So went over to my friend AZ’s house last night. Have known her for years but have never been to her apartment…have dropped her off or picked her up several times but have never gone in. Her place is located in the heart of Larchmont. She is always complaining about her apartment as being awful and about wanting to move…she had described some issues as disastrous….I knew it couldn’t be that bad…

Well anyway…last night I went there…

I walked up the steps to a cute building (more than decent) almost right across the street from Lucy El Adobe…dialing AZ’s number as I walked up the steps. Brick exterior…some nice wood trim…can’t tell the style (could be English manor or California mish mosh)…two very nice big bay window in front (or maybe there was only one_…but someone to the right has put tinfoil up on their bay window to cover in a “there goes the neighborhood style”.

A really nice dark wooden glass paned door with a leaded glass arch above it revealed a long hallway inside. Lighting was a little florescent but lighting revealed showed that bones and the interior of the building were actually kind of/really nice and charming.

AZ answered her phone…she was alarmed that I was calling and said she didn’t know I was coming over…(even though I had told her I was coming over just an hour ago…hmmmm….). She said she was just about to hop in the shower so she needed just a minute (“like one minute”) to get dressed.

As I waited on her front porch for about 5 minutes (not bothered though because I was in a good mood because I actually wore flats all day to work instead of four inch heels…heels=cranky at end of day…flats=happy, nice and pleasant at day’s end), I noticed a compact car trying to squeeze into a parking space behind me. In typical SUV-driving-lack-of-concern-for-the-community-environment-or-anyone style, I was parked in a weird way that I was probably taking up three spots on the quiet street that is populated with quite a few apartment buildings. I deliberated on whether I should help that girl park her car by moving my big fat SUV. First I thought yes…then I thought no…she was backing into a space half the size of her car…then I thought yes “get down those stair and help her out”…then I though no because she doesn’t know that is my car taking up three spaces…meanwhile through all this I haven’t moved my lazy self one inch….then I finally thought yes maybe I shouldn’t be such a parking pig…as I started down the steps again…the little car took off…so much for my magnanimity. Next….

Just at that point AZ came to the door. She was in a full heather gray sweat/pj outfit. She opened the front door of the building with a sheepish grin on her face (think she might have thought I was annoyed with the 5 minute wait but she didn’t know about my flats).

We walked into the Saltillo tiled foyer (clean…nice tiling…metal mail boxes on left)….passed the stairs with a nice iron railing…down the long hall on the first floor…carpeted…white walls…but huge sections of the wall seemed to primed with some sort of weird yellow/orange paint.

We get to her door. AZ begins making apologies for her “dump” of an apartment before she opens the door….

To be continued….