Moved in

We're all moved in to our new place. It's a cute little town; Mike says he feels like he moved into the town in my dad's model train display. There's not a Barnes & Noble to be seen in any direction. Not that I have anything against B&N...just to start you visualizing what kind of town this is. They have a store that only sells pajamas. And I'm not talking about Victoria's Secret or even some cutesy little boutique that specializes in Nick and Nora. I mean a BIG corner store with huge windows with old-school mannequins, that only sells granny pajamas and looks like it has been there since 1960. It actually opened in 1981 but again, just trying to give you a visual.

There are other differences between the new town and the old. I was driving down the street with my windows open and I sneezed. Someone outside on the street said, "Bless you." I started laughing and tried to imagine what would have happened if someone in Echo Park heard me sneeze. Well, Sunset Blvd is so wide that I doubt anyone would have heard me anyway, but if they did, I'm sure I wouldn't have been given a glance.

However, Echo Park has the world's nicest Vons. I mean, the store itself is not nice or even normal-sized (Mike and I referred to it as "the little Vons"), but it had the nicest employees ANYWHERE. The manager there must be some whip-cracking...I don't know...nice guy. Every single employee would stop and ask you if needed help with anything, which meant you were getting interrupted in every single aisle, but you got used to it after a while. They did this with such enthusiasm that it never seemed like they were reading from a script or just doing this because they had to. I always wondered what they would do if I asked them to push my cart and do my shopping for me. I'm pretty sure they would have done it and done it joyfully. But I never tried it. Then, when you checked out, they would greet you by name (reading the credit card or the Vons club receipt) and ask you if wanted help out to your car. Every single checkout they would ask you this no less than 3 times. First the cashier, then the bag boy, then the cashier again. It was a little strange because then you would have to say "no", "no", "for god's sake I said no already". But always 3 times.

The nearest grocery store to my new place is also a Vons. But even though it's bigger (wow, it has a deli and a bakery!), and the employees are polite, it stops there. The experience is not over-the-top nice. However, I did have an experience there that I never had in L.A. People kept looking at me. Like, staring. Like, following me around, as if I didn't know. Including this guy who looked an awful lot like Gary Busey. No one ever noticed me in L.A.