Tinseltown

In honor of the Oscars, which of course is probably the most famous thing about Los Angeles, I would like to share with you all a little more about my home. I would first like to say that, contrary to what alot of people outside of LA think, there is NOT a celebrity standing on every corner with hoards of paparazzi. It is correct, however, that the film industry touches everything here, and often in unexpected and surprising ways.

There is the obvious  - such as when I’m driving my kids to school and on random days, pass huge trailers along our daily route. Or when I’m rollerblading up Chandler, running across a photo shoot in progress. Huge trailers with lots of equipment are usually all we see when they’re shooting – I have never glimpsed Jennifer Lopez in North Hollywood. Then there is the experience of watching a movie and seeing a friend’s name roll across the screen in the production credits or seeing backgrounds in various scenes and thinking, wow, I was just there 3 days ago! As for celebrities themselves, you never know. I was walking up the street one day here in Burbank and as I crossed the street to Blockbuster, I saw Jay Leno at a stoplight. (For those who don’t know, he keeps shiny antique cars in the Burbank airport hangar and often takes them out for a spin around Burbank.) Jay is very friendly and will wave and say hello when recognized. My husband went to the grocery store last year around the holidays and saw him in the parking lot too.

All of these experiences are common to Angelenos. Then there are the moments when the film industry touches you in the oddest of ways, which happened to me last week. I was at work, doing my job at the yarn store, and in walked a lady looking for knitting needles. But she didn’t actually want to knit, she needed them for a movie set. She wanted to know what kind of knitting needles were used in the 1800′s, and unfortunately, I was not able to tell her. My boss, the yarn store owner (who knows way more knitting trivia than me), did not know either. But out of curiousity, I came home and did some research, which I will share now. This article leads me to believe they could have been either metal or wood. I’m not sure I’d want to kill a walrus just to have a pair of needles though. As for what movie is being shot with knitting, we will have to wait and see. But I will watch for it, just as I watch the fashion magazines to see what shoots might have taken place five minutes from my house.

And just in case anyone is wondering, no, I did not move here to be an actress. I do not work in a restaurant, hoping to be “discovered”, and my husband is not an actor either. We love Los Angeles very much, but both of us are way too shy to have any desire to go audition and do the “acting thing”. But we are not above being impressed by the special moments that can happen only in the City of Angels.