Bite-sized LA observations

It's my last morning in LA and the US and I'm sitting at Urth Cafe on Melrose, surrounded by Asian tourists and attractive people trying to look like they are somebody worth recognising.

My half serve of tuna salad is huge but at least the oil is a drizzle rather than a pour, and it's good.

And my coffee?
Nice coffee art in the foam. Cup is hot to the touch rather than scalding, which means that had I not asked for it extra hot it would've been brought out tepid. Slightly on the sweet side, either due to sweet soy milk or sweet beans, and slightly more bitter than I'd like. But by American standards altogether drinkable. On second sip it's actually too sweet, but whatever, I'm in LA.

There are some ridiculously overdone girls here, with ridiculously cute white Maltese terriers who look like they've never felt the bliss of mud on the paws. And a dozen tables of glamorous tourists from Hong Kong with a Luis Vuitton on the back of every chair. And girls with blondest blonde hair set in perfect salon curls clipping past in white jeans and Manolo lookalikes carrying scripts with the title page facing outwards.

A young model in trainers and no make-up just arrived accompanied by two Italian greyhounds and a man with dyed black hair who I thought was her father until she called him "honey". We strike up a conversation over restless canines and he reveals to me the tawdry secret of the dogs' relationship; Primo is Angie's father and brother, but due to their impeccable pedigree she is genetically flawless. I try to prevent my mind from straying towards the nature of Primo and Angie's owners' relationship.
They offer me a bite of their green tea tiramisu and it is phenomenal. I barely manage to resist ordering an entire slice once they leave.

There's a couple dudes at a table opposite talking through the funding plan for a new Queer-Eye-for-the-Straight-Guy-meets-dating-show and three Valley girls above me discussing whether to wear shorts or jeans out on Saturday night. The sky is perfect blue and everything is washed in sunlight and all around me people are throwing about phrases like "best-cased scenario" and "the bottom line" and I can see how a person could come to this city and never, ever leave.