One of my favorite places nearby is a water hole on Ventura Blvd. A sports bar with television screens all around and windows that look out on the street and parking lot. If you have enough to drink the parking lot turns into a beach front and the street turns into a canal of floating vessels. It's very comfortable there perched on a bar stool facing the screens of a variety of sports. I enjoy baseball and soccer but watch what ever is playing, it's the movement of color after a drink or two that makes it interesting--that and the people in the bar.
In one corner is a man who is there every time I am. I go on Saturdays as a rule, not all Saturdays but when I do he's there. A kind of ear to conversations, he gives high-fives when the occasion merits, smiles when you smile at him and a general 'All is well' ambiance to himself. He sits near where the condiments of lemon wedges and lime, peels of zest and fat green olives are kept. He has a lemon wedge in his water along with some drink I'm not sure of other than its clear and the bartender knows instinctively when to refill. For the rest of the patrons, they come--they go and some I have seen on occasion while others look new.
The bartender is a young black woman, very smart with a great smile and attitude to match. I thought, like most of the help there, that she was in college but she is not. She should be because the woman has a good head on her shoulders. But college isn't for everyone and she seems to do very well without it. Her birthday is next week. I know because when I came in she was asking around for someone to take her shift that day so she could party.
The bar is a place where a lot of folks come to meet one another. Probably from some dating site or app. They appear, the women especially, well dressed and searching for someone in particular and sometimes that particular person shows up to introduce themselves. I never see them after that as a couple but I have seen the same person search for another particular person to show up from time to time. They are always older, as I am and sadly desperate as I hope not to be but probably will at some point.
There are hustlers and cheaters, lovers and loners and they come, as Los Angeles, in all colors and ethnicity. They are there because the parking lot turns into a beach front, and the street a canal of floating vessels after a drink or two, just when you wish, as the man sitting next to the condiments does, that the world will stay still for a moment. It's why I'm there, to have the world stop so I can take a breath.
I've had it with my Trump campaign. I'm so tired of the tyrant and hearing his rants and raves that I can no longer write about it. Too horrible to endure any longer I am like the lady who wedged herself between my shopping cart at Ralphs and the magazine rack in front of the cashier. She had to have a National Enquirer. Why? Because she wanted to get away from the awful politics swirling around us like suns circling a black hole.
I almost got one for myself.
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