You can't walk in Los Angeles
Last week I told you about my eventful flat tire incident, and how
I barely made it to my audition for the CD-ROM game. Let me pick up
where I left off...
After the audition -- which went fine, by the way. I was so distracted
thinking about my car and how I was going to get home, I didn't even
have time to be nervous! -- I called Bethany to tell her I wasn't
going to make it over to see her and the baby.
Oh -- did I forget to mention? Bethany had a healthy baby girl, which
they named Naomi according to plan, on Wednesday May 15. I had not
seen her yet, if you can believe that. The reason is that Bethany
and husband Saul wanted to keep the first few days with their newborn
all to themselves. Even Bethany's parents who are visiting from Boston
barely got face time.
Anyway, I was supposed to go see the baby after my audition, but of
course, not having a car was an insurmountable obstacle.
You see, you can't walk in Los Angeles. There should be a song...
So I left the audition, which was way up at the farthest end of Sherman
Oaks, and I found a bus stand. Now, I had never taken a public bus
in LA. I didn't even know how much it cost. They don't run very frequently,
and unlike the Tokyo bus system, they never go from where you are
to where you are headed! Almost everyone here has a car (which is
why the freeways are all jammed), and so the public transportation
system leaves a lot to be desired.
They are actually building a subway system, but because the city is
so extraordinarily spread out it is a very big project, one which
just might take until the next millennium. By then, we'll all be travelling
in spacecraft anyway, and won't need their darn subway.
I stopped into a local dry cleaners and got change for my $5 bill
because I had a feeling the bus driver wouldn't give change (like
they so generously do in Japan). I found the bus stop and sat down
to wait. And I waited, and waited. And then I waited some more. Finally
a bus came, but it was not my bus, so I waited again. When I got on
the bus and asked for the fare, it turned out to be $1.35 and of course,
I did not have the exact change, so I put in $1.50 and made my official
donation of 15 cents to the Los Angeles transportation system!
The bus took me right to Jose my mechanic. I had been extremely lucky
in that my audition was actually on the same bus line as my mechanic's
place. What are the chances of that? In such a big city, I felt very
lucky.
Jose had checked out my tire and indeed, there was a
U-shaped nail stuck in it, which punctured the tire in two places.
When I got there, he said the car would take another hour to finish,
because he was backed up in the shop.
So, I had time to kill and no way to get home in the meantime! I had
to get to the post office and do some other crucial errands that day
for work. So I WALKED about 3 miles to the post office, the copy shop,
had lunch, then went to Starbucks for coffee -- all wearing the high
heels I had on from the audition! It wasn't easy, though. There are
no sidewalks in a lot of areas, and construction was going on everywhere
which made it really difficult to walk in the streets themselves.
This city is truly not made for walking. Neither were my heels!.
Four hours after I dropped off the car, it was finally ready and running
better than ever. When I got home, Lee and I finished up this crazy
day by hand-washing our cars in the driveway!!! It was a "bonding
experience" and we had fun. My back is broken from the car wash, and
my feet have blisters from the walking in heels, but I feel strangely
satisfied!
In Los Angeles,
Cara Jones
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