The Grove Part II

I am continuing on my Grove-obsession vein because I want to write more about this place and the fact that I met my friend - Little Green - there the other night and it was for want of a better word, perfect.

I call her LG because 1, it is almost like her name and 2, it is the name of a Joni Mitchell song that I adore and 3, because JM gave up her daughter and regretted it forever and my LG didn't have the easiest life but is one of the most fantastic people I know.

So me and LG meet at the Farmer's Market. To go back a bit, I got to the FM earlier, because I like to look at the shops and browse - especially in the knick-knacky Anthropologie which is every woman harking back to yesteryear's special place.

Of course, I am standing there and suddenly the piped music striks up extra loud "Let It Snow, Let It Snow, Let It Snow!" And snow it does.

The Grove is a shopping Mall which is outdoors - like a fake street. Like a Disney idea of what a street in England would be like, with smoking and alcohol. Everything is a little bit jumbled up (on purpose of course), parking is discreetly hidden from view, there is the aforementioned piped music as well as a fountain which whizzes around in time to the music. It is a shopper's paradise and I am crazy about it. Well, I am crazy about it some days.

So, here I am enjoying the bizarre spectacle of snow on a warm, December evening with a fountain going nuts to Christmas tunes and of course the irony of LA kids seeing their first "snow" a a shopping center and I suddenly get hit with the massive realization that it is Christmas time and I haven't got a dot.

My period still hasn't arrived and I feel like the whole dot part of my life was just a dream. The no-show period is making me feel barren and horrible. I can't believe I was supposed to be four months pregnant by now. These feelings give way to deeper-held sadnesses connected with Christmas. I am so glad I can ignore them now in some ways by not celebrating this melancholy holiday. I realize it is the absence of what this time is supposed to be about that makes us feel all the worse when it comes around.

Luckily for me, as I standing, surrounded by fake snow and little kids and pregnant mommies and feeling lost and lonely and plunged into darkness my Little Green calls and says: "I'm here!"

Thank the lord! I rush to her and she is, of course, in the sticker shop being kind and thoughtful and as delicious as ever. We get stuck into our favorite Balinese food and chat and crack up.

But the best bit for me was when we were walking with the thin mommies, bemoaning the fact that we are collectively 30 pounds heavier than we were a year ago, LG says: "I don't know about you, but I'm still hungry". I love her.