The 405 (A river of cement)

Once the number 405 was just a number, but not anymore, not in LA.  It is a headache, a nightmare, an eyesore, a congestion, a stage for accidents and for exercising frustrations. 

You might ask, what better place to have such a grandiose stage than in a town over-spilling with actors? But this nightmare should not be wished upon any human being, not even an actor.

I have seen many a people completely lose it on this road, but by far the most impressive was a nun driving a horse of a pink Buick last July. (I can’t vouch for her authenticity, but she was dressed in a habit.) As steam rose from the cement between the stagnant cars in the hot summer sun, the nun seemed to claim divine intervention and started splitting the sea of cars by honking and swerving like a madman possessed. Such aggression might go ignored coming from just a regular joe in a regular car, but the nun bit worked like magic. Cars inched one way or the other to give her room, and progress was made. It wasn’t until she reached a school bus that she was stalled in her tracks. The bus driver refused to budge no matter how much noise she made.

I couldn’t help wondering, had God failed her? But it wasn’t over yet.

She got out of her car and walked up to the bus driver’s window, while all the kids hung out their heads and stared at her in disbelief. I was too far away to hear what was said, but a heated discussion took place and when she did go back to her car, the bus moved to let her go by. I strained to watch the pink progress for as long as I could curious to find out where she was going, but eventually I lost her in the sea of gray, the mystery forever unsolved.

Squirrel Sex in the City

Usually the entertainment on the boardwalk comes from the plethora of afro-urban-circus acts that crowd the surrounding open plots of cement, but not today. Well, at least not for the five angst-filled minutes when two grayish-brown rodents (yes, rodents, don’t let their bushy tails and innocent demeanor fool you) decided to get their mating on right in the middle of tourist way.

The whole event might have gone unnoticed if it weren’t for the high-pitched screeches coming from the female, which even stopped a nearby piano player in mid-key…Maybe, he thought it was his piano. But for those of us that were close enough, it was far from a bad chord or a broken string, it was the rawest form of animal utterance that had ever filled our urban ears. And let me assure you that this phenomenon spanned the cultures. Tourists from Europe, Asia, and Australia, all stopped in fear and awe to see this copulation. One little girl even shrieked back at it, although I wasn’t sure if it was because of the noise or the act itself.

“Do you think it’s in pain?” one onlooker asked. A roller skating queen straight out of the 80’s, decked out in satin shorts and a braided headband, laughed in response and replied, “It’s been a long time, eh?” And she backwards-skated away.