of Mexican food in us.

  That (Thursday) afternoon, we went to Burbank to pick up our tix and attend a taping of The Tonight Show.  Hot hot day, and parking was, as usual, impossible.  Himself dropped me off at the NBC Guest Relations office (no milling around with the underclass for us, thankyewverymuch) and went off in search of a spot for the rental car.  An ex-client, via an ex-boss,  had kindly provided the tix and Himself returned in good time, pleased that he had not been forced to park in Encino.  Better if he had--- but more on that later.

  The warm-up guy was very good, Jay Leno seemed very relaxed and personable, the biggest surprise was the killer band of which the TV audience hears very little, and the Name Guest was George Clooney. I spent a good portion of the remainder of the taping imagining George with his left hand wound into the back of my hair while his right hand caressed my proffered throat.  *swoon*  He is, in person, very *very* good looking, tall and well muscled, with a look that says he's waiting for you to get the joke. You know.  Cocked eyebrow, half-smile?  MMmMMm.

  The show tapes at 5 without interruption, so we were back on the street at about 6:15, bought a souvenir tee shirt, and were thrilled to see the cast of Beverly Hills 90210 standing next to our rental, looking by turns sullen, annoyed, and aggressive. 

  "This your car?" asked Malibu Barbie who was (as we had discovered during the taping this group had also attended) just 19 that day.

  "Why yes."

  "You make a habit of parking on people's bumpers in *Nevada?!*" she spat.  There were Nevada plates on the rental. 

  I cautioned the importunate child to mind her manners, and, observing that everyone else was standing around like stunned deer, suggested that Himself pull the rental car forward so that we could see if, in fact, there was any damage to the brand-new present from Someone's Daddy.  What we saw first was the cheery fuschia envelope of the LA Parking Enforcement team on the rental's windshield.  Seems the spot Himself had found was only *half* legal, and he had cozied up to the brand new black Jeep behind him as closely as he could in order to minimize that portion of the rental that was in the red zone.  In vain, alas.  We have a $40 illegal parking ticket among our souvenirs, and it cost us another $60 to make the Children of the Corn fold up their cell phones and go away.  There were, for those of you who like to stand around gawping at traffic accidents, two nearly microscopic scratches on the black rubber bumper of the Jeep.

  "Happy Birthday, dear!" I waved and smiled as the nasty little blonde piled into the thing with her friends. She looked startled, which was enough for me.  I had done my bit for Canadian-American relations.

  Thursday night's dinner was soooo wonderfully Hollywood, I have to tell you.  The restaurant is in Santa Monica, if you're ever there.  A place called "C & O Trattoria."  We ate outside in a very large walled patio on a clear warm night--- enormous portions of the best Italian food I've had in years.  Garlic rolls to make you weep.  Lusty red house wine.  Laughter and chatter.  Music is playing.  Then.  The music gets a bit louder, and the song is "That's Amore" --- Dean Martin.  The waiters start coming around, clinking water glasses full of wine with the customers.  Everyone is smiling and, suddenly, EVERYONE IS SINGING.  The whole place spontaneously burst into song like we're trapped on the set of an MGM musical.  Ohmigod, it was fabulous.  What a night!  We laughed and laughed.  Wonderful memory.

  Then there was The Internet Chum Thing.

  I remembered this FatBurger on a triangular piece of land between two streets.  LaCienega was one of them; San Vicente may or may not be the other.  In any case, during a phone call Friday morning, an Internet Chum of five years duration and we agreed to meet at the FatBurger on LaCienega.  Our new computer directions program, "MapQuest," needed a start and end address, so we went to the phone book to find the latter.  Nope.  No FatBurger listed on LaCienega.  Hmm.  Well, it had been years since I'd seen it.  On the other hand, the IC hadn't said "You moron, there IS no FatBurger on LaCienega," so we thought maybe they had an unlisted number.  Hey.  It could happen.  We phoned the FatBurger on Santa Monica and were told nope, there is no FB on LaC, we are the closest FB to that location.  So, assuming the IC knew that, and since he hadn't left us a phone number at which to reach him, we headed for Santa Monica Boulevard.

