Home Away

I had been looking for a place for my daughter and I to stay while in LA.  It is sooo expensive!

I also learned through my searching that, surprise! There are gazillions of mothers, daughters and sons converging on LA with the same hopes and dreams.  Just because my daughter was invited to come out here doesn't mean she has a leg up on anyone else.

Her Chicago agent warned me to stay away from the hotels designed to house families like mine.

"You don't want to have to hang out by the pool and listen to all the mothers bragging about the auditions their kid have gone on and who they met and what they have done.  It's obnoxious," he said.

I'm not a particularly competitive person.  I'm really not up for the "my kid did this, my kid did that" conversations.  For another thing, I'm not even feeling particularly bathing-suit ready to lounge by a pool with a bunch of people who might be eyeballing me as competition.

I decided to take the agent's advice and steer clear of the whole mom scene.  This way, my daughter and I can exist in our own little bubble without too many outside influencers making us feel...inadequate.  Anxious.  Yuck.

I lucked out about 2 weeks into my search for a place to stay.  Sitting next to a pretty yoga instructor at a party, I soon discovered that she had a little cottage in the Brentwood neighborhood that she rents out occasionally.

Even more interesting, her grandmother was the movie star, Irene Dunne.  Apparently her little cottage was furnished with all kinds of interesting items from her grandmother's life.  Well what could be better mojo than sitting on Irene Dunne's sofa while hoping to get a few auditions in Hollywood?

We arrived yesterday and have found ourselves in a little comfy gem of a place, complete with swimming pool and movie stars...well, we haven't seen any movie stars yet, but knock-on-sofa, we'll see our share.

Today we go visit my daughter's agent.  Hopefully after that she'll get some auditions going.