Having My Mind Changed -- a little

I have to admit that I came to LA with a lot of pre-conceived notions and, well, let's just call them what they are, prejudices about the left coast, but I gotta tell you, dyed-in-the-wool New Yorker that I am, I don't hate LA the way I thought I would. I'm not ga-ga over it and dying to move here the way I was about the Rocky Mountains, but it totally does not suck.

Now, my rep tells me that I got extremely lucky since it rained buckets on Sunday, but by the time I landed on Sunday night, the rains were finished, and there was a very brisk breeze to keep things moving. It was about 50 degrees, and frankly, it was beautiful. I'm being put up at The Beach House Hotel in Hermosa Beach, and I gotta say, stepping out onto the balcony to look at the Pacific Ocean a hundred yards away isn't too awful, either.

The weather has been beautiful -- I keep comparing it to those gorgeous and clear high country days in Colorado.

Even better, I haven't experienced any of the fabled Los Angeles traffic jams.

LA really put on the party dress for me, I guess she knew that I was coming with a jaundiced eye and needed to have my mind changed a bit.

The work I'm out here for has gone relatively smoothly -- looked at 8 press forms over the course of yesterday's 15-hour marathon press check session (btw, the mailer is going to be guh-huh-horgeous), which meant that I didn't get back to the hotel until after 1:00 a.m. this morning, but it did mean that I got to sleep in.

And let's see, yesterday I was taken to lunch at the Pacific Dining Car, which has that hokey old power-broker feel to it. It felt like the kind of place where Los Angeles politicians might eat rather than celebrities. By the same token, it also had that air of being one of those "special occasion" restaurants, you know, where a family goes to celebrate their first kid being accepted into Harvard. A little bit fuddy-duddy and corny, but a fine meal nonetheless.

And to flip the card over onto its back, today she took me to THE IVY -- yes, the one you see in all the movies, complete with paparazzi flocked out in front waiting for someone famous to come out. I admit to being a little star-struck myself. We got to sit outside in a prime location where we could watch people coming & going, but alas, the celebrity sightings were minimal. Peter Fonda sat alone at a table with his sunglasses on, fiddling with his Blackberry. And celebrity tragedy/train wreck Jeff Conaway was there, looking a hundred, with his chief enabler, that truly terrifying girlfriend who shows up on "Celebrity Rehab with Dr. Drew." I mean, come onnnn -- Kenickie is a JUNKIE. How sad is that?