A Visit to Westchester

After living in this neighborhood for five years, I finally went to the giant Westchester Recreation Center today. (Kids change everything.) We hit the farmer's market and then visited the newly built Westchester-Loyola Village library. The library is gorgeous and brand-spanking new, and the Westchester Park is a park out of another era--an era before California cities were all broke. (Cynical?) There's a public pool, tennis courts, playgrounds, a senior center, tons of playing fields for various sports and even an adjacent 18-hole golf course. We are lucky to have a community pool here in Culver City (the Plunge, built in 1945!), but the styling of the Westchester Pool (built in 1960) is incredibly fetching, and they're renovating it right now. A lot of the park is styled in what I call "mid-century parkitecture" which isn't sexy, but in my old age, I appreciate the enthusiasms of another age. (Does that make sense?) We just saw a fragment of this park, but we'll be going back in the future to explore further, and maybe to hit the annual Easter Egg Hunt and Halloween Haunted House.

Jackson grubs for berries at one of the farmer's market stalls!

Jackson noshes on a sample orange slice. He gnawed through most of the peel before he let me take it away. Observe the new haircut! The sides are totally uneven, and that's probably gonna drive my slightly very OCD mom bezerk, but I did the best I could and I think he still looks damn cute, if I do say so myself.

I've spend a lot of time wondering if the hole through this poor decrepit sign was from a brick or a bullet hole.

Big tree, small boy. This is the Westchester Municipal Building, a giant fig tree and the landscaped area in front of the shiny new library. The landscaping was in terrible shape--weeds everywhere. Poor L.A. City budget doesn't have a library landscaping line item. I hereby vow that from now on whenever I visit a weedy library I will personally yank a few of those weeds out by the roots, just to do my part. The library itself was a beautiful welcoming space (and they have a charity bookstore!), and we found some great books on dogs, trucks, ducks and baby sign language. Photos of that next time I promise. Anyway, it was a good day!