Beach kit

We finally made it to one of the Hermosa Beach Summer Concerts this weekend. It was brilliant. Great music and a lovely atmosphere, with the sands of Hermosa plenty wide enough to accommodate a big crowd without it feeling anything other than chilled out and friendly.

We took a seat in the highly prized back section, great for access to the swingset (arguably the best seat in the whole venue), and Lady P played in the sand and munched on goldfish crackers while TLOML and I enjoyed the rootsy, folksy strains of the Dustbowl Revival.

Premium seating

Sadly we were only able to hang around for 45 minutes or so. Next Sunday - the last in the series - we plan on staying till the bitter end, or as late as possible. I'd love to be there at sunset, or at least till the sky starts turning pink.

This will mean taking more than a couple of snacks for Lady P. A full picnic will be required. And TLOML suggests we may want to buy a couple of chairs. I consider taking furniture to the beach to be a sign of weakness. (Although I am the first to sit on someone else's chair if they offer it up). I was horrified by the coffee tables I saw families all around us roll nonchalantly out yesterday.

Seriously, people, we're at the beach! All you need is some soft sand to sit on, and a bag of snacks.

Lady P's picnic kit

I ascribe this 'no frills' attitude to the many times I joined my mum on her Girl Guide camps, where the only furniture we had was the kind you built or made yourself from scratch: a woven newspaper mat to sit on, a 'bedding rack' to keep our rucksacks off the ground, and maybe a stand for the washing up bowl if you felt really fancy. All meals were taken sitting on the ground.

Still, I guess it would be nice to have somewhere to prop a solo cup of wine, or a bag of chips without worrying about sand creeping in. So we may compromise and take the Red Wagon. It's plenty big enough to carry our picnic, and when we get to the beach we can fold the seats down to create a flat, elevated surface. Beach furniture by stealth. Don't tell my mum!

One thing I will not be packing for the beach ever again is a toy for Lady P. She resolutely ignores anything we bring to amuse her - but has perfected the of 'borrowing' other children's toys. So that's one way to lighten our load.

We sat 10 ft away from these kids: Lady P wasted no time getting in amongst their sand play

Bumping up and down in my little red wagon

That title will make sense to Raffi fans. (He's a big hit with Lady P and most mornings the Sugar Cube House reverberates to his jaunty, singalonga songs.) But his cover of the folk classic 'red wagon' might not resonate with British listeners as much as it does on this side of the Atlantic.

Over here, the red wagon is A Thing. I'd guess that one in every five houses on our street has a Radio Flyer red wagon, tucked away in the back of the garage (yes, I stare nosily into other people's open garages), or abandoned on the driveway, or bumping its way to the beach. The beach, I think, is the reason people buy them around here. You can load your toddler, and a bag full of clobber in the wagon and haul it all to the beach.

When I put it like that, I realise it sounds a bit like a buggy. You can put your toddler and your clobber in one of those too. And so long as you've got sensibly sized wheels, your buggy will handle the sand just fine. And yet, the red wagon is the way to travel in Hermosa.

TLOML, like kids across the US for generations, got towed about in a red wagon when he was small. And when he got older, he towed toys and clobber and younger siblings around in it (ah! there's something you can't easily do with a buggy). So he's been dreaming of getting one for Lady P for a while. It was all I could do to stop him from putting it on our 'nursery essentials' wishlist before she was born. The only other wheeled vehicle I've known him hanker for more, was that beautiful 80s Porsche.

Frankly, the whole concept was lost on me. I couldn't see the benefit of a red wagon for transporting a baby around London or Saltburn. I had never seen one, and didn't know anyone who had one.

Now that Lady P is a sturdy toddler, and summer has hit Hermosa Beach, it's all starting to make sense. So it was that the purchase was made. And at the weekend, TLOML's long held dream came true: we took our child to the beach in her red wagon.

Much more fun than a Porsche and also a little less costly

The sound of the surf

This is a topographical map of Hermosa Beach.

See that crumple of hills, a few blocks inland? Well, we live just east of that crumple.

