My plans for LA were to relax, hang out on the beach and catch up with all of my Malibu Momma’s.

What my plans were and what happened were two different things; I ended up going as fast as I possibly could.  Running the girls to The C.O.O.L School (California Ocean of Learning) day camp every morning, preparing packed lunches, driving up and down the Pacific Coast Highway and rushing to prepare for one meeting after another.  These meetings were all great and revolving around my writing, it’s just that I wasn’t in work mode and I’d forgotten how crazy LA traffic and living just is!

In fact I found myself looking at LA with new eyes, eyes that aren’t so enamored or in the True Blood sense – I was unglamoured.

I first arrived in LA 20 years old and amazed at how life could become anything I wanted it to be, I saw all the magic and fell in love with the ability to dream big.  My first job was on the 3^rd St. Promenade, Gretchen (my friend & roommate) and I hit the pavement, stopping in every groovy shop or restaurant sitting on this walk way street full of street performers, playing music for nickels, rapping, dancing, beating buckets turning them into drums and pantomimes.  I finally scored a job working as a cocktail waitress, and listening to these folks bringing it every night, inspired me  to figure out what I was good at and go for it.

Isabella has fo’sho got a pinch of Mee & Lee in her, when she was 4 we walked along this street watching the performers, one little girl in particular stood out, she was about 8 years old and singing Alicia Keys, her daddy was there with her running the amp while she did her best to “bring it.”  Bella looked up at me and asked “Momma when I’m 8 can I sing here on this street like her?”

I said, “Of course you can.”

Immediately upon arriving in LA, Bella kept asking if she could sing like that little girl, I was shocked that she remembered! Again I shook it off and said “Sure one day.”

Bella made great friends with a girl named Allie, a counselor at the summer camp and also an aspiring singer/guitar player.  Allie, a pretty young gal about 21 came to babysit one evening.  Lee and I went to dinner and Allie said she was going to take the girls for a treat on the 3^rd St. Promenade, I left car seats and away they went.  Lee and I returned home and the girls were still out and it was almost 8:30pm, suddenly the door flew open and with it a burst of excitement bounced into the room.  Bella had convinced Allie to let her sing while Allie played guitar to all of the Taylor Swift hits that Bella has memorized. Meanwhile, Lola jumped around in the background yelling “Give us so money so we can buy some pillow pets.”  They have been asking me for a pillow pet stuffed animal for months, apparently they were performing next to a cart that sold them!  Not only did they earn money for two pillow pets but also 164.00 bucks!  Bella was beside herself with glee and pride, I was torn – “Oh, no my youngin’s are buskin on the street fo’dollars – what will the neighbors say?” 

OK Not really, you see I thought you go y’all, brave and entrepreneurial.  However when they wanted to return the following day, I said “NO” that would have made it a job.

So, Bella fell hard in love with LA, she could see all the magic, while I struggled with focusing on the traffic, lack of employment and the closing of so many of my favorite shops.  I kept seeing water shortages and then something huge – what has fed LA and all of those folks that eat and live there is Hollywood, most productions for TV and film originated there and were mostly shot there.  Now, not only are shows and films shot else where due to the high cost of LA filming but, that big old energy is spreading out around the globe and content is now created EVERY WHERE, just look at PKIA, we shoot high definition videos here in Nashville and 30,000 folks follow this site – all coming from 120 countries – so not only is publishing shifting but so is all of the entertainment industry.  Every time something is done somewhere other than LA, folks in LA lose a little bit more.  What’s happening is that people can’t afford to run business’s – rent for an average size restaurant spot in Santa Monica goes for $40,000 per month, people can’t pay their house notes let alone their rentals with the average home not apartment renting for $4,000 on the low end and $8,000 on average.  I never noticed this before moving to the Jungle and to Nashville, you see because it was really all I knew – I’ve lived in California longer than anywhere else.

LA was a yo-yo fo’Mee, one morning Lee and I spent the day at Surf Rider beach in Malibu, there was a contest and while Lee surfed, the girls and I watched young girls paddle out and catch some bangin’ waves.  I looked up at the mountains and thought this is what I want for my girls.  Then we drove back into the city and met my Aunt Connie in Venice for lunch.

Aunt Connie has owned a head shop/souvenir store since the 1960’s.  She knows all the street performers and carni like folks that cover the boardwalk.  When I first moved to Venice hanging at her shop was part of my deal, Aunt Connie and her wide view of the world guided me.  This time Venice Beach was INSANE, beyond INSANE – the craziness and the crazy’s were in full force.  Aunt Connie’s latest BFF is one of the local street psychics that sit along the boardwalk reading tarot cards and telling tourist what they can expect.  Aunt Connie insisted that I have a reading; she wanted to know when I was coming home!  Before I knew it I was caught up in a wave of craziness and being dragged to the boardwalk by a LOONEY TOON TYPHON, dressed in a 1970’s pink, brides maid bonnet, long skirt, tennis shoes and one good eye.  Finally we made it past all the gang bangers, pot smokers (yep folks are smoking pot on the board walk – there are TONS of medicinal marijuana joints everywhere & script doctors!) There are way too many street performers too; in fact so many they have to rotate spaces in shifts.

This pink bonnet psychic brought me to her card table covered with purple velvet fabric and began to tell me about Mee, I could barely listen to her let alone look at her, she had so much crud around her mouth and her nails were filthy – my OCD self prayed that she wasn’t gonna try to read my palms!

I didn’t know that what she was going to tell me would ring so true…..