The days have been hot – pushing 90
degrees – and it’s been humid (that’s known as “monsoonal moisture” in these
parts), but I’ve been walking because it’s what I do. And of course I’ve been doing it early-ish or
late-ish in the day to avoid the worst of the heat, and I’ve been walking more
or less in the neighborhood, although trying to head for those streets that, for
one reason or another, I never usually walk down.
It must be a few years since I walked past
the garden below, with its blue glass decorations. It’s right alongside the street, and most of
those bottles and vases are just a stone’s throw away, and yet they remain
intact. This seems a reason to be cheerful.
They’ve been trimming – pollarding, I
suppose is the word - the trees in parts of the neighborhood – a huge
operation, big trucks, a big crew, a big mess, especially when it comes to the
ficus trees – a job that needs doing, and it doesn’t do the trees any harm, they'll be back just as big next year, but
of course it does mean there are certain sidewalks where you can’t walk at
all. And it must be said that the guys
on the crew, while by no means hostile, didn’t look very cheerful: maybe it’s the heat, and maybe the one below just
doesn’t like being photographed.
Now, I don’t know much
about the school system in Los Angeles.
Some people say it’s a disaster, some people send their kids to public
schools (which means exactly the opposite in the States than it does in
Britain) and they say they’re fine. Even
so, this sign warning drivers that there’s a school nearby, may be a symbol
that not everything is absolutely as it should be.
Of course you can’t (and shouldn’t) walk
in LA without being aware of the traffic.
Mostly it’s about avoidance, and yet my inner motorhead never quite
gives up, and when I see a truck like this one, my heart does leap just a
little.
And you know, I’m always fascinated by the
wrapped cars of Los Angeles that I see when I’m walking. I know there are wrapped cars in plenty of
other places but I’ve never seen so many as here, and I’m never sure whether
it’s for protection from the sun or to dissuade low-lifes from running a
screwdriver along your paintwork, not that one precludes the other. Sometimes
it’s a full cover:
Sometimes just half:
But how about this one, gift-wrapped, padded,
in disguise:
As you can probably work out, this is some
some kind of forthcoming model from one of the big manufacturers, being secretly
road-tested. Of course, a cynic might
think that under the disguise there’s going to be some big, ugly, penis-substitute of a pickup truck, essentially no different from any of the
other monsters on the roads. My inner
motorhead can be pretty cynical.
And of course, the Los Angeles housing
crisis rumbles on, and here’s one feller who’s found a temporary solution:
It looks like one of those “forts” that
kids build in their grandparents’ back yards, although since the guy was passed
out and there was “drug paraphernalia” visible on the mattress, the phrase “not
in my back yard” sprang rather readily to mind.
