Friday - Day FiveWe begin the day by going to bed really late so that we will be sleepy enough to nap in the afternoon. We are going to leave L.A. after dinner, drive through the desert in the night, and thus give us time to stop in Arizona check out the Grand Canyon before beginning our journey to Montezuma. Philip gets up at 7:30, which is when he wakes up, and moves the car from the place where it is parked around the corner from Adrian's. The way parking works in AD's street is pretty civilized. Between 8 and 6, there is 4-hour parking, so we don't actually have to move the car in the morning until noon, and if we park after 2 p.m. we don't have to move it in the afternoon either. However when we got back from the musical last night we found all the spaces on AD's street taken so we had to park on a cross street with a two hour parking limit. There is also a note saying that one can't park on the street on Fridays because of street cleaning. So. I get up at about 9:30, and take my place on the computer, which Philip vacates as he returns to bed. After editing a couple of pages (adding some of David's photos) I eat a piece of toast and drink some juice, and then prepare to go out. We have decided to do some shopping - as we are venturing into the desert I have decided I need more than one pair of shorts and I also need some sandals. So we go on out, only to find that despite our best effforts we have got a ticket. Turns out that AD's street gets cleaned on Fridays too, though we had missed THAT sign. AD had told us that there was a shopping centre not far away, on Santa Monica Boulevard. So we set off. Now not far away from where AD's street meets Santa Monica something weird happens to the street. It divides. But it doesn't divide in the normal way, cars going one way on one side and cars coming the other way on the opposite; oh no, that would be too easy. What happens is that you have two two-way streets, both called Santa Monica Blvd, running side by side. Don't ask. We didn't. The thing is, it turns out that Century City, where we end up going, is (of course) accessed from the OTHER Santa Monica Blvd. But it takes up a whole block so that problem is easily solved, by turning off and driving around to the back of the centre & parking below. I am looking, as I say, for shorts and sandals. Remember the encounter with Ernie the cat in the shoe store in Ashland. I am still on my quest for sturdy sandals. Now I figure that this is L.A., a city of nearly four million people, and so there MUST be shoes that can fit me somewhere around here. Turns out that Century City is one of those trendy California shopping centre/mall things, and that I am, with my Year 24/25 t-shirt and my sneakers, woefully underdressed. Philip and I enter the two major department stores in the centre (which are Bloomingdale's and Macy's) and I swear, all the shoppers are as well dressed and as attractive as the mannequins are. I leave because I know that no one will respect me in my oversized t-, makeupless state. So we go get some food instead. Philip eats a California burger - a burger with avacado added - and I have a California-style wrap and a banana, strawberry and orange smoothie. We sit outside under an umbrella to eat and I watch the people who pass through my polarized sunglasses. The strangest thing is that we keep passing, or being passed by, people who, dressed to the nines, are talking and laughing out loud to no one in particular! Turns out these people (who all look like nicely-dressed bag people because of very audible monologues) are all chatting on the latest L.A. version of the cell phone - something with an earpiece that hides in your ear and a mouthpiece you carry in your hand. So Philip and I have just got used to this phenomenon, and Philip has left me sitting under my umbrella while he goes looking for a restroom. I busy myself by looking at all the highly dressed people through my polars. The women are all well-coiffed, made up with precision, and dressed in beautiful outfits, the kind of thing I would have killed for before I came to Pearson the first time. Not too fancy, just lifted from the pages of glossy magazines. The men are mostly a little plump, but not too much, and extremely well cared for as well, with manicured fingers, blow-dried hair, and the kind of studied casual clothing that makes you know they took some time in putting together the Look. And then this man comes and sits down at the table next to mine. At first I think that he, too, is chatting on his hidden cell-phone. True, he isn't quite as well kept as some of the others - his shirt is not so meticulously tucked in to his jeans, and his sneakers are just a little too large and self-announcing for this crowd. But he isn't by any means strange-looking. His head is shaven clean, as is not uncommon, and he wears a silver earring in his left ear; he is quite young, maybe in his early twenties, and very tall and fairly slim, but well muscled. At one point he laughs out loud, as people who talk on cell phones do, but he continues his laughing for a lot longer than the person on the other end of the phone might find appropriate. I look over at him and see that he is not carrying a cell phone of any kind. Because of the baldness of his head I can see quite clearly that he has no earpiece in his ear, and his hands are empty. But he doesn't look too odd, so my next thought is that he is part of a movie and I am watching a scene. But there are no cameras nearby. Anyway, after laying his head on the table in his mirth and laughing himself out, this guy watches the people passing as eagerly as I do, until I realize that he is watching me too. So I watch him when he is watching the others and watch the others when he turns to look at me. His eyes are a very clear, strangely focused gold-green-blue. (He is not unattractive.) And I wonder what is taking Philip so long in the restroom. Anyhow, to cut a long story short, Philip returns, we leave this guy behind, though not after he has said "What's up?" to me in an not-unfriendly way, and I've answered with a nod and a not-too-friendly "It's cool". We go off and I find shorts (in a petite shop) and sandals (in a kids' shoestore) and then we head back to Adrian's. Before we get there we stop into an Apple reseller and fall in love with the new studio display, which is shaped like a wide-screen movie. Then we return to the apartment and sleep. We are awakened by the phone. It is Jocelyn, who has landed in L.A. from her trip to San Jose, and who is coming home shortly. Philip and I get up. He begins packing and I take a shower, and when I get out Jocelyn is there, taller than I remember, and looking very businesslike in her all-white outfit. We tell her the story about the microwave, and she laughs, and fixes me really strong coffee that I have to dilute with water & milk and heat up. She puts the cup into the microwave for me and takes it out again too. We chat some more while I pack, and then Adrian comes home. After he greets her and asks her some precise medical questions to reassure himself that she isn't too sick (she has a cold) he busies himself with putting his plants in his car (they are going on vacation tomorrow, to COLORADO & NEW MEXICO, just like us, though the other way around) and she shows me all their wedding pictures (they got married in Hawai'i, on the beach at sunset - VERY romantic). After Adrian has put all his plants in his car, to be driven to a friend's house to be looked after for the week, we all get into the car Jocelyn has rented for their drive east and go out for dinner.
Jocelyn & Adrian Dinner is at a Cuban restaurant, and is enough like home to make us nostalgic, though not so much that we get confused. We enjoy it, though it is very Caribbean in its ignorance of green vegetables (well, we do have an avocado). After, we drive back to the apartment. Adrian is very impressed with the car Jocelyn has rented. He is not a relaxed driver, as he concentrates extremely hard on what he is doing, and so the kind of car he drives is very important. Last night, when he and Jocelyn discussed the rental of a car over the phone, he was very picky about the kind of car it ought to be - not too small, not too light, not too easily destroyed in a crash. Jocelyn had booked an SUV, a Jimmy, but Adrian was not impressed; he hates SUVs. He also hates talking to car rental places because he doesn't trust them to give you what they promise you. So when Jocelyn arrives in a deep green American midsize on the spacious side, with only 5000 miles on the odometer and a cd player, good AC and soft leather seats he is pleased. The only drawback: it takes some time for Jocelyn to master the remote-controlled locks on the door. When we get back to the apartment we load up our car, say our goodbyes, and take off. The first thing we do is fill up the car with gas, and then we set out on our merry way: a maze of freeways to get out of LA, and then Highways 15 and 40 across the Mojave Desert ('True West' country) and towards Arizona. |
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