  ASIDE:  A black woman named Lovie invented the FatBurger sometime in the 50s, I think, when "Fat" was an adjective meaning incredibly good.  Fat City, etc.  She loved good goopy burgers and great soul music, and you will find both to this day in any FatBurger location.  Aretha is on the jukebox, and the burgers are made to order from fresh (not frozen, not pre-formed) ground beef.

You need two hands.  And lots of napkins.  Especially if you order a double.  Oh--- and the onion rings are cut from real onions.  I find the whole deal erotic in the extreme.

  We sat in the Santa Monica Boulevard FatBurger for about two hours all told, munching, sopping, drooling, watching the door for a man fitting the IC's description, slurping our shakes, and discussing a problem in moral philosophy.  The burgers were incredible.  But the IC stubbornly sat in the LaCienega (yes, there IS one) FatBurger for the same two hours, so never the twain met.  Disappointed and discomfited, we decided to spend the afternoon in the cheesiest part of Hollywood, doing tourist stuff and buying tacky souvenirs.  At that, we were wonderfully successful.

  We went to (Grau)Mann's Chinese Theatre, and strolled along the Walk of Fame exclaiming over the various implanted stars that indicated which celebrities had forked over the requisite fee to be so honoured.  In the outdoor portico of the theatre itself, we looked at all the hand-and-foot prints in squares of concrete.  The most astonishing, to me, were Jean Harlow's.  They looked as if a doll, or a child, had pressed hands and feet into the wet cement, so tiny were they.  We bought cheesy tee shirts, and Himself resisted my attempts to persuade him to buy a cheesy baseball cap that came with a cheesy Dynel (tm) ponytail. We chatted with the network shills who were strolling the Walk, trying to sign people up to watch tapings of various TV shows that evening.  (These things can take 3 or 4 *hours* sometimes, due to tech and line mistakes, etc.  Seriously--- would YOU risk spending that amount of time trapped in a studio with Jenna Elfman?!)

  Oh, and someone stole my cell phone.  Right out of the incredibly cool, snapped-shut, special outside cell-phone-pocket on my purse.  I love L.A.

  ASIDE:  When we arrived back at the starter mansion, our hosts told us the IC had called to say he was there at the LaCienega FatBurger and was LEAVING.  The implication was that he was mightily annoyed, so I phoned and enlisted another chum to email the IC and offer our feeble (but true) explanation of what had happened.  Still, we'd never *met* the man, so when he didn't call again before we left on Sunday, I spent a portion of time wondering whether he was the type who was now armed and searching LA for us in a psychotic rage, trailing a FatBurger napkin stuck to his royal blue fake alligator loafer.  *sigh*

  Friday night, the he of the couple, Himself and I, (the she was tired and begged off.  Who could blame her?!) went to the Venice Promenade and had the MOST wonderful time.  It's a carnival, this street, strung with lights and lined with terrific shops and dotted with street performers and thronged with people.  I saw an amazing Chinese acrobat, had my fortune told by Nostradamus the Psychic Cat for a dollar, and did an impromptu soft-shoe in the street accompanied by a hundred-year-old black man with a trumpet who was singing "The Sunny Side of the Street."  We ended up at a Chinese restaurant where I had Peking Duck for the first time, and listened to Himself and his chum gossip about the philosophy game. *sigh*  A grand evening.