Which is to say there is a hill between us and the beach. It's not much of a hill, according to my Strava the summit is about 90ft above sea level. The walk (or run) is just a couple of minutes up a shaded, woodchip path. And at the top there's a reward in the shape of this view:

From that point the walk to the beach is all downhill, and takes maybe another three minutes.

As a result we do feel that we live close to the beach. It's less than half a mile away. Which is, however, not as close as when we lived 20 miles up the coast in Malibu.

Much as I love the Sugar Cube House, I do miss that deck over the waves, and the fact you could hear the crashing waves of the Pacific throughout the apartment. I guess it spoilt us for life, since anything else just doesn't feel as beachy. We were as 'coastal living' as it's possible to be, without being an actual dolphin.

So when TLOML tells me, with an entirely straight face, that when we have the windows open he can hear the sound of the surf at night, am I to believe him? I don't mean, believe that it is the case - but rather, believe that he really believes it?

Extensive research and personal experience allows me to state with confidence that what he hears from our bedroom in the Sugar Cube is not the sea. I'm guessing the soft sshhusshhing he hears is a combination of the wind in the trees, wildlife in the aloe and ice-plant covered slopes behind the house, and the less poetic hum of distant cars and air conditioning units.

On balance I think it's nicer to live with someone who hears the sound of the ocean, than someone who has been told it can't be so. There's a rhetorical question I've heard posed about marital disputes: 'would you rather be right, or happy?' In this case, I'm going to go with being happy that TLOML is happy - whether or not he is right.

Happiness-on-sea

I keep seeing women in the Big Corp office wearing halternecks and strappy sundresses. Today I commented, not without a sniff of judgement, that 'Some of these women look as if they're going to the beach'. (For reference, I was wearing a cute faux-Chanel jacket with bracelet sleeves, and a pleated skirt.)

My Brazilian colleague agreed. 'Yes - the beach, or a party,' he laughed, nodding appreciatively. I suppose he didn't mind all that bare tanned skin on show. Funny that.

On reflection, I decided, they probably were. Going to the beach or a party, that is. Or better still, both: a beach party. This is Rio after all.

Living by the beach turns everyone a little scruffy. I rarely got out of soft jersey and battered denim back in Malibu. And that beachy style is not just superficial. Something about the sound of surf, the smell of salt air, and a prospect involving sand and a watery horizon, just forces you to unwind. Being by the sea is just simply, purely, happy-making.

Maybe I'm a bit skewed, because my childhood was spent in a house on a cliff, and even when we moved inland, we were just 4 miles away from the beach. And then, TLOML and I had the happiest of times, living in bliss in our little surf shack in Malibu. For me, by the seaside is my happy place.

So I was trying to develop a theory about how people are happier if they live by the sea. I haven't got far on the mental health benefits, despite rigourous research much Googling. One of the top five 'happiest countries in the world' doesn't even have a coastline (Switzerland, if you're interested).

There's plenty of gubbins about the physical health benefits, though. Fresh air and the outdoor lifestyle that a beach beckons you into, are good for your heart, weight, and so on. That's clearly true - but I'm thinking not of my waistline but of that skip the seaside puts in my step.

What is that haze that lies over Rio? I think it's just the dust caused by the friction of many goodlooking people living by the sea. Happiness dust, I'd call it.

Travel essentials

I'm trying to rein in my spending at the moment. What with all that boring grown up 'saving for the wedding' stuff, it is not a good time to go around whazzing money up the wall on fripperies.

And yet... Rio has forced me to do just that.

It's not poor planning. I packed the two suitcases I have to live out of till our shipment arrives (some time in March) very carefully. It's hard enough for me to select clothes for a weekend, never mind 6 weeks. I covered all my bases - work, play, snow, spring, exercise - and I even managed to select an outfit for a wedding that was a month away. I would normally select that outfit from a choice of several, the day of the wedding. So it was quite a challenge for my ability to make advance wardrobe decisions and I met it. Accessories and all.

But, clearly, I did not plan to end up in Rio, in the middle of the Brazilian summer.

