This weekend seemed to have a lot of quintessential Los Angeles in it.

It started off with an art show in Los Feliz, that bohemian bureau in which parking is scarcer than celebrities. (AH and I saw Keifer Sutherland there a few months ago. We were dining on wine and cheese and exchanging books at the Alcove Cafe and Bakery, when Jack Bauer himself walked right by!) At a very nice space that seems to have no name, young hipsters, poets, artists, musicians and art lovers wandered among original pieces, listened to original music, and enjoyed original reading. Oh yeah, AH performed, and totally rocked it! She read this piece.

The following day, I spent at Hermosa Beach, a true seaside beachtown for families and sunlovers by day and partygoers by night. Several friends had rented a beach house just yards from the sand. It’s quite common for people to own beach houses, which they only use during the summer. Like many of them, ours was decorated in a beach theme–seashell chimes, Hermosa Beach-related reading, sand and palm tree towels and framed pictures, etc. What was also fun, aside from sitting on the sand and sunning with the rest of the population, was sitting on the beach house’s patio. Like most beach towns, there are pedestrian walkways build right along the houses, so there is quite a bit of traffic. While sitting on the patio, flipping through a magazine and sipping on some juice, I watched toned runners jog by with their dogs, families on bicycles glide by, half-garbed surfers and girls in sarongs saunter by in their flipflops. It’s really amazing how toned and tan some people can be in Los Angeles. I subscribe to a regime that requires wearing 150 SPF and sitting in lots of shade, while others seem to be braver and toast to a very warm shade of brown.

Sunday, I went to the Farmer’s Market in Santa Monica while I waited for my friend to get a Brazilian wax. While she pampered her body, I went to pamper my stomach, wandering along a crowded sidewalk of persons of all persuasions, passed trattorias, cafes, indie clothes shops and bicycle valets and into the heart of the market. There were all the regular booths of fruits and veggies at the market and then some–gourmet French crepes, aqua-farmed oysters and other shellfish, organic hot chocolate and raw-food finger foods. It was a small space, as generally seems to happen in the beach communities of L.A., but the lawn was crowded with all kinds of people chowing down on local produce.

Despite the heat of the weekend, it was just a nice mellow, truly L.A.ian time. And then, while driving back to my northern hermitage, I saw a sign on the 10 Freeway that I’d never seen before. It said that the 10 was a transcontinental highway! I never knew that! In fact, it is the southernmost east-to-west highway in the United States, connecting cities like Phoenix, AZ., Houston, TX. and Jacksonville, FL. And I thought, how L.A. is that? Here was something that had always been right in front of my face, and I’d never known to connect the dots until now.