  The Saturday wedding of my former-assistant-now-ace-TV-rep to a Fox-TV sports camera man was absolutely wonderful--- a beautiful setting on the grounds of a Pacific coast mansion, a perfect late afternoon/evening, a beaming, handsome groom and a gorgeous bride.  She wore a flowing gown in which she looked like a Greek goddess, and the bridesmaids were beautiful in pale blue.  Himself and I got all mushy (it was, after all, the day before our third-month anniversary) and we danced all the slow, romantic dances.  We had a good laugh listening to the waiters chatting about the scripts they have in development, or the soap opera gigs they have "for now."  In LA, no one actually IS what one DOES--- unless, of course, one is already IN showbiz.  <snicker> 

  The most astonishing thing was the sudden odd pinpoint light in the sky that made everyone fall silent and look up (once again, I had the unnerving thought that I was in a movie. The"X-Files" sequel, maybe.)  It *sort* of looked like a small, very bright moon but it wasn't--- the moon was bigger and softer, and was over on the other side of the palm trees.  The light went away, and was replaced by the most exquisite, delicately coloured sort-of-ribbon of cloud--- or contrail--- or something.  We watched it periodically for about a half hour--- marveling at how beautiful and unidentifiable it was.  We admitted, those at my table, that we found it a bit unsettling.

  It wasn't until the next day that we discovered that what we had seen was a test of the so-called "Star Wars" defense system.  True.  An orbiting satellite had detected a phony "incoming" missile supposedly from an adversary, and in response, an unarmed missile had been fired from Vandenberg Air Force Base that had correctly intercepted and destroyed it.  We were incredibly impressed that she and he had enough pull to arrange such extraordinary fireworks for their reception.  Who knew the Air Force was a client of her's?!  I couldn't even get SuperBowl tickets out of ABC when I was a rep.  I am SO proud of that girl!

  Sunday, we left LA after an incredible brunch at the Farmer's Market.  *sigh*  I had almost forgotten what  big-city excess looks like--- there seemed to be a thousand shops and stalls and kiosks selling meats and breads and pastries and various wares.  It was wonderful!  We did the return in two hops--- the flight out of LA got us into Newark <shudder> after eleven, so we had decided to sleep over there.  I was used to Manhattan, where you can get a decent pizza at 3AM.  Newark? Who knew?  Everything closes at 10, and Himself was starving.  This, you don't want to see.  This, is not pretty.  It was 12:20AM when we checked in and were told the hotel restaurant had closed at midnight.

  Figuring the crew might not have closed up yet, I deposited Himself in our room, went back down and sauntered casually through a bar full of enormous black men playing pool, and into the back door of the restaurant.  A tired waitress sat on a stool dragging on a cigarette; she fixed me with a menacing glare and opened her mouth to speak.

  "I know--- I know you're closed," I said quickly, trying my sincere-innocent-earnest-just-us-girls approach.  "But we just got in from LA and my husband is *starving* and I---I could buy anything--- maybe one of these pastries?" I offered hopefully, pointing to a case full of tired looking baklava and droopy Danish.  A thin man with a Greek-ish accent popped up from below the counter, startling me. 

  "I'll mek you sanwish!" he said, "you can hev tunafeesh, chickan salad, hamanchiz."  The waitress closed her eyes and turned away.

  "Yes!  Wonderful!  Thank you!  I'll have two haman... ham and cheese, thanks!"  He made us two enormous sandwiches on good rye bread.  I bought a couple of the most promising looking pastries as well, and two Cokes.  I gave him a big tip.

  Fed and exhausted, Himself and I nodded off around 2AM, and woke at 9:30 to complete our trip.  The Newark-to-Halifax leg was the only rough one, extremely turbulent and tiresome.  But the moments before landing, when we dropped out of the thick cloud layer and saw the reds and golds that had started to cut apart the green of Nova Scotia in our absence, thrilled us both and made us very glad to be home.

  Oh--- and the IC wasn't in a psychotic rage.  There was disappointment all around, but we promised to do better next time. 

  And we were hoping Reilly would have made us a wallet or a birdhouse or a bolo tie while he was at Doggie Camp at Aunt Frannie's house, but no luck.  Oh well.  You can't have everything.

  As Himself says, "Where would you put it?!"

  Ciao, darlings---

**LA Darla**