Dogs in So-Cal

So, many of my Northern California compatriots heard me bemoan that in Southern CA I was going to have to start wearing makeup all the time, develop anorexia, get sunglasses that dwarfed my face, buy a Gucci purse and put a little dog in it. Well, I wasn't kidding. Darron came to visit, and we went to Laguna Beach, about 20 minutes away on Pacific Coast Hwy, to check out the little town. I was eager to go there because I'd heard that it was kind of a Bohemian place, as it started out as a crazy artist colony back in the day. South Coast Plaza with its gajillion chain stores scared me. Well, Laguna Beach turned out to be about as Bohemian as, say -again, for my Northern Cal compatriots- Walnut Creek. I was hoping more Berkeley than Walnut Creek, but clearly I had underestimated the power of SoCal superficiality.

At first, it seemed like a quaint, albeit crowded, little place, kind of like Santa Barbara. We wandered into a David Wyland gallery, just looking around. A really weird guy spotted us looking at a glass-encased underwater-looking sculpture of Ariel the Mermaid from the Disney cartoon, and beelined over. "If you look at her hair from this angle," he said, waiting until I joined him at his angle to the sculpture, "it looks like a rose." He paused, expectantly. I then realized that he worked there, and attempted to placate him by "ooo"-ing appropriately. Darron and I glanced at each other at the same time, and as quickly as possible, we untangled ourselves from the strange mercenary web and escaped to another part of the store.

Then the next salesman approached us, quite a normal guy compared to the last. Darron must have felt safer, so he inquired, just for curiosity's sake, how much the shark sculpture table cost. "Not that I could afford it," he disclaimed. The dealer took my guess, $5500 "at least," and shook his head. "It's going to be more than that," he said, thumbing through the catalog. It was priced at over $22,000. For a table. A glass table. With a shark under it. I told Darron he better start taking sculpture lessons. "It's a great conversation piece," remarked the salesman. I don't know about these Southern Californians, but I can think of a whole lot of things to talk about for a whole lot less than $22,000. Maybe I could market myself as an ever-changing conversation piece. I mean, all the shark does is sit there. I could rotate topics. I'd be a bargain!

So then we walked into a little store that looked like it housed crafts and art by lesser-known artists, you know, cute stuff that doesn't cost a fortune, to put on your bathroom wall. The art was fine, and I felt a little relieved after escaping the Wyland store. However, my relief was not to last for long. I spotted a little pink stroller behind me with a poodle in it. As I wondered where its owner was, I saw a woman and her little boy walking toward it. Naturally, I assumed that the woman had taken her little boy out of it because he wanted to walk, and put the dog in it, so she wouldn't have to worry about them both running off in different directions. Wrong! As the boy got close to the stroller, the dog let out a loud yelp that made him start crying, and even startled me. So it wasn't the woman's dog; whose stupid dog could this be? Soon, a young woman in her mid-twenties, with all her baubles and perfect little tiny clothes and perfect little heels appeared, apologized, and wheeled the dog out. I stood there, incredulous. The stroller was for the dog! And ONLY the dog. It was not a baby stroller-sometime-dog stroller, it was a dedicated dog vehicle. I wanted to run out and find the girl a sperm donor because clearly she was having motherhood issues.

All I can say about this place: Wow. Nancy, I sure hope Canada's treating you better!