The first day of the rest of my life (or at least of my summer vacation)

After packing up the entirety of my earthly possessions (which I am somewhat ashamed and somewhat proud to admit can fit into my Mazda Protégé), and stowing them in the zombie-shelter, I boarded a flight to LA to visit some friends for a little pre-vacation vacation.  A few highlights from Day One:       

• Learning to drive a Prius:  When my friend, host, and car-provider Lonestar asked me if I knew how to operate (operate?!) a Prius, I scoffed and sarcastically responded: “Step 1: Care about ‘nature.’ Step 2: Start a socialist book club.  Step 3: Blog on my Ipad/pod/mac while drinking a mocha-venti-frappe-latte.  Step 4: Drive.”  Twenty minutes and one bruised ego later, I managed to operate my way out of the park-n-fly lot.  Lesson learned.

• Picnic on Manhattan Beach: It was a perfect day to read/sleep (for me, these two things are practically synonymous) on the beach, neither too warm nor too cool nor too anything.  It was like a beachside homeostasis chamber—perfect temperature, sound of the waves, and not a soul around.  (I imagine that this will be the vision fed to us by our Matrix robot overlords after their hostile takeover.  Or a Corona commercial.  Either way.)  For lunch was the chingones sandwich supplied by a hole-in-the-wall sub shop—a mash-up of grilled onions, french fries (in the sandwich), provolone, grilled chicken, jalapenos, and aioli (my word—they called it mayonnaise).  It was that delicious combo of flavor and spiciness where you need a napkin more for your nose than your mouth. 

• Wild in the Streets Film Screening: If there is anything more quintessentially LA than going to see a private screening of a documentary, I’d like to challenge it to a mass football game (which is coincidentally the subject of this excellent film).  My synopsis: every year the quaint English town of Ashbourne becomes a seething mass of humanity as cross-town rivals vie for eternal glory in an ancient 3,000 player game of no-holds-barred capture-the-flag.  Except in this case, the flag is a 4-pound painted leather ball which endows the goal-scorer with all the adulation and prestige a quaint English town can muster.  Absolutely brilliant.  If you can see it, y’oughtta.