Blow Me Down

The Pacific Northwest has a broad spectrum of weather, getting both arms around - and both cheeks into - every season. Icy, snowy Springs. Sunny, drizzly Winters. Summers that last only 7 weeks but have temps in the low 100s. And the WIND, oh yes... Mother Nature's Howl.

Recently, while Wife and Son and I were in Culver City there was a really hefty wind-storm. Not a storm just by Los Angeles standards that gusted up to 18mph and threw cigarette ashes all over the back seat of the TT. The kind where, if you were walking home from the bus stop, your legs were being blown into each other and almost tripping you, and you freaked out because normally you can handle that much NightTrain on a 20minute bus ride. Also, you realized that the lights all along the block, up to the Lee SuperLiquor! bodega, were out. HEAVY BLOWIN'. (that oughtta get some more hits to the page)

Power was out for about 3 hours that night. We ordered Italian food from Ugo. It was quality bites. I highly recommend Sun-dried tomatoes and smoked mozzarella on a sammitch. The next day I was driving to work and was on Venice Blvd. A tree had been blown over in the wind, and the branches and leaves and top-half of the trunk were passed out... excuse me... flopped down into the far-left lane. A traffic cone had been placed 50 feet ahead of it to let people know, "YO... we'll get to it!"

The city of Los Angeles has red light cameras all over the place, but not enough to drive revenue from the incredible number of red-light runners (2-per, from my count). A 1-hour rain will flood the streets. The buckling roadways are ground-down and patched-over. Perfectly good comedians are getting shunned for spots at the A-clubs, while horrid hosts with barely 9 minutes of masturmaterial get half-hours on Comedy Central because of their management team. BAD, bad, bad infrastructure.

So that tree, the broken & blocking one, lay there for 2 days before somebody in a city truck came to get it. Sunny weather, clear skies, dry roads. No city utility worker available to clear the roadway. For 2 days.

Last night up on Juanita Drive & 163rd, a tree blew down and knocked power out to Juanita-like areas. The crews were up there this morning getting it handled.

4 weeks ago I had to call the city office in LA about a health inspection. I got a call back TODAY. Thank you, Los Angeles. You proved your point.



Take Me Home

My Blog About My Dad

Love Reason #187: Right Is Right, And You'll Hear About It

Soooo...

we get to Trader Joe's, the Whole Foods of mini-marts, and we're pulling into the parking lot to park the car in the lot as the Lotts and go into the store. As we do, we see a woman on her cell phone on our right, close the trunk of her car, grab her cart, and make a 180-degree turn to take her cart back to the sidewalk corral. But something hit me... something said, "no, this chick looks lazy. That cart's gonna go in the shrub-bed in front of her car."

But it DID NOT go there.

It went in the shrub-bed two spots down where we were trying to park. This didn't stop me.

"Are you serious? Are you that lazy? You just screwed up somebody else's parking spot, being that lazy!" Words flying out the car window at this woman, now bug-eyed and still on her phone. This woman looked, roughly, like Danny DeVito with ponytail. Disbelief came from her agape-mawed mug as she heard these words. I have no idea if she understood them (the area we shop at has many hard-working, documented immigrants, or "Computer Programmers"), but she surely could not miss the tone of my wife's voice.

Yes.
Those words were from the voice-pipes of my wife-of-nearly-one-year. We were both shocked to see this kind of laziness in action, as though it were perfectly fine to just get the cart out of traffic. Well it wasn't, and it isn't, and I don't care if you're from America or California or India or Indiana...
YOUR LAZINESS SHOULDN'T BURDEN ANYBODY EXCEPT YOU AND YOUR FAMILY.

That kind of behavior -the laziness, not the reprimand - propagates because Lazy people aren't called on their crappy behavior. First it was not picking up their cigarette butts. Then it's dropping their bottles of Old Granddad under the Big Toy. Next thing you know, the only thing they toss in a dumpster is kid #2. BECAUSE NOBODY SAYS NOTHIN' ABOUT SOMETHIN'.

She's like a Swiss Army Wife. Just when I think I've seen it all, BLAMMO, magnifying glass comes out, and looks at the fibers of your behavior!

I love my wife. So friggin' much. She is NOT a rage-aholic, by any means. Strife and external idiocy are usually shrugged off with a "Karma's gonna bite 'em." But this time, nope. I would, of course, had never let any harm come to her. She is a calm, loving, and lovely woman who believes in what's Right and Fair. And that I shouldn't eat jalapeno-poppers and beers and sleep in the same room BUT I DIGRESSETH...

She stood up for what she believes in.
She let her voice be heard.
And she returned the cart to the corral... LIKE AN AMER'CAN WOMAN DOES.

Happy Valentine's Day, my sweet.

I love it when you spread that firepower around.

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Take Me Home

My Blog About My Dad