A couple of things that I love about California

So, after my last post, people were a little worried about me. And it's true, I'm not entirely sold on the move. But if Oprah was counseling me, which she isn't, she'd probably tell me to keep a Gratitude Journal. In a hand-tooled leather bedside journal. And then I would get really mad at her and yell, hey, Oprah! People who have a lot of money and very little personal responsibility shouldn't be telling broke people with lots of kids and lots of worries to write things down in obscenely expensive journals! And then she'd tell me to shut up and start journalling, which is a word I don't even think should exist. And I would shut up and do what Oprah tells me.

Portos. Three blocks away. Awesome.

My husband has a job here.

Flowers! There are flowers everywhere. Even in the dead of winter. As a terrible but aspiring gardener, I love the green everywhere. Our landlord (more on him later) owns a lawn service and every Saturday, a bunch of kind men show up and clip and manicure every plant on the property. I'm very proud of how the house looks.

Our movers were fantastic.

The LA Zoo is less than 3 miles from us. We got a membership even though our Turtleback Zoo Membership got us in at a discount. Honestly, I just want to be a member of my local zoo. It's a non-negotiable, like having a library card. (I will write a separate post about the phenomenal libraries here. I go with the kids on a weekday and I go by myself on Sundays for an hour. It's like my therapy. I am my mom's daughter.)

The LA Zoo has a hippo. I have an irrational love of hippos. This picture was taken directly after the hippo shat in the water and used his tail to windshield-wipe it away. Honestly, there is nothing better if you are a 5 or 8yo boy. Or a 41yo female who loves hippos. We were delighted.

The heat. It was 113 degrees today, and the tiniest bit humid. 113 degrees in California is like 85 degrees in NJ with humidity. Plus there are no mosquitoes. NO MOSQUITOES!

We are a 45 minute drive away from 6 Flags Magic Mountain, which Evan gets a deep discount on. It has lots of bizarre Warner Bros. references, like this Tweety Bird ride in Bugs Bunny world where you shut your kids up in cages and then they rotate around. Seriously. I am not kidding a bit.

Arlo found a couple of tame train rides and went on them about a dozen times. Arlo is not a thrillseeker.

There is a fantastic DC Universe section there, and we had a great time critiquing the Style Guide art and the merchandise, but we loved the inside jokes on the windows. I didn't get any photos of Ferris Industries or Kent's Roasted Corn, but we got these photos of Oscar, who has overcome the Brockway/Metcalf family fear of People in Costumes and bravely posed with teenagers wearing his daddy's livelihood.

But the best thing that we learned on our trip was that Lucy is a coaster FIEND! Oscar loves the water flumes, Arlo doesn't want anything stronger than a kiddie train ride. But Lucy loved every coaster she went on and went on this coaster, deemed a "junior coaster" meaning one for 10-14 year olds, five times in a row. By herself. She is three-years-old.

Okay. The farmer's market. $2/lb heirloom organic tomatoes.

Strawberries like you wouldn't believe. Perfect pencil thin asparagus. Potatoes, onions, garlic and ginger, straight from the farm, and half the price of the supermarket. Also gorgeous ice cream, which has led to my new family rule: whoever goes to the farmer's market with Mama gets ice cream (plus I bring Evan some home as a thank you for enabling my tomato habit). Last week Arlo had the vanilla bean and I brought home a bit of the salted caramel for Evan. This week I think I'll bring Evan the Lavendar Honey ice cream.

Fryes! Who doesn't want to shop for electronics in an alien-invasion-themed mega store? And this brings me to another favorite thing. The Carlin-Cohens. Mike Carlin (Fryes" biggest fan) and Janice Cohen (his long suffering wife and all around awesome lady) have been here 6 months longer and have been wonderful friends and great fonts of information. And Mike sends me this gag on a semi-regular basis, and it actually does make me feel better.

And I loved seeing the original on his wall. Their housewarming convince me that even though we are only renting, we need to put up some art. Maybe a LOT of art.

I wake up at 6:30am and put on the radio online while I make coffee and catch the last hour of Brian Lerher. It feels like home. And after the morning hubbub of lunches, snacks, and dropoffs, I can tune into the local NPR and find out about all the delays on the 5 that I don't have to worry about. I never thought that my local NPR would have a traffic report. Mine reports every fifteen minutes on the traffic. It's better the 1010 WINS.

There are lemon trees everywhere. My next-door neighbor has one. I keep meaning to ask her if we can pick some to make lemonade, but usually all I see (and smell) are her stoner 20-something sons.

People really are friendly out here. Our local Ralph's (an unfortunately named grocery chain) carries my favorite shrimp shu mai, and I was thrilled that I didn't have to trek to an Asian market for them. My checker told me her kid liked them too. The bagger asked us what shu mai were. Ten minutes later I was making excuses to my two new best friends that I had to be getting home but they should both look into dim sum.

Lucy's preschool has chickens.

There are good comic shops out here. So far we've been going to House of Secrets but I hope to take Evan to Meltdown soon. Evan found a great horror/mysteries shop a couple blocks away in Magnolia Park that we hope to check out this weekend.

Our school is pretty awesome and a mere two blocks away. When it is 113 degrees outside, that's a long two blocks. But we walk it anyway.

Oscar's first day, parsing Pokemon with his new BFF.

Lucy picking up Arlo after his first day of kindergarten. I think she had a harder time than he or I did.

We live about a mile from the original Bob's Big Boy. Not only does it have the best sign ever (this thing is like 50 feet tall!)

But I get to go there with my best friend, my Sister from another Mister, my kids' Auntie Jojo. Joellyn and her weird yet charming boyfriend live in nearby Los Feliz. Or maybe Silver Lake. One of those hipster neighborhoods that have charming housing stock and crappy schools. Jojo is one of the few people (my dad is the other) than can stop Oscar with a look. She is a superhero.

Most of you know how much I love Costco. Here are some of my purchases at the Burbank Costco:

Mexican (sugar-sweetened, not corn syrup) Coke in 8-oz glass bottles.

A gigantic 7 foot by ten foot couch. Who would buy such a thing? That would be US!

One of my favorite wines, $10.99 at Burbank Costco. $15.99 at the overpriced liquor store in NJ.

And our house. It's a nice little house, three bedrooms, plus a den. Our landlord lives next door and has the same run of kids that we do (boy, boy, girl) but they are about 13 years beyond us. Every time he sees me he tells me to enjoy this time, and although I get told that by a million people, I believe it from him. I watch him watching our kids and I can see the nostalgia in his eyes. His wife brought us cupcakes yesterday and they insist that we use their pool this weekend. I will take them up on that.

And the house. It's a sweet little house. But it's little. We have no furniture in the living room right now. But I love my herb garden in my kitchen window:

and I love my New Jersey bread board with the heart at South Orange from the Rinaldi/Windaus:

My favorite thing in the house is the tacked-on den at the back of the house. 17 by 23 feet, cloaked in the finest pine from top to bottom, with a manly stone fireplace at the end. We've added a bajiilion bookcases, a ginormous TV and a comfy sectional from Costco. And this picture has a photobomb from my favorite thing by far in CA:

I am very sad about a lot of things. But I can't feel anything but lucky for most things.