Pet Sitter to the Stars

So in-between all the fun and L.A.ery, I was also working, writing articles and found a new career:
house and pet sitter extraordinaire. I house sat for 2 poodles, Henry and Charlie, ran with a Sheeba named Ralph, dog sat another pup named Bruce (I get all the guys), and then got the plum assignment: a housesit for Boo the black cat in the Hollywood Hills at the home of a cool couple who work in Television.

I stayed up there in an area famous for its famous inhabitants and enjoyed my new neighbors: Jake Gyllenahal, Will Ferrell, Stockard Channing, KD Lang, Moon Unit Zappa, and sadly, the next-door-neighbor was recently deceased Australian actor, Heath Ledger. He had bought his house a few years ago from Ellen DeGeneres.

I spent many afternoons working and relaxing in their lush, peaceful backyard completely surrounded by towering trees, hummingbirds, and other critters while choppers flew overhead getting shots from the only vantage point of these mansions well hidden behind their tall walls and dense shrubbery.

The only thing missing from my new ‘live like the rich’ life was a pool. Yep, no pool—instead there was a playground for the kids. There’s something about a pool to make you feel like you actually did something with your day:

“What did you do today?’
‘Oh, I went and laid out at the pool.’
‘Cool.’

Even if you don’t go swimming and just work on your tan for a couple hours, it’s still as if you did something with you day, well, in L.A. at least that’s the case.

I definitely had fun house sitting even if I was kind of living a pretend life in my pretend house, with my pretend cats, dogs, and fish. It was all a bit surreal. My surreal life.

After all this star-gazing I saw some real ‘stars’ at the beautiful art deco, newly renovated Griffith Observatory.

And… finally I even experienced a good, LA-style earthquake. It was CRAZY!!!!!!Okay, not really, a few shelves, lamps shook for 10 seconds we felt the floor move. I ran to a doorway and Mark ran to the bookshelf (something is just wrong with one of our positions!) and then it was all over. The news went crazy with coverage and at the epicenter it was around a 5.4 on the Richter scale, but didn’t feel like much at least where we were—plus he lives on the ground floor.

Now I’ve felt one in Tokyo and LA. My last few days in LA were centered on my birthday where I partied like a rockstar (minus the drugs or suicide-like finale of guests like John Belushi) at Chateau Marmont.

My LA adventure has now come to an end and I guess I’ve experienced almost everything here… except the casting couch. There’s always next time.