I did my best to resist the temptation to buy a new holiday wardrobe. I borrowed some basics - shorts, a summery vest, and a skirt - from my Wondertwin. I thought that would suffice.

And yet... and yet... I really, truly, could not spend even one more minute in Copacabana without owning a pair of flipflops with pictures of toucans on them. Obviously.

I wonder if I can claim them on my travel insurance, as an emergency purchase.

Coney Island's finest garden

I guess March 2009 was a quiet month for the Parks and Rec garden competition. Still, here it is, Coney Island's best garden. A little round patch of hope and shrubbery in the wasteland between Nathan's and the boardwalk.

The charming history of Coney Island

As my last post indicated, I didn't exactly fall in love with Coney Island.

One of the disappointments we faced was that there was no Sideshows by the Seashore performance on the day we visited. Sideshows by the Seashore is a modern freakshow, featuring the world's most tattooed woman, and a man known as the human pincushion, and various like-minded buddies.

It looks a bit like the one on Venice beach TLOML always pooh-poohed. I guess life in New York has brought out his darker side because he was actually looking forward to Sideshows.
 

Sideshows is run by an artists collective who also operate the small, slightly dusty, but fascinating Coney Island Museum. We swallowed our disappointment about the show, paid our $1 entrance fee and headed up their staircase to look at the exhibits.

                              
There we learnt about the madness of Coney Island's glory days. Back in the day Coney Island was home to some far crazier spectacles than the human pincushion.

Apparently they used to have incubators with premature babies in there - being cared for by nurses - on display on the boardwalk. A community of Filipinos were somehow, um, persuaded to relocate to Coney Island where they lived in an 'Igorot Village' that daytrippers could pay to look around. And there was a 0.5 scale replica of Nuremburg, populated by 300 little people (or midgets, in 1900s-speak).

Also popular were some crazy re-enactments of terrible disasters. Like the San Francisco earthquake show, or the Galveston Flood show. Both were hugely successful recreations, peopled by actors and with elaborate sets and effects, which were showing within a year or two of those disasters. Kinda like if someone did a Hurricane Katrina IMAX film. Very odd.

So, that's what people did at the beach before the invention of the Kindle or the frisbee.

New York's very own seaside resort

Ever since I saw Annie Hall, where Woody Allen claims to have been brought up under the rollercoaster, I've wanted to visit Coney Island. That's why I put it on that bucket list.

So this weekend TLOML and I took the C and then the F out to the wilds of coastal Brooklyn. It took an awfully long time to get there. We began passing through overground stations with strange names. We were definitely not in Manhattan anymore. The train emptied.

On arrival, the first thing we saw was the legendary Nathan's hot dog place. It cheered TLOML up immediately, and the journey already seemed worthwhile.

Which is a good thing as frankly, it went downhill after that.

Don't get me wrong, I wasn't expecting it to be Vegas - or even Brighton. But I was hoping for an out-of-season, picturesque desolation. Not just actual desolation.

Okay, it's November. But somehow I can't imagine Coney Island being any more cheerful when its packed to the gills with screaming children and red faced sunseekers.

I was a little relieved ChaChas was closed. Grandpa Chacha's home style wine is probably the last thing we needed.

There's something about the backdrop that just, well, it aint' pretty.

Is West really best?

I've now lived briefly on both the so-called Left Coast, and the East Coast. And have heard plenty of generalizations about both.

Katy Perry sums it up well I think, 'California girls, we're unforgettable. Daisy Dukes, bikinis on top. Sun-kissed skin so hot we'll melt your Popsicle... We don't mind sand in our Stilettos, we freak in my Jeep.' 

My observations, like Ms Perry's, are all about appearances. I'm superficial like that, you see.

So I'm comparing the beautifully groomed green spaces of New England, giving on to those grassy dunes of the Hamptons and that fine white sand... with the beaches of Los Angeles, with their volley ball nets, big rocks, and the urban sprawl and untamed mountains behind.

