Ten Green Reasons to Love L.A.

For some reason, about this time of year, when winter is grating on my nerves just a leeeeee-tle bit, I think back to the year and a half I lived in Los Angeles and my heart just about sings (run on sentence). Why, you ask? Here are ten lovely green things I remember about L.A.:

1) The beautiful purple-blue flowers of the Jacaranda trees growing on the UCLA campus.

2) Santa Monica pier with the ferris wheel revolving like a full moon on a starry night.

3) The Gamble House, where form meets function and the sleeping porches for, well, sleeping in the night air.

4) Walking to work (yes, it's possible) and passing ripe avocados just lying on the ground for the taking.

5) The Huntington Botanical Gardens: combine with The Gamble House and make a day of it.

6) The view from Mulholland Drive.

7) Walking Santa Monica and Third Street Promenade in the early evening.

8) Manhattan Beach.

9) Walking to work and passing lemons just lying on the ground for the taking.

10) Receiving the weather report from my dad in Boston, "Flurries after dark", and knowing that L.A. will sure be a nice memory in the final chilly days of March.