MY LOS ANGELES

I lived and worked in San Francisco and later the Berkeley/Oakland area for 40 years before moving to Los Angeles in 2011. Recently I received a rather condescending reply to an invitation I made to a Bay Area friend.  I invited her and her family to stay with us in Los Angeles.  The friend said that she was surprised we had moved to LA but was sure it had 'its charms'. She didn't think she'd be visiting.

I was disappointed by her dismissive attitude but understood where she was coming from. My husband and I felt the same way when we visited family here on holidays year after year. We were typical Bay Area xenophobes with a Northern California superiority complex.  It wasn't until we briefly lived in Prague then relocated to Colorado that we changed our perspective.  Living in the same small area for so many years had blinded us to the fascination of other places.

We didn't make a conscious choice to live in Los Angeles. The needs of an ailing parent brought us. But now that we've settled into life here we see the city with new eyes. We frequently visit the Getty, LACMA, Norton Simon and other museums.  On Sunday we read the LA Times and have dim sum in Chinatown or drive up the coast and walk along the Malibu pier.  We shop at the Vallarta Market for the cornucopia of fresh vegetables and fragrant, warm bread. Actually the adjustment has been pretty smooth.  OK,  so LA traffic is bad but try to drive on the Bay Bridge or Highway 880 at 9 a.m.  One thing we learned from all this....get out of town before your feet get stuck in a rut!