Venice, Laurel Canyon and Dupar's

My new favorite place for breakfast (specifically pancakes) has to be Dupar's in the L.A. Farmer's Market. First of all the ambience is sublime. Located right at the Farmer's Market, where my favorite English toffee, the kind I used to by when I worked next store at CBS Television City, is still being sold at a place called "John's something." Again, memory loss. Will have to check the bag. My friend Susie and Zoe and I all had a fantastic breakfast, my first time tasting Corned Beef Hash (hard to believe!) Susie was Mary to my Rhoda for almost eleven years and she still lives at the Harper House, a beautiful Spanish style apartment building in West Hollywood. I will probably include a few photos when I get a chance.

After breakfast, Zoe and I drove out to Venice, where we walked on the beach for a good hour or so. It was definitely one of the highlights of the week. Malibu Pier, Venice Beach, Runyan Canyon - all of these places are spectacular and I really enjoyed our walks.

But I have to admit that the theme of the week for me, sadly, has been a term I learned in 12 Step meetings "Compare and Despair." I am ashamed to admit it, but it keeps coming up. At a lovely dinner party, in the backyard of my friend's wonderful home in Laurel Canyon, a friend of mine who is thinking of retiring from his extremely successful practice as analyst to the Hollywood moguls said to me, "You know, I just have to say to myself that I have enough. More than enough."

I'm happy for him.

And even comparing my mother's accommodations in a nursing home in Brooklyn to the lives of my friends' mothers here - makes me feel sad that I wasn't able to do better by my mom.

And on and on it goes...

I know very well that I have so much to be grateful for. So I am embarrassed to write these words. But maybe by putting them down, I will somehow exorcise them from my brain.

Be gone! I think they are. For now. I know it's human to have these thoughts. I think that when you're living your life and busy and working, you can keep these thoughts at bay...most of the time.

Tomorrow morning we hit the road - north to Berkeley and then up to our cabin in the woods in Laytonville, California. It will be a very different trip. There will be nothing to compare and despair about really. Just a lot of trees. And who doesn't love trees?