Santa Monica is not only beautiful but a lot of stars live here...and we're going to hunt them down. Ok, maybe not hunt,  but we really want to see at least one. We figured a good way to do this is to take one of our infamous walks (you just wait, people are going to be writing about these walks in history books). We're staying with the our friends, Joan and Aaron Kramer, who live on a bluff about 4 houses from the beach so we had an interesting route to travel and were sure we'd see somebody...even if it was George Michael coming out of a bathroom. Well, an hour and 15 minutes later and the only thing resembling stars were the trailers for the show "Numbers". Nobody was even on location except the caterer. We're not giving up though...we still have a couple days left here and we will succeed on this mission.

We decided to check out the Getty Villa in Malibu (www. getty.edu).  J. Paul Getty wanted a venue to exhibit his extensive Roman and Greek antiques so he hired an architect to help him build an exact replica of a first century Roman country house, the Villa dei Papiri. In 79 A.D., the original villa was destroyed by the eruption of Vesuvious and was later excavated in the 1700s. Obviously, a lot of research went into the museum and it was really quite interesting how much detail went into the grounds, including a full herb garden because it was thought the Roman's made use of all of their land. Sage was one of the herbs we saw in the garden. We were told it was not only used for cooking but also for coloring Cleopatra's hair. I wish I had a shovel because I'm going to need to use Cleo's secret hair remedy in about 2 weeks. 

So much time and money was spent on the Villa. But, more interesting was the fact that this miserly old man wouldn't pull together a few million bucks in ransom money to get his grandson out of hock in Italy in the early 70's. The amount the kidnappers were looking for was pocket change to this old grandpa but he wouldn't budge. If he didn't have such alligator arms towards his family, he probably wouldn't have a grandson that was hard of hearing and a great-grandson that felt the need to cheat with Sienna Miller leaving his wife with 4 kids. (for those of you who don't know, Balthazar plays "Tommy Walker" on "Brothers and Sisters"...try to keep up, we're in People Magazine land right now). 

Joan gave us a local tour of  Venice in the late afternoon. We wanted to see how Venice Beach would celebrate Martin Luther King's Birthday. The crowd was thick and there wasn't anyone we really wanted to meet...or smell. Whoa...the wafting incense mixed with dirty people had me seriously thinking about setting up a nose-plug kiosk. And, I wouldn't even sell them. I would give them away to anyone presenting an out-of-state i.d.   I have to wonder, do we look like that because we're unemployed? Be honest, we've posted some recent pictures. I know you can't smell us but we are showering every day (well, I am anyway...I can only vouch that I hear the water running when Lisa is in the bathroom).  After glancing down just a few blocks, we saw no real networking possibilities for employment or rich husbands. Or poor husbands. Or decent conversation for that matter. We both took a pass on the guy wearing only an American flag Speedo as his attire.  Was he a former Lehman Brothers employee that had to sell ALL his clothes to make ends meet? And, what does he wear when his Speedo is in the laundry? We will never know the answers to those questions.  Unfortunately, I think the area has taken a downturn since Bay Watch was cancelled. I also think the crowd probably turned seedier after the release of the David Hasselhoff hamburger eating clip his darling daughter released.  I'd like to believe that back in the day when Pam and Hoff were bouncing around in their bathing suits saving lives, the boardwalk was full of upstanding citizens who smelled good. Perhaps we were just about 15 years late on the scene.