Things I do like about Santa Monica:

1. The easy availability of anything buyable. There is a store for everything here, usually within a three block radius of wherever you might be at. There are eight secondhand shops (that I'm aware of) in a two mile radius alone. I saw three different lighting stores within the same amount of space. I don't know how one supports three lighting stores in that radius, but there you go.

2. Pedestrians are demigods. Seriously, I haven't seen the actual laws, but judging from how people stop for you, if you so much as get within two yards of pedestrians while in a vehicle, someone must go to your house and set it on fire. People stop for you on unlighted intersections on four-lanes just because you're standing there wanting to cross, and they wait without the least sign of impatience. It's astonishing.

3. Any possible style of food you may feel like eating any given minute is available to you within a couple of blocks. Anything. And it's all pretty much uniformly great.

4. March in LA is really mild, and pleasantly cool (which makes a marked change from the stinking hot weather we had on the past two trips.) It is endlessly entertaining to watch people walk by in the 58 degree weather in heavy coats. I saw two people in parkas yesterday, and one of them was wearing a ski hat. It was all I could do not to burst out laughing.