Since my last post, a lot has happened. Very quickly after returning on our (completely full) flight from Orlando back to Los Angeles, things began to shut down due to Covid19. California became the first state to issue a stay-at-home order. With shocking speed, the second biggest city in the country transformed into an unrecognizable landscape. Freeways were without traffic, flights taking off and landing at LAX could no longer be heard through our apartment windows, and as a result of those previous two things, Los Angeles soon had the best air quality of any city in the entire world. It goes without saying that I have not been doing a lot of flying. I personally don’t think it would be appropriate to be doing it as this would be contradictory to all the guidelines. I was offered the opportunity to be paid at reduced rate to stay at home, and I took it.

The situation has been frustrating because the pandemic has been politicized so heavily and managed with an inconsistency that makes our personal sacrifices here in Los Angeles moot if the entire country isn’t on the same page. Why should we Angelenos be walking outside in masks while someone in Georgia is getting a tattoo? I understand the desire for things to go back to “normal,” but there need to be consistent goals and guidelines. Otherwise, what was the point of anything? The best analogy I can offer is like a kid pooping in a public pool. We were all asked to get out of the pool, but the staff didn’t remove the poop. The town mayor insists on publicly shaming Bennet (the boy who pooped in the pool), but offers no suggestions on how to clean the pool. Fox News is reporting that it isn’t even a poop, it’s just a Snickers bar. An hour later someone just yells, “Be warriors, jump back in the pool!” What did we accomplish in the end? It’s a shitty situation.

Rather than hammer on the inconsistency and incompetence of how this country managed this crisis or discuss the stupidity of many of our citizens, I will try to focus the remainder of this post on how Nicole and I have been using our time to discover Los Angeles — or more specifically the west side between Playa del Rey and Inglewood.

First, and perhaps most importantly, we discovered that there is a pig in Playa del Rey. His name is Wilbur and he’s the size of a Fiat. He enjoys lounging as well as very short walks under the sun. Evidently, the pig was much smaller a couple years ago, so I suspect someone was swiftly swine swindled. Nevertheless, seeing Wilbur lounging in the front yard during our neighborhood walks is always a treat. He’s like a therapy pig.

Our discovery of the playa pig is partially due to the fact that we’ve really been exploring our neighborhood. Because Manchester Avenue and the bigger streets were becoming quite crowded with people looking to get some fresh air, we found ourselves exploring the many twists and turns of the residential areas up in the hills. We found a sort of backdoor entry to downtown Playa del Rey as well as a nice overlook of the beach. We used this spot as a viewpoint for our next topic . . .

Bioluminescent plankton! It’s possible this phenomenon has occurred previously since I’ve lived here, but I was never aware of it. It is also possible that because of limited beach activities (no surfing, swimming, lounging etc.), the plankton was allowed to thrive a bit more without being bothered. There are of course some people (namely the instagram crowd I have often derided) who felt that the perfect shot was more important than following the guidelines of social distancing, but we (Bricole, everyone’s favorite celebrity couple) observed it from the distance and it was still an impressive sight, although difficult to capture with our cameras. The blue glow is believed to be a defense mechanism to ward off predators when they are agitated. Regardless of the cause, it’s pretty neat to see. A couple weeks later, we were able to see it up close once the beaches reopened, though the blue was a bit more faint.

We have also been honing our skills with the arts — both in the kitchen and with colored pencils. Also, my sister gave me something called a “diamond painting,” which consists of little colored plastic stones that have a corresponding spot. It was some kind of living hell. Anyway, we may not be able to travel right now, but we tried to recreate some of our international food favorites. Sushi from Japan, Posta Negra Cartagena from Colombia, Spam Musubi from Hawaii, Sfincione from Sicily, tortas from Mexico, and baguettes from France— just to name a few of our food adventures. We also use colored pencils to recreate some photos of our past travels. Nicole is more adept at this than I with much greater attention to detail.

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So all in all, each day is different. Some days we are depressed or feel trapped. Other days we are grateful for the numerous trips we were able to do in the past and realize how lucky we have been. Most days are somewhere in between. It has been a very strange experience, and we continue to try and adapt to all the new changes, and challenges. We are doing our best to help local businesses and each other. We stopped watching the news and presidential press briefings long ago. I think it’s better for our state of mind. Moving forward, we have some busy days ahead. Nicole just finished organizing an online film festival for her middle school students, and I just finished reading the unabridged diary of Anne Frank for our two person book club. I have a Lonely Planet coloring book that Nicole gave me for my birthday that I need to work on. I also have to make some pizza dough from scratch, as well as some South African buttermilk rusks. Perhaps I will also try to improve my Japanese language skills. How did I ever find time to fly?