Crash Landing

What do organic coffee, the F-bomb, and a heat wave have in common?  They all figured prominently in my return to Los Angeles, this our new home.

Okay, so LA is nine hours (NINE!) behind Malawi, which means that 2:00 a.m. seems like a great time to make waffles, and 6:00 p.m. renders me barely conscious. That meant a lot of false starts yesterday, punctuated by naps and big-eyed staring out the window.

When the room stopped spinning, my man took me to Urth Cafe for some Baby Gorilla coffee and hand-holding. Getting there involved a train ride to Little Tokyo, sketchy-looking alley-ways, and a rather unsettling number of junkies and homeless folks who thought it fitting to shout obscenities as we passed. At one point, I looked up at Matt and wailed, "Where are you taking me???"

The original location of Urth Cafe (now a small chain) is housed in a super-chic brick loft a block away from the California Department of Social Services (hence the local flavor). We'd been to the Urth in Santa Monica a couple of times on the recommendation of a dear friend of Matt's, and just adored it. It's a wonderful breakfast-lunch-brunch place that uses only organic products and draws a funky crowd of road bikers, yuppy families, cops, and beatniks. A little slice of heaven. But we're already ruling out places to visit based on location, as the rumors you hear about the traffic are too true. "Better to drive north or take the train than brave anything in or below downtown."(That's our new motto. I know, it needs work.) So rather than drive to Santa Monica, we checked out the original Urth in Little Tokyo.

After Matt recovered from the shock of spending $52 on breakfast and a pound of coffee, we had a lovely, lovely day. We later walked all over South Pasadena, catching each other up on the hundreds of moments that touched us during our separation -- and sweat like the Floridians that we are in the heat wave that has struck southern California. I kid you not; temps reached the upper 90s yesterday.

Now for some LA reflecting ... Springfield, Illinois this place ain't. We've both been smacked squarely between the eyes by the reality of our new home. Millions and millions of people live here, and let's just say, it's not easy to love every single one of them (or even a half dozen). So we just keep holding hands, talking about how we feel, and looking for joy in each moment.

And the next place I'm sure to find it is in the percolator. Time for some Baby Gorilla.