Dinner that night was at The Firehouse, which turned out to be a moderately ritzy restaurant in what used to be a firehouse. There were old pictures and photographs of fire engines and firemen on the walls, a brass pole, etc. We sat down at a table upstairs just fifteen minutes before the kitchen was due to close, which may be why the meal was so unsatisfying. My pork chops were inedible, tasting faintly like a wet dog smells. I gave up afte rthree bits and sat quietly, hoping violent nausea and perhaps a trip to the emergency room wasn’t in the offing. Michael’s “Southern Fried Chicken”” was awash in a tomato sauce. The baby was fractious. J. stood up and swung her in his arms, which calmed the infant but bothered S, who said he was rocking her too quickly.

We were all so relieved at the end of the meal we hurried out without dessert and forgot to ask J and S for directions back to the hotel. As a result, we drove through a terrible part of town, a dark Gehenna with littered streets lit yellowly by streetlights. I glimpsed an obese woman raising herself on one elbow as she relinced on a sidewalk in fron to fan empty shopfront, a young man hobbling quickly along the pavement with one foot in a cast, black figures silhouetted in the windows of brick walls overlooking the street.

We were supposed to go to the cousins’ house for lunch. Before this, we went for a leisurely drive through Beverly Hills to look at the mansions, passed the lot where a famously tacky mansion from the ’70s used to be, the one where the owner had painted pubic hair on the nudes that surrounded the place. (Now it exists only in a funny montage in a Steve Martin movie, THE JERK.) In Santa Monica, we stopped to walk in the park near the shore. A sidewalk passing through weatherbeaten trees, traffic on one side, an expanse of sand dotted with people on the other. Off in the distance we could see the Santa Monica boardwalk, watch the cars of a tiny, distant rollercoaster rising and falling.

We got lost trying to find the cousins’, drove though more neighborhoods of valuely mediterranian houses and bungalows. Dad asked directions of a group of beefy, crewcut men gathered around a pickup truck, none of whom had ever even heard of the street he asked about. Finally, we pulled over to a pay phone so Dad could call for directions. (Yes, a pay phone. There were so many more of them back then.)

They live in a house that was originally part of a display at some city event, build inside a coluseum and then moved by truck to its present location in the Santa Monica Hills. There, it was inadvertantly put in backwards, so that the front door does not face the street, but that worked to their advantage. The largest windows offer the nicest view of the hills instead of a suburban street. We walked with our host, who was outside carrying a cooler, to the “front” door throuh a beautifully tangled, carefully tended garden, all greenery and brick paths and clay pots.

The house itself is airy and spacious inside, decorated but not cluttered with Kachina dolls, family pictures, Indian blankets, etc. The ceiling was peaked up into the roof and there were stairs leading up to what looked like a sleeping loft. Two dogs that resembled dandelions in full bloom — Bichons, I think — lay beside the front door along with a very calm and elderly cat, which Michael immediately picked up and began talking to. One of the dogs, feeling left out, stood on its hind legs and begged Michael for attention.

I wandered a little, looking around. One room had a piano covered with family pictures. My great uncle in his navy uniform, my great grandfather and his wife, their daughter, my grandmother, looking exactly as I remember her with her silvery french twist and her amused smile, her eyes cutting sideways. A couple of headshots of Dad’s beautiful actress cousin as a young woman, mysteriously coiffed in a nun’s veil and wimple. She made a rather bold nun, I thought, with her red lips, high cheekbones, and darkly mascara’d eyes. Plainly it was from some role she’d played.

Such houses are often like museums of family history. You can wander and see artifacts and photos, some you remember, some you don’t. “So that’s what Uncle Einar looked like when he was young and in uniform.” “Grandma and Grandpa look like they’re having a helluva time at that party in the forties…”

The house is, I believe, still in the family, but it’s changed hands. My father’s glamorous cousin, still clever, and still beautiful, now lives near the Santa Monica Beach in a small condo crowded with many of those same photos and artifacts. We’ll be visiting southern California in a month or two. I hope to see her again. Writing this makes me miss her intensely.

On the walk down there we passed through a residential neighborhood and stopped to admire a bungalow fronted with huge, lovely, gray fragrant Rosemary bushes. There was a fence, but they were outside it as though they’d sprung accidentally from seeds dropped there.

The rare bookstore turned out to be closed. It was just as well. I doubt I could have afforded anything in it. Instead, we walked down to a little Buddhist bookstore I’d noticed called Bodhi. Like many LA stores, it was uninteresting on the flat, dull brick outside, but fascinating once you got inside, a maze of stacks, but well organized, with nothing shabby about them. There was, of course, the smell of incense, a cabinetted display of Tarot decks, various new age and Eastern books. The place seemed to function not just as a bookstore but as a gathering place for Buddhists, Wiccans, and other unorthodoxies. It reminded me of the Rosemary Bookstore in Chapel Hill.

I still feel nostalgic for those rosemary bushes. Never before or since have I seen any so large and aromatic. I wish them well and hope they still stand.

The bookstore was actually Bodhi Tree — a landmark bookstore and gathering place that, alas, closed in 2011.

On Sunday, Michael and I had agreed to meet Mom and Dad at Urth, a “hot” restaurant my brother recommended. We started out, down one of those flat, pale, ugly Los Angeles roads, this one half dug up with road construction and finally, after getting directions from a woman walking her dog, turned down another flat pale Los Angeles road. Urth was a small restaurant surrounded by a thick mob and little tables near its entrance. A quick look inside showed it to be a dark pace, clotted with people and tables. We emerged into the sunlight and eventually made out two tiny figures in the distance that turned out to be Mom and Dad. After a quick conference on the sidewalk, we decided to go to Urth in spite of the crowd.

We became part of a line that snaked around the small clear space near the front, surveyed plastic menus. Once we got to the counter and placed our order, we were given a laminated number “3” on a stand and instructed to place it on whatever table we found. We were also told we were limited to one hour at a table. After a few moments of searching, I spotted a couple standing up and gathering a chess set from their table. We quickly commandeered that one. It was quite small and pushed up against the building, but it was ours.

I’m not sure why the restaurant is “hot”, though the crowd there gave every indication of being hip and in “The Industry.” Lots of cell phones, several middle-aged, caucasian, shaven-headed men in business suits, the overheard words “production,” and “script.” There was some mix-up over our food. The waiter who brought our orange juices took away our number, and this seems to have knocked all the other waiters off our scent, kind of like ants who lose the ant trail. Only after I spoke to a waiter did our coffees and breakfast finally come. The food was not bad, but neither was it worth the trouble.

After breakfast we walked back to the Parc where Michael and Dad, exhausted from the morning’s exertions, announced their intentions of taking a nap, Dad on the bed, Michael on the sofa. Mother and I decided to check out a rare bookstore I’d noticed on the way back. It had been a silly little place got up to look like a cottage among all the strip malls.