Los Angeles: Feels Like Home?

So... the blog is semi-dormant until the next trip, which is an overnight in Vegas next weekend followed a week or so later by two nights in Cabo San Lucas to check out the new Capella Pedregal.

The most asked question is, "What does it feel like to be home after two months in Europe?" Odds are this is small talk, and nobody cares. But the idea of answering a question nobody cares about fits the original intent of the blog title Colossal Waste.

The truth is that we arrived home after 59 days and immediately had to deal with a situation at home involving the person we allowed to stay at our apartment while we were gone. (If the issue persists, I may create a separate blog for it.) Dealing with that made the first few days back even stranger than moving from city to city in Europe. But I admittedly don't feel like I am home. I feel between places, going through two months of mail and not sure where to go or what to do.

I still have the uncontrollable urge to pull my iPhone out of my pocket to take pictures of things that I find visually interesting.

This moment, a few days after being home, felt severely American.

I did in fact come home from Europe weighing more than before I left. And before I left I had weight to lose. Thusly I am invigorated to hit the gym regularly. Like, cardio every day and weights every other day. Walking to the gym last week, I was still in travel mode enough to pull out my iPhone and snap a pic of the walk to the gym. However, this accidental pic was taken while returning the iPhone to my pocket and is far superior to the intended pic. You know that I love most accidental pics, especially when they capture shadows and feet.

The second Sunday after our arriving home, the heart of our neighborhood was being turned into a cycling racetrack. When the street that is the center of your universe (banks, restaurants, coffee, markets) becomes the site of a bicycle race, you walk over to see it.

The track was empty, and then a countless number of cyclists came screaming by at a speed that felt unsafe.

For a historical perspective, directly behind me is the coffee house that sits in the location where one once found the restaurant Mezzaluna, which might be remembered as the place where O. J. Simpson's ex-wife is alleged to have left her glasses and the waiter Ron Goldman is alleged to have taken them to her condo a few blocks away, where they were both murdered in a bloody crime which Mr. Simpson was found innocent of performing.

I was hoping for a pic of the cyclists whizzing by in a blur with the Starbucks behind them in focus. They should have been biking faster. Lazy cyclists.

After the bike race came a BBQ. This pool was filled with children minutes earlier, but I forgot to graba pic of my feet until they all ran inside in preparation for cake. Colossal Waste is not meant for fun BBQ pics of kids and friends, but it is meant for pics of my feet by pools. And, for the record, this extravagant pool belongs to Amir & Nicole Giladi.

I promise to add pics of note. I may even treat Los Angeles to the same attention I treated European cities, going out near sundown for the best pics possible of important sites.