And the fake boobs and Pilates-toned stomach of the Malibu barbie... with the rock hard thighs of the New York alpha female who runs for 10 miles before cranking out a 14 hour day building her impressive career

So far, in a couple of weekends in New England, my expectations are being met and the stereotypes confirmed.

There's one more stereotype which I hesitate to repeat since I have many good, smart friends in LA. But it is a commonly made assumption that, well, East Coasters are a little bit smarter. More likely to work in a job involving large numbers, slightly less likely to have undergone surgery for the same of their appearance. They read the NY Times rather than Entertainment Weekly, and prefer chess to beach volleyball. I could go on, but I think you get the picture. You can read more sweeping generalisations about Southern California on this earlier post.

I was surprised, therefore, to see this road sign at the end of a road in Westhampton this weekend:

Is it for visiting Los Angelenos? Or - whisper it - is it possible the East Coasters are not as smart as they want us all to believe?

Malibu is killing me

Is it just because I'm leaving tomorrow? The sky is so blue today, and the sea so sparkly. It hurts!

Besides the obvious allround gorgeousness of the place, here are some other Malibu moments I will miss:

Saying, ‘there goes Cher, off to do her shopping’ every time a helicopter goes past. Several times a week, and my quip still hasn’t got old.

Pepperdine: quite a nice place to jog

The amazing fitness regime TLOML and I have developed: a workout at Pepperdine and a sushi dinner. Mind you, judging by last night’s (unrequested, I promise!) dessert, maybe we had been spending too much time in our local sushi joint. They’ll miss saying ‘Oh, we’ve got something special for you tonight’ when we walk in, and pulling out some exorbitantly priced, still living, sea creature. The way to TLOML’s heart.

...you and and the large checks you frequently present us with...

Predicting which neighbour’s house will fall into the sea first.

The sheer comedy value of watching TLOML secure our perimeter, wielding a large water pistol at the passing seagulls. The range is just a smidge short, but that doesn’t stop him making like a crazy old man and throwing elbows at them between rounds of water fire. Most entertaining.

Anti-seagull weaponry. Poised and ready.

And yes, the all round gorgeousness of the place. The constantly changing colour of the sea and sky, and the way Santa Monica and Catalina appear through mist then disappear. The moon beating a silver path across the water to our deck. It sure is purdy.

To take the edge of my parting woe, I will remind myself of two things I will not miss about Malibu.
1. The dirty looking checkout lady at Ralph's who shouts 'Rosie! I need a pee!' while processing our purchases.
2. Jackasses driving their jackwagons like jacktards, clogging up our li'l street.

Yeah, doesn't really take the edge off much at all. I'll take the jackasses, just give me my beach! NY has a lot to live up to...

The wise man built his house upon the rock

The foolish man built his house on the sands of Malibu, at the bottom of the Santa Monica mountains. And the rain came tumbling down... and then the mud... and then the rocks.

The rain this weekend was crazy. And it sent people a little crazy too. The jackass, who jacknifed in his jackwagon next to us - a result of aggressively changing lanes at 70mph in 4" of water - on the 101 was a message: life is short, and precious.

The torrential rain and ensuing mud slides and rock falls did not damage our humble surf shack. But it was evidence that Malibu is a natural disaster waiting to happen. Poor Cosentino's flower store was hit by a river of mud from Las Flores canyon. Three days after the storm ended there are still firecrews and maintenance guys scraping the mud slick up from Duke's carpark. Madness.

During the storm the waves crashing against the stilts our building rests on made the whole building shake. Either that, or it was the earthquake that shuddered a way a mile or so offshore from Malibu. Yup, like I said, Malibu is a natural disaster waiting to happen. It's basically a string of multimillion dollar homes, battered by waves daily, clinging to the bottom of cliffs which turn into mud slides in winter and fire routes in summer... It's pretty, but I feel like it might not be here in 10 years time.

When we say goodbye to the 'Bu, it just might be forever. But if Malibu does not get swept away by earth, wind or fire, we're coming back on vacation every year.

A rather precarious house.

Sunset from our deck. Which I suspect could be in fragments on those rocks in 20 years time.