I lived in various parts of the San Fernando Valley. 

When I first moved to LA I was such a snob and swore I’d never live in the Valley.  Truth is, there’s nothing wrong with living in the Valley –parking is better and the rent is cheaper.  It is definitely the ‘burbs, but so what?  And it’s laid out on a sensible grid (because most of it used to be farmland) which makes getting around a lot easier – which is good because the freeways, like all of the LA area, are packed from sun-up to sundown and beyond.

I guess what I liked about the Valley is that it is not as exciting as living in LA-proper.  You get to an age where, after work, you don’t want excitement … and if you do, it’s always there, just over the hill.  I find life is more relaxing when you can visit the excitement and then go back home to boring.

The thing about the Valley is that it is about 10 degrees hotter than Los Angeles, which is 10 degrees hotter than the beach.  So when it gets hot, it gets HOT.  There are no offshore breezes reaching you.  It stays hot at night until the wee hours of the morning. 

This is why adequate air conditioning is a MUST in the Valley.

My last apartment did NOT have adequate AC.  It had a cranky, noisy little window unit in the living room, which was only capable of bringing down the temps a few degrees right in front of it.  What’s a girl to do?  Besides sweat, I mean?

I didn’t have a dining room set, so I would blow up my air mattress and put it in the dining room – which had good sized windows facing East and North – which I would open.  I would put a fan blowing directly on me and eventually I could fall asleep.

I also had cats (Esperanza and Kitsch) and they liked to sleep with me.  They also liked to play and this is why each morning I would wake up, flat on the floor, on a no longer inflated air mattress. 

I could patch and patch all I wanted, but somehow there would always be another little cat claw-sized hole (or two or ten) that went unrepaired. 

I think the highest it got when I was living in the Valley was 111.  With global warming, I believe it gets even hotter now.